The elders of Umande used to say the forest remembered everything. The wind carried rumors of the past, the rivers hummed forgotten prayers, and the towering miombo trees whispered secrets to those willing to hear. But no one listened more closely than Sena, the last healer of the Nalongo lineage—those born with living stone in their bones.
Sena’s right arm, from shoulder to fingertip, was not flesh but smooth, dark granite veined with gold. Her grandmother had told her it would grow with her—an inheritance from the forest spirits, a mark of both protection and sacrifice.
“Stone can shield you,” her grandmother had said, pressing a kiss on the cold surface of Sena’s arm. “But it cannot feel warmth. Remember that.”
Sena remembered every day.
She walked the forest alone, tending to travelers and wandering hunters, collecting herbs, healing cuts, mending fevers. But she...
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