I ran.
Through the fog, past the mill, my boots slipping on wet stones. Mira called after me but I didn't stop. Couldn't stop. The itch on my shoulder blade had become a burn, and with every step it pulsed, as if something beneath my skin was trying to break free.
I burst through my mother's door, startling her from her mending. One look at my face and she set the cloth aside.
"My back," I gasped. "I need to see my back."
She didn't ask questions. Just helped me out of my dress, her hands steady even as mine shook. The silence stretched, and I knew before she spoke.
"There's a mark," she said quietly.
The room tilted. I clutched the bedpost. "What does it look like?"
"A spiral. Black as ink, about the size of a coin. It's..." She paused. "It's moving."
I twisted, trying to see it in the small mirror, and caught just a glimpse---a dark coil on my left shoulder blade, its edges writhing like smoke. My stomach lurched.
"How long?" I whispered. "How long do I have?"
My mother's silence was answer enough. She crossed to the window, looking out at the fog. "There might be a way," she said finally. "Your father---before he died, he studied the old texts. Books the village elders kept hidden."
"What did he find?"
"That the Collector isn't just a man. He's something older, something that was bound here centuries ago. The marks are how he feeds---slowly consuming his victims from the inside. But there was a ritual, a way to sever the connection before it's too late."
Hope flared. "Then we can---"
"The ritual requires three things," she interrupted. "An object the Collector has touched. A piece of consecrated ground from the old chapel. And..." She turned back to me, her eyes wet. "The willing sacrifice of someone who bears his mark."
The words settled like stones in my chest. Someone had to die so others could live.