Ever since she could remember, Mara had been drawn to it in her mother’s meager collection—the flash of silver, and the strange depth of the blue stone. It looked alive, like it had its own heartbeat.
But after her own son’s birth, Mara hadn’t been thinking about value. She had been thinking only of hope—something small and beautiful in a world that felt too heavy. She wore it every day, fingers brushing the pendant whenever worry threatened to pull her under. It was her talisman against the unknown.