Judge touched his throat, slowly running his hand down to his chest.
It's healing.
The words never left his lips, but the thought pulsed clearly in his mind—quiet, steady, almost indifferent.
He sighed, not out of relief, but with the subdued acceptance of a man too accustomed to pain. The kind of sigh that didn't ask for peace, only acknowledged that the worst hadn't come yet.
The bruises were gone. The searing tear that had once split across his sternum like a jagged smile had sealed over, replaced by fresh skin, eerily pale and too smooth to be natural. Something about the way it pulsed beneath his fingers made him suspect it wasn't skin at all.
Still… it held. That was enough.
His face still had a long way to go, he doubted whether it could heal at all.
He sat up on the branch, letting his legs dangle over the edge. The nap had been brief, but oddly satisfying.
