Chapter 1: The Arrow and the Aftermath

I cast a love curse on the general, making it so he literally couldn’t look at anyone but me—like I’d hijacked his whole world for twenty-four hours. But the spell only lasted a single day. Every time it wore off, he hated me so much he wanted me gone.

There was a time I actually believed that would be enough—to have his eyes on me for even a day. But love under a curse isn’t love at all, is it? When it faded, all that was left was the space between us, wide and bitter as the Mississippi in flood. Sometimes I swore I could feel the river between us—muddy, cold, impossible to cross, no matter how hard I tried.

Later, I was captured by the enemy and tied up on top of the city hall. Afraid I’d recite the curse again, he didn’t even wait for the enemy to finish talking before he fired an arrow straight through my heart. The crowd below buzzed with nervous energy, the smell of burned popcorn and sweat rising up to meet me. I watched the blood run down his arrow, drop by drop, and for the first time, I actually smiled.

There was something almost poetic about it—the general who could never let anyone else decide his fate, making his own kind of justice on the rooftop of our small-town city hall, under a sky the color of dirty dishwater. My breath fogged in the air, the cold wind whipping at my hair as I met his eyes, and somehow, I felt lighter than I had in years.

I felt weightless, almost outside my own body. System, can I leave now?

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I sighed.

Ten more days…