If the horn sounded twice, it signaled someone was wounded. Three times meant death. Liliette had heard that mournful sound before. It was the winter of her twenty-first year, only a few months into her first marriage, when her husband died. That was when her life began its steep descent into misery.
“No, please… I don’t know what I’d do if you died,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
A wave of nausea overwhelmed her, her body burning with feverish heat while her limbs remained icy cold. Her stomach churned, each breath shallow and labored. When she blinked, she saw nothing but blinding white or suffocating darkness.
He’s going to die. And it’s all because I…
The vague terror that had been gnawing at her finally crystallized into a sharp certainty, looming over her like an inescapable threat. Her life had always felt like a glass prison. People around her insisted the walls had shattered, but she still couldn’t bring herself to believe them.
“Liliette.”
