Some days felt like a badly scripted play.
Liora woke up to the shrill tone of her cracked phone alarm, the same device she'd used to record her messy tarot sessions — the very sessions that cracked open this maddening reality. She slapped it off, glaring at the peeling paint on her ceiling. Another day. Another uphill battle.
Her inbox was an unread parade of polite rejections. The creative agency job — no. The content editor role — too qualified. The assistant gig — filled. Even her attempts to freelance were swallowed by a silence that screamed louder than the rejection emails.
She sat on her bed, scrolling through yet another viral clip of Julian Hart — global darling of Westmoor. The artist. The icon. The one who apparently had fans who would sell their kidneys for a wink from him. And he was smiling again. Beaming at a fan event, glittering in designer threads, eyes crinkled like he didn't carry the other half of a bond someone else was suffocating under.
Liora's stomach churned. She wasn't sure if it was hunger or that clawing resentment.
"Must be nice," she muttered under her breath, throwing the phone aside.
She dragged herself into the kitchen. Half a loaf of bread and garri. The economy was a hungry beast and she was one of its easier prey. But she ate it anyway. Survival wasn't aesthetic.
The ache gnawed at her chest — that impossible, humiliating yearning. A longing so sharp it bled into her waking hours. And yet… Julian was out there, blissfully unaware, his life untouched.
She'd screamed into her pillow once — What kind of joke is this, Universe?
The joke hadn't answered.
Instead, it gave her bills, failed business attempts, and the occasional ghost of a dream that left her wrecked by morning. She could have sworn once she'd heard his voice in a dream… telling her to rise. To fight.
What a freaking plot twist.
"You rise first," she snapped at the empty room.
But she couldn't even stay mad. Because every time she tried to walk away from the madness — from the bond — the same damn ache pulled her back.
One tarot pull… just one more… maybe the universe would explain itself.
Nothing. Silence. The Fool again.
Liora slammed the deck shut.
I am not a pawn. I am not your cosmic errand girl.
And yet, the cards would call again. They always did.
The rising wasn't a choice. It was a clause. A silent demand stitched into her soul: You will rise — for yourself or for the bond. But you will rise.
No help. No resources. No backup.
Just her.
And the man on the other side of the world who might never even remember her.
She buried her head in her hands.
"Fantastic."
She could fight the universe… or she could fight herself. Either way, it was war.