The rejection email hit her inbox at exactly 5:47 a.m.
Liora stared at the screen, blinking against the bleariness of yet another sleepless night. The subject line glared back at her in bold, unforgiving letters — "Thank you for your application."
She didn't need to open it. She already knew.
But because humans were naturally wired to torture themselves, she clicked it anyway.
"We appreciate your interest in the position, but after careful consideration…"
Liora snorted, a humorless sound scraping her throat. Careful consideration, her foot. They probably hadn't even read past her surname.
The ache started in her chest — a slow, familiar throb — the weight of everything she was supposed to be. The cosmic contract. The calling. The bond she never signed up for. And this damn life that didn't seem to want her at all.
She shut the laptop softly. Even anger cost too much energy these days.
The sun wasn't even up yet, but she was wide awake in her cramped apartment in the heart of Belvaria's tired city blocks, staring at another slammed door in a long hallway of them.
This wasn't how it was supposed to be.
If the universe had written her into some grand storyline, it sure forgot to give her the script.
Bills stacked on her desk. A headache brewed behind her eyes. And the soul-deep ache… the one linked to him — still throbbed, always there.
She wanted to scream, or cry, or… something.
But instead, she got up, brushed her teeth, and faced another day in a life that seemed determined to lock her out.