HEARTS AT WAR , bound by fate.

PROLOGUE

It is the first day of spring, though the calendar feels entirely deceptive. Sitting alone on the weathered wooden deck of a seaside terrace, listening to the rhythmic, crashing weight of ocean waves hitting the pilings and the distant, cheerful chirping of shorebirds braving the chill, is a fair-skinned and petite young woman whose soul feels entirely unanchored.

Lenora Duval is the eldest daughter of a late handyman and a retail worker from the quiet, modest streets of Laden City. She recently packed up her life, moving across borders from Monaco to France to finish her rigorous senior year studying Science and Medicine. The spring semester is scheduled to begin in just a few short hours, yet Lenora cannot summon an ounce of academic focus. She has only just returned from Laden City, where she stood before an open earth and buried her childhood best friend, Elaina—Elaina Bathory.

Lost entirely in the labyrinth of her own thoughts, she sits with a ceramic cup of her favorite Piccolo Latte held tightly between her hands, staring far out into the vast, churning expanse of the ocean as if she expects the grey swells to somehow ferry her lost peace back to the shore. She wears a comfortable, stretchy skirt and a cozy merino wool cardigan layered defensively over dark leggings and flat ballet shoes against the bite of the morning air. It is a freezing morning today in Port de Montebello, and the locals are already bustling past, wrapped in heavy coats, going about their ordinary lives. Yet to Lenora, everything looks, feels, and sounds profoundly different.

Her heart aches with an unfamiliar, hollow agony. She cries, but her tears fail to wash away the burning sting behind her eyelids; food has lost its flavor entirely, and the very concept of smiling has deserted her.

A heavy, suffocating shift has defined every waking moment since Elaina slipped away from the world. Growing up back home, people used to call them Siamese twins because they were always joined at the hip—sharing every secret, every textbook, and an unbreakable vision of the future. The cool ocean breeze brushes gently against the tip of her well-powdered cheeks, pulling her back into a memory she can't escape: Elaina's bright, ringing laughter echoing down a sunlit school corridor, a sound that now feels like a ghost.

The ocean looks so grey today, as if it shares her private grief and mirrors the tears she is fighting so desperately to keep locked behind her eyes. It has been two whole months since the last time they sat together at La Demesure Sur Seine. Sitting at this exact spot was always their sacred morning tradition before catching the 09h15 lecture, a rhythm they had practiced and perfected over years of shared ambition.

Taking a slow, trembling breath, Lenora checks the cracked screen of her phone, watching the digital numbers mock her. She realizes with a jolt that she has lingered far longer than usual. If she doesn’t drag her heavy, exhausted spirit out of this chair right now, she is going to miss the bus to campus, throwing the first day of her new life into absolute chaos.

She raises her hand, signaling the elderly waiter to bring her the final bill, ready to step out of the quiet sanctuary of the deck and into a world she no longer recognizes.