A Curse So Dark and Lonely (Cursebreakers, #1)

by Brigid Kemmerer

The girl will be gone, and the season will begin again. I’ll be newly eighteen. For the three hundred twenty-seventh time.

“My father once said we are all dealt a hand at birth. A good hand can ultimately lose—just as a poor hand can win—but we must all play the cards fate deals. The choices we face may not be the choices we want, but they are choices nonetheless.”

“In matters of the heart, I am clearly hopeless.” He puts down his final card—a prince. A wild card. I stare at him, stunned. It didn’t matter what I played. He would have won anyway. “In matters of strategy,” he finishes, “I am not.”

“Yes.” I pause. “You are not angry about what Lilith has done?” “Oh, I’m furious. But not about my face.” “Then what?” Her voice fills with steel. “I’m mad I missed.”

“When my sister died,” Freya says quietly, “it was very sudden. I had no time to say goodbye. But she knew I loved her. I knew she loved me. It is not the moment of passing that is most important. It is all the moments that come before.”

She trusts me. I trust her. This feels more monumental than love. More precious. More earned. I keep my hands to myself.

I wish she had. Not because of the curse, or because of Karis Luran, or because of Emberfall. Because I have fallen in love with her.