Chapter 1: The General’s Cloak

Men used to think I was theirs for the taking. They were wrong.

When I was being humiliated on the street, a young general stepped in and saved me. He took off his cloak and wrapped it around my shivering body. For a second, I froze. The cloak was warm, heavy—softer than anything I’d ever owned. I didn’t know what to do with kindness.

Men had always undressed me, but he was the first to dress me.

To repay his kindness, I became his maid.

He pitied me and cherished me, but never touched me.

After three months at the front, his head was strung up on the city wall by an enemy general—like a warning sign nobody wanted to see.

The president surrendered, offering up the city and its beauties.

I changed my name and went to the enemy country as a tribute maiden.

I wanted to see for myself who it was that killed my beloved.

When I learned of Marcus Garrison’s death, I burned with fever for three days, delirious—trapped somewhere between nightmares and reality.

The city was buried in snow, the kind that muffles everything—sirens, shouts, even the shame. His head hung above the gates, the cold gnawing at him. News raced through the capital: our champion general, the man who’d defended us for five years, reduced to a gruesome trophy.

I trudged through the snow and climbed the city wall, gripping the stone railing with numb fingers. I untied the rope that held Marcus’s head, displayed like a warning sign nobody wanted to see.

He looked as if he were only sleeping.

Snowflakes clung to his thick lashes, his lips pale where once they’d been cherry red. The winter cold had sealed his wounds, sparing him from rot. I pressed him against my chest, caring nothing for the old blood staining my coat.

My heart turned to ice. Marcus had fought for this city—yet no one would collect his body. The same people who’d cheered his victories now hid, unwilling to give him dignity in death.

Swallowing the burn in my throat, I whispered, “General, I’m taking you home.”

The Garrison mansion was deserted—everyone gone, the servants thieving what they could. Even the stable boys had vanished with the horses. The grand house, with its white columns, stood hollow—a monument to how fast loyalty crumbles.

I buried Marcus’s head under the old apple tree where he’d once laughed, the branches thick with memory. As I dug through frozen earth with my bare hands, blood and snow mingled, but the ache in my chest was sharp, like a winter wind knifing through my coat. My nails split and bled, but I kept digging. When I finally finished, I knelt and remembered the sound of Marcus’s laughter under these branches, the way he’d said, “When the apple blossoms bloom, I’ll show you the world from up here.”

I bowed my head and promised, “General, when the apple blossoms bloom, I’ll come see you again.”

After, I slipped out the side door and walked to a modest row house on Maple Street. The new kitchen smelled like lemon cleaner and fresh paint—nothing like the house I remembered. Mr. and Mrs. Quinn sat waiting, aged by fear and worry.

“Natalie, are you sure about this? If you go, there’s no coming home.”

Their daughter hovered in a corner, wide-eyed and scared. I smiled at her. She was young, pretty, still believed in happy endings.

The government had lost, and now it was choosing girls to send as tribute maidens—a fancy word for human payment. Mr. Quinn’s daughter was on the list, and bribes hadn’t been enough.

I was different. Before Marcus, I’d already paid that price a hundred times.

“Yes, I’ve decided. From now on, there will be no more Natalie Snow. I am Rachel Quinn.” I tried on her name like a dress that didn’t fit, but it would have to do.

The Quinns pulled their daughter down to kneel with them, tears hitting the threadbare rug. Mrs. Quinn’s hands shook around her rosary.

I helped them up. Truthfully, they were giving me a chance at revenge, not the other way around.