I Promise You a Next Life, No Regrets

I was reborn on the eve of the bandit siege, the very night the whole village forced me to go and find my husband—the militia captain—in the back hills. My fists clenched, a cold laugh of refusal on my lips.

The Village Chief was sweating, his face pale as he jabbed a finger toward me. “Joan! Your man is the militia captain! The bandits are at our doorstep! If you don’t go get him back, do you want the death of this village on your conscience?”

I looked past him at the sea of terrified, angry faces. A cold hollow opened inside me.

On my conscience?

I’d already paid that price in my last life.

For that man, for this village, I died in the winter of my thirtieth year—shot through the chest by the hunting rifle of the husband I’d loved for a decade.

And all because the woman he truly loved was dead.

…

“Joan! What are you standing there for? Go!”

The Chief’s roar tore me from the bloody memory.

I lifted my gaze, letting it sweep calmly over him and the familiar-yet-strange villagers behind. Fear and accusation warred on their faces, as though *I* were the one about to bring ruin upon them all.

The corner of my mouth curled into a mocking smile.

“I’m not going.”

My voice was quiet, but it fell like a stone into a boiling pot, instantly stirring up chaos.

“What did you say, you heartless wretch?” shrieked the village gossip, a sharp-faced woman near the front. “Roger only went into town with the militia to buy you those pastries from the state bakery! Now the village is in trouble, and you won’t go call him back? What kind of heart do you have?”

I sneered inwardly.

Pastries. What a pretty excuse.

I’d believed it last time, too.

Back then, when news of the bandits came, I was three months pregnant. Without a second thought, I took the treacherous shortcut into the back hills—a path crawling with wild animals, steep and slick. I fell countless times, my body covered in cuts and bruises, but I finally found them before nightfall.

I found my husband. The boy I’d grown up with, the man I’d waited five years for to return from the army and marry.

He was standing outside the county cultural center with Nicole, the head of the Women’s Federation—the woman who truly held his heart. In his hands was a bunch of wildflowers.

As for the rest of the militia? He’d sent them off to wander nearby.

My arrival had interrupted his little romance.

He was furious, but I dragged him back anyway.

That battle was brutal. Yet because the militia returned in time, the village was saved.

Nicole, however—that delicate city girl—was snatched by the bandits in the chaos. By the time we found her, her clothes were torn, and she hung from a gnarled tree in a mountain hollow.

Roger lost his mind.

He cradled her cold body