Chapter 1 - The Ash and The Echo
The mountain cabin fell into a suffocating silence.
Smoke from the old iron stove curled toward the wooden ceiling, carrying the sharp scent of pine resin, herbs, and something far more frightening.
Blood.
Martha Bell pressed her shoulders against the rough-hewn logs, trying to hide the fear rising inside her.
She had crossed hundreds of miles to reach the Colorado wilderness.
She had survived cruel whispers, lonely roads, and a world that judged her before knowing her heart.
At six feet two inches tall, Martha had always been considered too much.
Too tall.
Too strong.
Too different.
But standing inside that lonely cabin, staring at Magnus Hale holding a strange medical cloth and a bone-handled knife, she finally felt something she hated admitting.
Fear.
"Wait..."
Her voice trembled.
"You're putting THAT inside me?"
Magnus did not react.
His pale blue eyes remained calm.
"Unless you want that infection to kill you before sunrise, yes."
Martha stared at him.
This was not the wedding night she imagined.
This was not romance.
This was survival.
Three days earlier, she had stepped from a broken stagecoach into a frozen mountain valley with nothing but a leather trunk, eight dollars, and a letter promising a new beginning.
She expected a lonely husband.
She expected hardship.
She never expected a man like Magnus.
May you like
The mountain had brought them together.
But it had not promised they would survive it.
