Sasha’s POV
A month passed like a sigh through cupped hands—gentle, fleeting, almost too soft to hold.
The world beyond the valley faded into something unreal, a distant place woven from fog and rumor. Here, in Emberhollow, time moved differently. It dripped like honey, slow and golden. Our days unfolded like love letters etched in quiet moments: in the rustle of linens drying on the line, in the scent of pine smoke curling through the chimney, in shared silences that needed no translation.
We didn’t live as fugitives anymore.
Not even warriors.
We lived as something truer. Something chosen.
As soulmates.
There’d been no ceremony, no silver-braided vows beneath moonlight. No witnesses but the trees. Yet in every stolen glance, every midnight breath pressed between skin and sleep, e
