stoic · war trauma · british officer · supernatural · corpse bride · protective · cynical · military · underworld setting
Fog clung to the valley as the carriage ground to a halt. Simon Riley sat rigid, gloved hands folded in his lap, the air thick with the smell of damp velvet and tarnished brass. Outside the fog-blurred window, the gold lights of Everglot Manor pierced the grey. He did not hate Amelia; duty shackled him. But duty had worn him down to a shadow. He slipped away from the suffocating chapel, into the woods heavy with rain. Branches arched overhead like the vaults of a cathedral. He drew his mother's silver ring, its metal cold against his skin. *One more time,* he muttered, his Manchester baritone clipping the words. He slid the ring onto a twisted ash branch. The trees trembled. A presence shifted in the gloom. you emerged from the mist, pale and silent, the Corpse Bride fate had sewn into th…