The village was still asleep when they left the tailor's shop, but the stars above were very much awake scattered across the ink-black sky like a thousand silver blessings.
Olivia held the hem of her dress as they walked hand in hand toward the hill behind the chapel. It was a place untouched by footsteps or blood. A place where the sky felt close and the night carried a kind of magic that warmed hearts instead of instilling fear in them.
They stood there beneath an open sky holding hands and looking into the eyes of each other. There were no famous musicians befitting the marriage of a duke but the grass whispering in the wind and the quiet hum of crickets filling the silence like a song.
There was no priest, guests or altar. Just two hearts that had already been bound by something far stronger than vows by survival, by sacrifice, by love that had refused to die even when a lifetime had been passed.
