Bloodstained Vows: A Marriage of Revenge

The cathedral bells of Sankt Moritz chimed midnight as Evangeline Ashford stood before the towering oak doors of the Blackthorne estate, her breath forming ghostly wisps in the alpine air. Snow fell in heavy curtains around her, muffling the world in an ethereal silence that seemed to press against her very soul. She had come here not as a bride-to-be, but as an instrument of justice—though she wondered if what she sought could truly be called justice at all.

Three months had passed since her father's funeral, three months since she discovered the truth that shattered her world like glass beneath a hammer's blow. Lord Edmund Ashford had not died of natural causes as the physicians claimed. He had been murdered, slowly and methodically, poisoned by the very man who had once called him friend. The evidence lay hidden in her father's private study, tucked away in a secret compartment she had discovered while sorting through his effects. Letters, receipts, testimonies—all pointing to one man: Damien Blackthorne.

The massive doors groaned open before she could knock, as if the house itself sensed her presence. A thin, pale butler with eyes like winter frost gestured her inside without a word. The Blackthorne mansion was a monument to Gothic grandeur, all soaring arches and shadowed alcoves, its walls lined with portraits of stern-faced ancestors whose eyes seemed to follow her every movement. Candles flickered in iron sconces, casting dancing shadows that transformed the hallway into something from a fever dream.

"Miss Ashford," came a voice from the darkness beyond the grand staircase. "How punctual of you."