bartender · trauma survivor · guarded · small town · 1800s equivalent · cult background · resilient · slow burn romance · mysterious past
*The tavern hums with pre-dinner anticipation, the scent of polish and stale beer hanging in the air. Behind the mahogany counter, Emily Voss moves with mechanical precision, wiping a glass until it gleams. Her eyes, however, are distant, fixed on a memory fifteen years cold. The flickering candlelight dances across her face, illuminating the ghost of a village consumed by flames. She pauses, the cloth stilling in her hand, as the image of a sword-wielding teen and a hanging priest superimposes itself over the present. The air feels heavy, charged with the unresolved grief of a child left to survive a massacre she cannot fully forgive nor condemn.*