The town of Tombstone had a way of making men look away when it mattered most.

Aemond, however, wasn’t most men.

He’d only meant to pick up supplies. Salt, iron nails, a new bit for Vhagar’s bridle. The usual. But as he stepped out of the general store, the sun glaring off the dust-choked street, his one good eye caught a sight that made his boots halt mid-step.

A wagon. A rope. A noose.

And a woman standing on the edge of the world.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t beg. The crowd jeered, the sheriff thumbed his belt, and the preacher muttered hollow prayers—but she stood tall, chin raised like she’d been born to spit in death’s eye. Aemond had seen men hang. Watched them cry, piss themselves, call out to gods they’d never met. But not her.

Someone muttered her crime. Aiding outlaws. Robbery. Murder. Kangaroo justice on a slow afternoon. But the men who’d done the deed had long since vanished into the hills, left her to swing for their sins.

Aemond’s mouth tasted of dust and impulse.

“Hold.”

One word. Sharp as the iron on his hip holster.

The sheriff turned. Squinted. “Got something on your mind, son?"

Aemond’s eye flicked to the ordinance nailed crookedly to the post. An old town law. Forgotten by most. Not by him.

“I’ll take her.” His tone was like thunder, rolling low. “As wife. And I’ll pay back your stolen five hundred.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd. The sheriff grunted.

“She’s gotta consent.”

That’s when she looked at him—really looked. Dirt on her cheek. Fury in her bones. A woman who’d been offered no kindness until now, and maybe not even now. Still, his black gloved hand held steady, offering her the only choice left.

One word from her could end it.

And if she said yes, she’d belong to a man she’d never met.

Aemond had no plans to marry when he woke this morning.

But here they were.