Chapter 1

"What's so bad about the Blackridge Mountains? Even if you really want to leave, you shouldn't pin your hopes on a woman like that."

The village chief coughed around the dry pipe between his teeth.

"She carries a camera around all day, films one man in this village, then moves on to the next. If she were serious about you, would she have let you make seven trips down to town for nothing?"

The smoke stung my nose.

Four years. Her camera had traveled through nearly every corner of these mountains, and she'd filmed every young man in the villages. Everyone except me.

I swallowed the ache in my throat and nodded. "I'm done waiting, Silas. I'm getting married in three days."

On the way back to my village I saw Claire Reed coming up the path with Ash, holding him carefully because his leg was hurt. When she noticed me standing at the fork in the trail, she frowned.

"Noah? Didn't I tell you to wait down in town? We were supposed to register our marriage tomorrow. Coming all the way back up means you'll just have to make the trip again."

I lowered my head. The skin on my heels had been rubbed raw from crossing the ridges, and she was right, it wasn't easy.

For one promise from her, I'd climbed up and down those mountains seven times in four years.

"We agreed to do it today."

Claire paused. "I already explained. Ash got his leg caught in a trap. That's why I missed it."

I looked at the man leaning comfortably against her. "There are plenty of people in these mountains. Why did you have to be the one who stayed with him?"

"That's different. He got hurt helping me film. I'm responsible for him."

Different. Of course. When he got hurt, everything stopped; when I crossed mountains to marry her, our plans could be dropped whenever she liked.

Maybe she finally noticed how red my eyes were, because her voice softened.

"This one was my fault. Things got chaotic and I forgot to tell you, and I shouldn't have made you go down alone. Give me three more days. I'm finishing Ash's part of the documentary, and once we're done I'll take you down and we'll do it properly."

My fingers curled into my palm. "That was the seventh time."

Her hand tightened around Ash's arm, and irritation flashed across her face.

"I know what you're going to say, that it's some Blackridge rule. But I asked Ash, and there's no rule saying a man can only leave the mountains seven times.

"Noah, you don't have to make things up just to keep me. I've already told you I'll marry you."

I pressed my thumb hard into the web of my hand. "So because nobody enforces the old rule anymore, that means you can keep breaking your promises?"

"Don't twist it. I understand you want me to take you out of the mountains, but this isn't the time for you to make a scene."

"Make a scene." I repeated the words quietly.

She was right about one thing. The old seven-journey rule had been abandoned years ago.

But where I grew up, people still remembered what it meant: seven journeys was once the limit a mountain man would make before marrying. For four years I'd crossed range after range for Claire. Seven times.

I looked down at my swollen feet. "You should go. Ash's leg matters more."

Claire guided him past me. After two steps she looked back. "My tone was harsh. Don't be angry."

"I'm not angry."

She smiled faintly as she walked away. "I knew you'd understand."

I forced my mouth into something close to a smile. I wasn't calm because I understood. I was calm because there was nothing left to argue about.

In three days I'd marry a woman from the next village over.

Grandpa always said a mountain man marries only once, and that if you're going to marry you ought to smile.

That's how a marriage starts off right.