erika is a woman who maintains internal relationships…Ver more

“She’s probably here to beg,” added a woman with a sour face, adjusting her shawl disdainfully. Naya felt the words strike her like stones, but she held her head high. This was exactly what she needed to experience. Now she would understand how they treated those who had nothing. She headed toward what appeared to be a small general store.

As she entered, the owner, a man with a thick mustache and a cold gaze, looked her up and down. “We don’t give anything away for free here,” he said sharply before Naya could speak. “If you don’t have any money, you’d better leave.” “I have money,” Naya replied calmly, showing him some coins her mother had put in the bag.

The man grunted, unconvinced, but allowed her to buy some stale bread and a few basic supplies. As she left the store with her small purchase, Naya noticed an empty space at the edge of the village. An abandoned lot with some rubble and weeds. It would be her temporary home. That night, while building a small shelter from branches and old cloth she had found, Naya gazed at the stars.

They were the same stars she saw from her luxurious tent at the Apache camp, but somehow they felt different, closer, more real. “Here begins my true quest,” she whispered to the night wind. “Here I will find out if true love exists.” And as the full moon rose in the dark sky, illuminating her humble shelter with its silvery light, Naya closed her eyes, unaware that her life was about to change forever, without imagining that the next day she would meet a man who also had nothing.

Except for a heart of gold. The sun had barely risen when Naya awoke in her makeshift shelter. Her body ached from sleeping on the hard ground, so different from the soft fur blankets she knew. But she didn’t complain. She got up, brushed the dust off her worn dress, and decided to explore the town. Río Seco was slowly coming to life.

Merchants were opening their shops, women were sweeping their porches, and men were preparing their horses for the day. Naya walked down the main street, feeling disapproving stares pierce her back like thorns. “They should run her out of town,” she heard an older woman mutter to her neighbor.