The father handed her over to the fearsome Apaches only because albino was born... but no one even suspected what would happen the moment she first crossed the threshold of her home.

How much have you received for me?

Joaquin was silent. And that silence was more eloquent than any word.

The following days became a strange and humiliating preparation. They gave her old clothes, read meaningless exhortations, forced her to hear prayers.

Father Stephen claimed that it was God’s will. Vicente Salazar seemed satisfied, as if he had closed an advantageous business.

No one asked

what Lucia wanted. No one was interested in their fear. But within it a little another feeling arose: not yet hope, but a cold clarity. If they were to tear her out of her previous life, at least she would enter the new one with her eyes open.

The wedding was short and uncomfortable. No flowers, no music, only a few people who watched what happened with curiosity and relief, as if they were witnessing how the problem of others disappeared.

It was precisely there that Lucia first saw Nantan. He was standing next to her: tall, silent, with a dark braid falling down her back.