Chapter 9: Blood on the Cobblestones
They didn’t wait for dawn. They ran.
Isabela and Nahuel rushed out of the mansion, their carriage waiting.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Isabela asked as the carriage rattled over the cobblestones, moving fast toward the city gates.
“Because the past is a heavy stone,” Nahuel said, ripping off his tie. “I didn’t want you to carry it.”
“We are together, Nahuel,” she grabbed his face. “We carry everything together.”
“They won’t let us leave,” Nahuel said, looking out the window. “Valeriano won’t wait for a duel. He’s a coward. He’ll send men to ambush us on the road.”
As if on cue, a gunshot rang out.
The carriage swerved violently. The driver screamed.
“Get down!” Nahuel shouted, throwing himself over Isabela as the carriage crashed into a side alley wall.
Splintered wood and glass rained down on them. Nahuel groaned, shielding her with his body.
“Are you okay?” he gasped.
“Yes,” she whispered, trembling.
Outside, boots hit the pavement. Shadows approached the wrecked carriage.
“Pull them out!” Valeriano’s voice commanded. “Kill the man. Keep the woman.”
Nahuel looked at Isabela. He reached into his boot and pulled out a knife—he had brought it into the ball despite the search.
“Isabela,” he said, his eyes intense. “Run for the church on the corner. The priests will hide you. I will hold them off.”
“No!” she grabbed his arm. “I am not leaving you!”
“You have to. If we both stay, we both die. If you live, you can fight for the land. Go!”
He kicked the carriage door open.
Nahuel burst out like a demon. He wasn’t the refined gentleman anymore. He was the warrior of the Eagle Clan.
Isabela scrambled out the other side. She saw Nahuel engage three soldiers at once. He moved with a speed that defied logic, ducking under sabers, using the narrow alley to his advantage.
She ran. She ran until her lungs burned, her silk dress tearing on the stones. She reached the heavy wooden doors of the cathedral and pounded on them.
“Help! Sanctuary!”
She looked back.
At the end of the alley, under the gaslight, she saw Nahuel fall. A rifle butt to the back of the head.
“No!” she screamed.
Valeriano stood over him. He looked up at Isabela, smiled, and then ordered his men to drag Nahuel’s unconscious body away into the darkness.
Chapter 10: The Mountain’s Call
Three days later.
Isabela sat in the Governor’s office. She was not crying. She was done crying. She was dressed in black again, but this time, it was riding gear.
“He is in the dungeon of San Juan de Ulúa,” the Governor said, not looking at her. “Valeriano has charged him with treason. The trial is a formality. He will be executed on Friday.”
“The amnesty applies,” Isabela said, her voice like steel.
“Valeriano has witnesses who say he killed soldiers in cold blood. I cannot stop it, Isabela. I’m sorry. Go home. Save your estate.”
Isabela stood up.
“You are right, Governor. I will go home.”
She walked out. But she didn’t go to La Quebrada del Sol.
She went to the market. The same market where she had bought Nahuel.
She found the old men, the porters, the laborers who gathered in the shadows. Many were from Oaxaca. Many were indigenous. They knew who Nahuel was. The “Ghost” was a legend to them.
Isabela stood on a crate. She held up a bag of gold—the profits from the harvest.
“They have taken him!” she shouted. “They have taken the man who showed us that chains can be broken! They are going to kill him on Friday!”
The crowd gathered. They looked at the white woman speaking with the fire of a revolutionary.
“Captain Valeriano thinks he has caught a slave,” Isabela yelled, her voice echoing off the stone walls. “I say he has caught a brother! Who will help me get him back?”
Silence.
Then, a young man stepped forward. Then an old man with a machete. Then another.
“For the Eagle!” someone shouted.
“For Nahuel!” another cried.
Isabela looked at the sea of faces. She wasn’t just a widow anymore. She was a general.
She mounted her horse.
“Friday,” she said. “We don’t let the sun set on Friday.”
Valeriano thought he had crushed a rebellion. He didn’t realize he had just started a war. And the most dangerous soldier on the field wasn’t the warrior from Oaxaca.
