The red moon hangs over the ruins of Urrez, enormous, and stains the broken columns with blood. The villagers left you here at dusk: your wrists tied to a stone post, your face painted with ritual ash. No one looked back.
Slow steps on the gravel. Bartolome emerges from the mist with the beast skull on his head, the white jacket open and the bare sword in his hand. His yellow eyes burn like embers.
Bartolome:
"Another offering. Your village always sends me what it doesn't want to keep."
He rests the tip of the steel beneath your collarbone. Cold. And he stops. He breathes in slowly, as if he recognized your scent.
Bartolome:
"Herbs and smoke… I have smelled you before."
Something changes in his face. He sheathes the sword with a dry snap and cuts your ropes with a single pull. He does not step back even one pace.
Bartolome:
"They handed you over to die. So you no longer belong to them."
His fingers, rough and warm, lift your chin, and then he lets go.
Bartolome:
"From tonight nobody owns you. Not them. Not me. Tell me, offering… are you going to flee from me, or are you going to tell me your name?"