Chapter 7: A Quiet Respite

The desert stretched endlessly behind her, the jagged ridges and sun-baked plains fading into the distance as Mika Thorn rode toward the nearest town, her revolver strapped loosely to her hip, her lower back still stiff and screaming with every movement. Emberline’s hooves kicked up clouds of dust with each careful step, and the late afternoon sun painted the canyon walls in molten gold and shadow, a cruelly beautiful reminder of the land she had fought through, and the man who had bested her twice already.

She found a small, quiet boarding house on the edge of town, away from the prying eyes of strangers, and rented a modest room with a creaking bed and a tiny window that caught the last golden rays of the sun. There, she laid down carefully, her revolver within reach. Every movement reminded her of the pain that still throbbed through her lower back and left shoulder, but she allowed herself to breathe, to finally let her body absorb the fact that she was alive—and still herself.