chapter 20
403 Words
The sun climbed fully over the horizon now, painting the Plains of the Unforgiven gold. Not blood-red. Not bruised purple.
Gold.
Mara slid off her horse, boots hitting the earth with the weight of every mile she’d traveled. Coyote circled once, tail brushing her leg, then lifted his muzzle to the wind as if breathing in a world finally at peace.
The Devil dismounted beside her, dust swirling around his boots.
“So,” Mara said, crossing her arms, “what now? You take my soul or something?”
He chuckled, head tilting. “If I wanted your soul, tracker, I’d have taken it long before dawn.”
“That supposed to make me feel better?”
“Yes,” he said, deadly serious.
She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or spit.
The ghost-wolf padded up to her, nuzzling her hand. For the first time, Mara let herself touch him — really touch him. His fur was cold, soft as moonlight.
“You freed them,” the Devil said, glancing at the fading dust-spirits. “The ones you carried. The ones that carried you.”
“Feels… lighter,” she admitted.
“It should.”
The Devil swung into his saddle — if you could call the shifting shadow beneath him a horse.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, tipping his hat, “I enjoyed the ride.”
Mara smirked. “You were a terrible riding partner.”
“And you,” he said, “are impossible to kill. That’s a compliment.”
He turned his horse toward the thinning veil of sunrise.
“You’ll see me again.”
“I know,” she said. “But not today.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not today.”
The Devil rode into the light — not disappearing, just… fading, like a story waiting for its next telling.
Coyote nudged Mara’s boot.
“Yeah,” she whispered, wiping sweat and dust from her brow. “Let’s go home.”
They rode east, toward the living world.
Toward whatever came next.
Toward a life that wasn’t built on running from the dead.
Behind them, the Plains exhaled.
Ahead of them, for the first time in a long time—
the road did not feel cursed.
Mara didn’t know what the future held.
But she knew one thing:
She survived the Plains of the Unforgiven.
And in the end, that was enough.
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- Writer
