The rain in Minas Gerais[1] doesn't warn you when it's going to turn into a deluge. It simply pours down, transforming the red earth into a treacherous soap in a matter of minutes.I should be on the university campus right now, reviewing Equine Anatomy II for Monday's exam. The library's air conditioning, the smell of stale coffee from the cafeteria... it seemed like a distant dream. Instead, I was here, with mud up to my shins, high in the Serra do Espinhaço mountain range.
"Come on, Goiás! Stop being a wimp!" I shouted, trying to make my voice overcome the roar of the wind.
Goiás, my Mangalarga Marchador[2] horse and, honestly, my best friend in that godforsaken place, neighed loudly. His eyes were wide open, the whites showing. Animals sense when things are going to get bad before we do. It's that instinct we study in books, but only understand when we see the animal tremble.
I pulled off my yellow raincoat, which no longer offered any protection, and adjusted the reins. I had climbed up to check a broken fence that my father insisted "could still hold for another year." Stubborn old man. The cattle could have escaped into the ravine, and guess whose responsibility it was to retrieve them? The family's future veterinarian, of course.
"Just a little more, boy. We'll go down the side of the gully," I tried to calm him, stroking his wet neck.
It was at that moment that the world tilted.
There was no warning sound. Just the nauseating sensation of the ground disappearing beneath my boots. A landslide.
"Dayanne!" I heard my father's voice, far away, down at the headquarters, or maybe it was just my imagination.
Goiás slipped. His hind legs lost traction in the liquid mud, and he squealed, a sharp and terrifying sound. His weight—five hundred pounds of muscle and panic—began to slide toward the edge of the cliff.
My body acted before my brain. That's what happens when you grow up in the countryside; you don't think, you just do.
Instead of letting go of the reins and jumping to safety, I did the opposite. I wrapped the leather around my right forearm. One turn. Two turns. I locked my boots onto an exposed jatobá root and pulled.
"HOLD ON!"
I yelled, feeling my shoulder muscles burn as if they were being torn apart.
I wasn't weak. Years of carrying saddles and hay bales had given me a strength that city girls didn't have. But holding a horse falling down a ravine? That was basic physics. Mass times gravity.
I was losing.
I saw Goiás's eyes. He looked at me. There wasn't just fear there; there was trust. He knew I wasn't going to let go.
I have to protect him. I have to keep him here.
That urge exploded in my chest, hotter than the physical effort. It wasn't just adrenaline. It felt like... Fervor. An absolute need to preserve that life, to maintain the natural order of things where he stayed alive and I took him home.
"I'm not going to let you go!" I gritted my teeth, the taste of iron in my mouth.
The jatobá[3] tree root cracked. The ground gave way completely. Goiás neighed and managed, in a last desperate effort anchored by my traction, to strike his front hooves on solid ground and propel himself upwards.
He climbed.
But physics exacts its price. For him to climb, the leverage force threw me forward. And the rock where I was leaning came loose, collapsing. The rope stretched. My right arm, trapped in the leather loops, was pulled by five hundred kilos of force to one side, while my body and the rock fell to the other.
I felt a dry snap. It didn't hurt at the time. The body is kind like that, it shuts off the pain when it's too much. I saw the gray sky spin. I saw the mud. And, for a fraction of a second, I swore I saw something more. It wasn't just rain and fog. The shadows of the trees seemed... alive. Contorted. As if they were watching. And, where my arm should have been, I saw a golden flash. A warm, solid, geometric light, trying to stitch together the reality that had just shattered.
I hit the stone plateau five meters below. The impact took all the air from my lungs. I looked up, dizzy, with the rain washing my face. Goiás was up there, safe, neighing down.
I looked to my right. The sleeve of my plaid shirt was torn. And where my elbow should have been, there was only the bright red mixed with the brown mud. The pain came soon after. A scream that ripped through my throat and competed with the thunder. But, deep in my fading mind, a serene voice, not my own, whispered something that sounded like metal and sunlight.
"The sacrifice has been accepted. The Order has been preserved."
And then, everything went dark.
[1] Minas Gerais is a very famous and well-known city for its rural areas.
[2] A horse race
[3] Jatobá is a tree native to Brazil whose parts, especially the fruit pulp and bark, are used for medicinal, food, and furniture making purposes.