Carlos was a man of fire and elegance. He was the hero of this small town in the hills of southern Spain, where the sun sets like a giant navel orange resting on the edge of a terracotta plate. He was a matador, but according to town legend, he was more than a matador; he was the bullring's spirit, embodying daring and skill. With each carefully choreographed stride into the arena, he danced with death, yet he emerged triumphant, his strut a shout of skill and bravery, his cloak unmarked, and the ground in the arena soaked with the blood of conquest.

And in this town, where every heart throbbed to the rhythm of the bullfights, a new figure emerged a woman of mysterious, dark, lustrous beauty whose presence struck a spell on the people. She moved with the elegance of a gazelle, her eyes as deep as the ocean, and her laughter like the loveliest song. Whispers trailed in her wake, and rumours wafted like silk as the townspeople speculated about her origins and intentions. Dolores. Caught everyone’s eye. The women regarded her as a threat and the men, well, the men were just as idiotic as usual in their febrile strutting, posing and talking rubbish.

But despite the fervour and intrigue she inspired, her eyes remained fixed on Carlos. From the minute she laid eyes on him, the rest of the world seemed to drift away. She stared at him with fascination, every breath pulled to his magnetic presence in the plaza del torros.

Carlos, accustomed to mass acclaim and entirely used to batting off the attention of his innumerable fans, found her exclusive concentration both mesmerising and compelling. Against his better judgment, he felt himself drawn to her, her gaze like a flame that burned away the shadows of doubt and dread. He was captivated.

Their interactions became increasingly frequent and engineered, everyone said by the ‘wicked’ Dolores. Rumours of alarm spread among those who knew Carlos best. His mind, previously devoted solely to the bullfight's artistry, now found itself hopelessly dreaming of Dolores. His motions in the arena, which had previously been smooth and precise, were irregular and unsure, confused by the all-pervading thoughts of her. His fighting became more about impressing Dolores than about the artistry of the contest. His focus somehow diminished. Everyone noticed. Everyone was concerned. His friends tried to distract him, but he was obsessed.

Then came that day, as everybody knew it inevitably would, when the bull, a glistening black beast of enormous might and ferocity, snorting and slavering, charged with unrivalled, single-minded rage. Carlos, in the heat of the moment, his focus broken by a wave from the stands from Dolores, was a fraction of a second late. And at that instant of indecision, the bull struck, its horn hitting, penetrating, tearing its target with lethal precision.

The crowd screamed in horror as Carlos collapsed, his body limp and shattered on the ground. And in the midst of the tumult and uncertainty, she stood; her eyes were not welling up with tears of sorrow and guilt. Her fascination with the matador was something else. Something dark, as if she had unintentionally been the instrument of his demise for some other darker purpose than love.

As Carlos lay on the blood-stained sand, the arena cleared. People were in tears as they wound their way home. The death of a hero who died in the poetry of the contest seemed somehow sullied by the interference of this woman, Dolores. Several young women from the town swore revenge, and they denounced her before the magistrate. But as Carlos lay, his life dwindling, he looked up and saw Dolores wave to him once more before he died. At the same moment, the people who were attending him looked up, but the stands were empty and Dolores was gone. They said that where she had been sitting, a single red rose was found that never died and can be seen in the church. The rose, located in a side chapel, continues to thrive and bloom to this day. The miracle lies in the constant presence of a drop of blood on the single thorn.