Chapter Seven
Solana didn’t have a chance to respond. The room broke out into chaos, murmurs transformed into outrage, curiosity into incredulity.
The crowd pressed in until the guards lining the walls stepped forward as one, the sound of their weapons a wordless rebuke.
King Killian clasped his hands behind his back and walked back up the dais to his throne.
Solana was left surrounded and vulnerable to the hate and indignation he had stoked.
Two guards appeared behind her. But they weren’t detaining her—they were facing the crowd, protecting her.
As if she needed their help. Not because she thought herself capable of defeating them all, but because, for all their outcry, the crowd was full of cowards.
They tossed their insults from a safe distance, never putting in the effort to create change or risk getting their hands dirty.
It was why the himaya stone was so popular.
The benefits of magic without any of the work.
On the dais, Reyes and King Killian were having a heated conversation. Solana watched the king cut his hand through the air, and then Reyes stepped back, his hands fists by his sides, and bowed his head curtly.
Interesting, indeed.
The king sat on his throne again, Reyes behind him, and all at once, the roar of dissent disappeared.
“The people of Supay owe you a debt of gratitude.” Solana raised her eyebrows.
King Killian surveyed the crowd as if they were ants scurrying across his pristine floors, his eyes touching them one by one only to dismiss them, and then came back to her.
Reyes’s eyes did not stray to her at all.
“You have stepped in to protect them without the means or training.”
“Your Majesty, while I am very…” Solana paused, searching for the right word, then settled on, “grateful for your consideration—”
Reyes scoffed. The king shot him a scathing look.
“I thought it past time that both were extended to you,” he said over her excuses.
Solana snapped her mouth shut. “Our laws exist for a reason, but how could you abide by them without the proper environment?” His eyes bored into her, a threat without words.
“I am sympathetic to your cause. Survival is a right. I intend to give you the proper tools for it and provide lawful protection for your people in your absence.”
A tense silence followed in which she got the impression that she was expected to drop to her knees and praise King Killian’s name. Not only was he pardoning her of any crimes she may have committed in killing muki, but he was also offering to train her and replace her in the callejon.
It had to be a trick. A joke. But the look on Reyes’s strikingly handsome face was too real to be a show. Storm-gray eyes narrowed, nostrils flared, jaw ticking as if he was biting his own tongue. It warmed her heart, knowing the thought of her was so deeply under his skin.
“And if I refuse?” she asked insouciantly.
It was clear her answer wasn’t expected. The crowd began to murmur again, more whispers along the lines of a girl with no sense, and she’s a murderer, what did he expect?
The guards were still at her back, still facing the crowd, but Solana kept her pin fisted tight.
King Killian tapped his rings against the arm of the throne in a staccato beat that set her nerves on edge more than the unrest in the room.
Reyes’s hand had moved to the hilt of his sword, his eyes darting over everything and everyone except for her.
For once in her life, Solana felt like a pillar in a storm.
The winds of chaos stirred around her. The king’s offer had set droves of animosity into motion, and while Solana didn’t trust him—in fact, she might have loathed him as much as she did Reyes—she felt strangely neutral toward the whole situation.
Perhaps because she was alive when she truly thought she would not be.
“Enough,” the king roared. His voice bounced against the stone and cut the dissent off at its feet. “Leave us,” he added with a flick of his hand.
Nobody spoke as they shuffled out, guards included. By the time the last of the crowd left, it was only King Killian, Reyes, and Solana in the room. They all stayed where they were, and Solana wished, not for the first time, that she had her dagger in hand.
The door finally closed, and the king let out a breath, sitting back in his throne. Reyes ran a hand down his face and turned away. Solana, not knowing what else to do with herself, stood and waited for the men to be done with their dramatics.
“Now we can have an honest conversation,” the king said.
Solana was not so foolish as to believe that any of them were capable of such a thing.
“This is a terrible idea,” Reyes murmured. Solana hated to agree with him, but he was right.
His words reminded her of Sami, which made her mind race.
Whatever his reasons, King Killian had kept her alive.
Even went so far as to offer her a position at court.
There was something he wanted from her badly enough to go against his own laws, and, if the crowd’s reaction to her was anything to go by, his own people.
Solana stepped closer to the dais and clasped her hands in front of her. “I have a friend currently under your … care.”
King Killian looked at Reyes, who nodded. “What about him?” the king asked.
“Let him go, with no charges or repercussions, and we can have an honest conversation.”
The king drummed his fingers on the arm of the throne and pursed his lips.
Solana’s heart thumped in her chest. She was playing a delicate game, pushing the boundaries of her existence to see just how vital it was to him.
When the king hummed in agreement, she realized it was more so than she had thought.
“Hakun,” he called, and Solana startled as a man in all black, with long gray hair pulled away from a deeply lined face, stepped out of a shadowy alcove.
“Release her friend and make sure he settles safely in the city.” The man bowed and stepped away without a word.
The king turned back to her with a placid smile. “Any other requests?” he asked sharply.
Solana tried not to shift from one foot to the other, to let her uncertainty show. That had been too simple of a request by the speed with which he agreed. “Yes,” she said before she lost her nerve.
King Killian laughed. “Greedy girl. Go on, then, what else will it take to convince you?”
“Free passage off of Supay.” The words tumbled from her mouth in a rush. “Once I have served as your hunter for a month—”
“One year,” the king rebutted.
“Four months,” Solana countered. She ignored Reyes’s gawking and held the king’s eyes.
“Six months,” he said, “and you will follow every command, obey every rule. With expediency, and without question.”
“And you’ll continue to protect my people while I am here, and after I am gone?”
“Do you mean my people?” he asked with that same empty smile. “Of course. You have my word.”
“And my dagger,” Solana said, voice high-pitched in the quiet. She cursed herself for sounding so eager. “I want it back.”
This time, the king’s smile was knowing. “I was wondering when we’d get around to that. Reyes?”
Reyes’s leather gloves creaked as he stretched them open.
His hand disappeared into his cloak, drawing her dagger out, his eyes cutting into hers through each movement.
The dagger transferred from Reyes to King Killian, who flipped it from one side to the other, inspecting it with something like appreciation.
“A beautiful weapon,” he said. “Swear an oath, and it will be yours once again.”
Solana froze. Blood rushed to her head, and any feeling of calm she had felt fled under the threat of an oath.
Another tether, this one more official than any she had placed on herself.
Her palm tingled with the ache of missing her dagger.
If she had it in hand, she might have found the courage to fight.
Or flee. Reyes had told her this was a fight she could not win, and perhaps he had said it because he knew exactly what would be asked of her. Already it was proving to be too much.
All she had to do was swear an oath, give him a drop of her blood that bound her to him for the duration of the contract, and survive for another six months. Which she had every intention of doing regardless.
Only this time, there would be a reward at the end. Sami would be freed. Her people would be protected. Solana could finally leave Supay and be done with the trappings of guilt and recompense and responsibility.
It was too good to be true, and yet. Solana felt herself take another step closer to the dais so that the tips of her slippered feet were pressed against the first step.
Reyes’s hand was on the hilt of his sword, watching her as if she were the only one in the room—in the world, perhaps—but Solana kept her attention focused on the king.
Slowly, she lifted a hand out to him, palm up and open to give.
“I accept.”
Solana could still feel the warmth of the king’s hand in hers, still feel the way he had pressed his lips against her palm, shooting a glittering smile at her. Charming, attractive, persuasive. It was no wonder he was beloved by most of their people.
Do not trust him.
She had been just a child when her father had uttered the words.
Solana couldn’t even be sure that he had been speaking about King Killian, let alone if Masimu himself could be trusted.
The traitor of Supay had betrayed his king, his family, and his kingdom, forcing Solana and her mother to leave Sonqo, change their names, and never look back.