Chapter Twelve
The tavern Nikolas led them to was like Jacobi’s in some ways, and very unlike it in others.
It was more of a proper establishment, with plush settees and low lights and a stage where a woman in a velvet dress sang a sorrowful song about gods and greed and lost love.
There were people in all types of dress, from factory uniforms to crushed velvet coats and brocaded dresses.
Solana had been afraid they would be underdressed in their Masters uniform, but nobody looked at her twice.
They sat at a round table in the corner, empty glasses in the center, a conversation she couldn’t keep track of between them, and waited for the ceviche they had ordered.
According to Nikolas, the place was known for it, attracting patrons from as far as Iques.
Solana was just happy to have some pisco.
Though it wasn’t nearly as good as Jacobi’s, it was good enough to loosen her muscles and slow her racing mind.
The music wasn’t as good, either. The woman was talented, there was no doubt about that, but the cuatro player was overpowering her, going hard when it should have been seductive, flying through melody that needed savoring. Celeste could have played circles around him.
“Your ceviche.” A bowl of cold fish and vegetables marinating in citrus juices landed among their empty glasses with more force than necessary. Solana caught a glass before it bounced off the table and looked up, ready to take out all her bridled anger on a convenient stranger.
The words dried up in her throat. Standing in front of their table, brawny arms crossed over a broad chest, an apron tied around his waist and his curly hair still way too long, was Sami.
“Here I was, worried you’d been killed.” Sami turned and stormed off, his hands curled into fists at his sides. Mouth gaping, Solana did nothing but watch him disappear.
Nikolas whistled low. “What are the odds,” he said unhelpfully.
Very low, she wanted to say. Instead, she pushed out of her chair and ignored Cora calling her name.
Sami turned to the right and disappeared through a door behind the bar.
She jogged to catch up and ignored someone else trying to get her attention, intent only on getting to Sami.
She had watched him get dragged through the gates and gain freedom. Why not return home?
The possible reason made her sick to her stomach.
Solana pushed through the door and into what looked like a storeroom. Sami had his back to her, but he whirled around when the noise from the bar filtered into the small space. While she searched him for injuries and explanations, he watched her with disgust.
“What are you doing here, Sami? They let you go. You’re supposed to be back in Qhilli!”
“Oh, am I? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were alive to care,” he yelled and shoved his hands through his hair.
“I’ve been at the castle gates every morning demanding to see you.
” He jabbed a finger to his right, presumably to the castle, and then back at the ground at his feet.
“I got a job so I could afford to stay in the city until they allowed me through, and you, what? Abandoned your people to drink your way through Sonqo? To dine at the king’s table? ”
“I didn’t abandon them,” she said, his words too close to her guilt. “The king sent the Masters to replace me. They can do a better job than I ever could.”
“They don’t want the Masters’ protection, Solana. They want you.”
“Well, I don’t want it anymore!” Solana yelled, chest heaving, the truth stinging her throat and eyes. “I’m tired, Sami. Every demon I kill takes a piece of my soul. You know, you’ve seen. I don’t know how much more of it I can afford to lose.”
“Everyone is tired,” Sami whispered angrily and stepped closer, his hands reaching for her but falling short. “So that’s it? Are you telling me you did this for them? What did he offer you?”
“Your freedom,” she yelled, hands clenched at her sides. A look of pain flashed across Sami’s face, and he reached out to touch her, but she sidestepped it, unwilling to accept his comfort before she told him everything else. “And mine. In six months, I’ll be granted passage out of Supay.”
Just as she thought, Sami pulled back his hand as if burned. “And you’ll finally have what you’ve always wanted.”
“I never lied to you.” Solana held his eyes and shook her head. “I never let you believe that I wanted anything else. It’s not my fault you wouldn’t listen.”
It was the truth, and Sami knew it. His jaw tightened and he looked away from her, as if merely the sight of her honesty was too much to bear. “You’re right,” he said through clenched teeth. “It’s my own for hoping that you’d see how much I love you and change your mind.”
Solana reached for him. “Sami, I—”
The door opened and noise drowned out whatever Solana would have said next. “Everything okay in here?” Reyes asked. She felt his presence at her back, watched how Sami’s eyes trailed over him and then her.
And because she was a terrible person, because it was easier to let him hate her more than he already did, she leaned into Reyes, grateful when his hand came up to curl around her shoulder. “Everything’s fine,” she said. “We were just catching up.”
She watched his face fall. And then the anger smoothed away. His eyes, always so expressive, went blank.
“We’re done here.” Sami strode forward and around them, stopping at Reyes’s side to add, “She’s all yours,” before pushing through the door.
The quiet returned and Solana leaned forward to rest her hands on her knees, sucking in deep breaths and blinking away the burn in her eyes.
She would not let Reyes see her cry, but neither could she stand tall at that moment.
She exhaled through the pain and inhaled what little strength she could muster.
This day was inevitable. One way or another, whether by death or by choice, Solana was going to leave Sami. It was going to hurt him, and it was always going to be her responsibility.
When she finally gathered herself and straightened, she turned to find Reyes with his hands in his pockets and facing the wall, attention fully focused on the barrels of pisco stacked against it as if nothing had happened.
She took the opportunity to watch him, to consider the fact that he was giving her a moment of consideration yet again.
A stark contrast to who she thought he was and how little he cared for her.
Solana didn’t know what to think of it. She cleared her throat and said, “If we stay in here much longer, people will get the wrong idea.”
Reyes slowly turned, as if they had all the time in the world. “Like your friend did?”
“He’s not my friend,” she said, the truth of her words like a knife between her ribs. “Not anymore.”
“If he can’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, then maybe he never was.”
Solana bristled at his words and opened her mouth to argue when the door opened for a third time. “Is everyone clothed?” Cora asked, one hand hovering over her eyes and the other waving in the space in front of her.
The somber look in Reyes’s eyes melted away, replaced with a smile that he only ever gave Cora, and he slung his arm around her neck. “I think everyone is done drinking for the night,” Solana heard him say as he pulled her out of the room.
And then she was left alone, just as she had started, just as she had always been.
They came across no others on the short walk, the night strangely quiet and calm, but only for Solana, it seemed.
Nikolas and Oskar were responsible for dragging the muki back to the castle.
Cora and Suri sang a silly tavern tune she had never heard before, and Reyes walked behind them, his gait casual, shoulders relaxed.
Meanwhile, Solana’s mind was a mess of doubt and destruction.
Perhaps she should have refused the king’s offer. Perhaps she could have figured out a different way to secure her and Sami’s freedom. Perhaps she had given in too easily. Traitor’s blood in a different form.
“Get some sleep,” Reyes told them at the entrance to the castle. Solana watched the muki disappear around the corner and wondered if she was doing the right thing. If any of them could be saved after all they had done.
Her thoughts and several glasses of pisco distracted her as she trudged back to her rooms. It was because of the pisco that she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her when she caught sight of a flash of gray hair around a dark corner.
And it was because of her inability to leave things alone that she followed.
At the end of the hall was a stairwell that led down to what she thought were the dungeons. A separate entrance, perhaps. But when she followed them and the air cooled and thickened, she realized it was not the dungeons she was being led to, but another, familiar hallway.
The stone walls were thicker, and the carpet had given way to matching stone floors.
A sea of gray interrupted by the light of fewer and fewer orbs.
It didn’t take a gifted person to know that there was something different about the air besides the temperature.
It felt heavier, charged in a way that lifted the hairs on Solana’s neck.
The tang of fear settled at the back of her throat at the same time her dagger lit like a blaze.
Anyone else would have turned away. Freeing her dagger from its sheath, Solana adjusted the hilt in her hand and placed her back against the wall, slowly sliding down the hall and toward a door she could see every time she closed her eyes.
This was the room where Reyes had held and tortured her, and if her instincts and dagger were to be trusted, there was a demon on the other side.
Ever so gently, she reached for the metal latch and pulled. It creaked as it shifted, and a puff of cold air licked her face. The door swung open. Solana’s heart thudded as she waited for the room to come into view, and when it finally did, she couldn’t help but gasp at what she saw.