Chapter Twelve #3
“You’re wasting your time,” Solana said.
The curse was part of the very fabric of their land since the moment Supay and the other gods were cast out of Hanan Pacha.
As Supay’s descendants, his greed was their burden to bear.
“There has been five hundred years of contending with this curse. If there was a way to reverse it, don’t you think they would have found it by now? ”
“Just because it hasn’t been found doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” The muki on the table twitched.
Solana jerked back, lifting her dagger, but Reyes was already injecting it with that glowing liquid from the vial.
It stilled once again, and then Reyes looked up at her through the curtain of his silver hair.
“It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue trying. ”
“And the muki underneath the castle will continue to rot while you experiment.” She lowered her dagger, but only slightly.
“They were people. Innocents who didn’t ask for this.
Who will be responsible for killing the thousands of them that you’ve saved once the king decides he’s done with his savior complex? ”
“Perhaps you. It seems you’ll do any job for a large enough sum of ilyas.”
Solana smiled to hide the sting of his barb.
“I would be glad to do something that’s actually useful,” she lied.
The thought of killing that many muki, of feeling all of their anguish, even as it released them …
it made her want to vomit. “Imagine if we all focused our time and efforts on improving the quality of life for the people who are still alive.”
“Says the woman who can command them.”
Solana’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click. Reyes was watching her with sharp eyes, aware of the way his attention cut down to the core of her.
How many times had Solana yelled a command at a muki and ignored the results of it?
In her mind, it was always a dash of luck and good timing.
A slice of space in which she was faster, better, and smarter than her target.
They were dead, and she was alive, with a fully functioning brain and years of experience. That was all it was.
But there was no denying the tether she felt to them. The dark that called to her.
“Do you know what I think?” Reyes placed his palms against the table and leaned over the muki and closer to her.
Close enough that she could feel his warm breath caress her cooled skin.
“I think you don’t know who you are, or what you’re capable of.
I think your blood is the answer to a lot of questions, and I think you’ll always take the coward’s way out any chance you get. ”
Solana held his stare, her eyes darting between his, aware of how deeply he felt the truth of his words.
In the last few months before her father betrayed them all, he had become obsessed with something.
An idea he wouldn’t share with his own wife, much less his small daughter.
Something that kept him away from his family, kept him up all hours of the night, and eventually stole his sanity. He had sacrificed everything for it.
Solana refused to follow in his footsteps.
She pushed herself onto her toes and closer to Reyes, her mouth within a hairsbreadth of his lips, viciously satisfied when the muscles in his jaw twitched.
But she didn’t linger long. Instead, she dragged the tip of her nose across his cheek and pressed her lips to his ear.
“It’s a good thing I don’t care what you think,” she murmured.
He turned his head, days-old stubble scratching her cheek. “Somehow,” he whispered into her ear, “that answer doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”
Solana suppressed the shivers that rolled down her spine. His voice was a rumble she could feel underneath her skin, at the very center of her chest. It was only revulsion or latent fear, she told herself. The same way she felt when she faced a muki head-on.
She pulled away, ignoring the unpleasant absence of his warmth against her skin, and gave him a bright smile. With that, she forced herself to turn and stride to the door, her dagger spinning in her hand.
“Actually,” she said, turning and taking the four steps back.
She raised the dagger above her head, caught a flash of worry in Reyes’s eyes that made her hum in satisfaction, then plunged it into the muki on the table, dead center into its throat.
It twitched once, twice, before it relaxed against the table.
“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” she said, never once breaking eye contact with Reyes.
Solana yanked out the dagger and flicked the muki’s brackish blood off the blade.
If only she could so easily shake away the emotions surging like the tide.
Reyes’s chest heaved as he watched her, tracking her every movement, devouring her whole without shame.
A small blade was in his hand again, clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.
She continued to hold his eyes as she sheathed hers at her hip, and then she casually turned her back on him and left.
Only when she was back in her room, hands shaking and tears burning her eyes, did she give in and vomit all over the floor.