Chapter Thirteen
There wasn’t much left of the night, but Solana spent it tumbling through a nightmare, one darkened street after another stretching out in front of her like an abyss.
No matter how far or fast she ran, they were at her heels.
Voices reaching through the shadows, fingers of words stretching and caressing her cheeks.
?akapana, they whispered into her ear.
?akapana, they breathed onto her neck.
?AKAPANA, they screamed into her mind.
Though she was awake, Solana could hear the remnants of her dream as if she were still in it, their pleas and grief calling to her like an old friend.
The mess of her floor bed had tangled around her legs in sleep and felt like chains holding her down.
She had woken in a panic, ready to plunge her dagger into her own chest to avoid the death she felt looming.
It wouldn’t have solved anything—only given her some semblance of control. She would rather die on her own terms.
With a groan, Solana forced herself out of bed and trudged to the armoire, pulling on yet another uniform for another day of demon hunting without the killing.
Which was just as well. She could sit back and let the others do all the work.
They had done just fine before she was part of the team, and she would continue to receive her three hundred ilyas a week regardless.
Why overexert herself when her efforts went unappreciated?
Nobody came to collect her this time, so Solana was on her own as she exited the castle and made her way to the stables. No one was there except for the groom she had met before. Roiden, she thought, but couldn’t be sure.
“Hi there.” She strode over to where he sat on a stool with a horse’s leg in his lap.
The horse in question was tethered to two poles and happily munching on some hay.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find Master Reyes?
” His title felt like acid on her tongue, but she swallowed it down and smiled at the groom.
“Took a horse out not too long ago,” he grunted. Solana waited for more, but when none was forthcoming, she accepted that was all she would get and turned to leave the man to his work.
“Master Solana.” The name rang discordant in the space.
Like an ill-fitting glove, but she turned back regardless.
“I can teach you to ride a horse, if you’ve got the time.
Just come by any day.” There was a pause where he studiously focused on the cloth in his hands, and then he said, “You were a natural, if I’m remembering correctly. ”
A flush of heat rushed through Solana, that same fight-or-flight instinct rearing its ugly head. Roiden must have seen her panic, because he took a small step back and dipped his head. “It’s no matter. My offer stands.”
Solana knew he had looked familiar. As a child, she had been in the man’s stables more than she was in any other part of the castle.
It was foolish of her to think she could come back here and get away with being unknown, but it could all be chalked up to a misunderstanding. Nobody would believe the man, anyway.
“Thank you, Roiden,” she said sweetly. “I never did have the opportunity to learn. I’ll come by as soon as I can.”
The man nodded, and Solana smiled and spun away, and they both knew she was lying through her teeth.
The tension in her body was only compounded when she spotted Reyes striding toward her from across the courtyard. “I was just going to come for you.” He adjusted his gloves as he spoke. “The rest of the team already went out, but we’ve got a special assignment from the king.”
“That’s vague,” Solana said. She glanced over her shoulder, back to the stables, but Roiden was blessedly gone. Behind Reyes was his giant black horse, waiting with a guard by the front gate. “Not in walking distance?”
“It’s a few hours’ ride, but we’ll be moving fast.”
Solana tamped down her curiosity. “Whatever you say.” She brushed shoulders with Reyes as she walked past and approached their horse.
It occurred to her that she didn’t know its name, if it liked eating apples or carrying two people at once, but she figured it mattered little when it wasn’t her horse and she would be gone soon.
Reyes hadn’t offered the information, just as he wasn’t offering information about their special assignment, and she refused to beg anything from him.
Without waiting to be told what to do, Solana stepped up to the horse and lifted a leg into the foot strap.
It was much easier than the first time, and she was proud of how smoothly she was able to mount.
The guard handed her the reins, which she gladly took, and stepped aside when Reyes swung onto the horse behind her.
“Thank you, Joric,” he said to the guard. His gloved hands covered hers. “I’ll take this.” The reins slipped out of Solana’s hold, and she was forced to lean back into Reyes when the horse leapt into motion and blew past the gates.
“So acquiescent today. Who are you and what have you done with Solana?” Reyes’s voice was a heavy beat in her chest, clear as a bell even with the wind whistling in her ear.
“Don’t be dramatic,” she yelled back. “I am perfectly capable of being agreeable.”
Reyes only hummed skeptically. Solana wasn’t sure she believed it herself.
By the time the horse slowed, Solana’s face was burning and her legs were aching.
The street they were on was narrower than the ones closer to the castle, but not as narrow as the streets in the callejon, where it was possible to stretch out her arms and touch two buildings at once.
The houses still held on to their riot of colors, and their windows and doors bore signs of care and pride.
Flowers painted onto the glass, designs carved into the wood, love imbued into the stone.
Solana was more moved by it than she would ever admit.
“We’re here,” Reyes said. He dismounted and, seemingly preoccupied, automatically reached for Solana’s waist to guide her down.
His hands slipped beneath her cloak with such surety that she was too surprised to protest, and then she was on the ground and Reyes was moving away, tethering the horse to a nearby post.
“Here, as in, this is where we leave the horse?” Solana peered down the street and pressed her hand to her dagger. It was only mildly warm. “I don’t think—”
Someone pounded on a door. Solana spun around to find Reyes with his fist raised, standing in front of a blue house with yellow, orange, and pink flowers painted on the windows.
“What are you doing?” she whisper-yelled, rushing to grab Reyes’s cloak and yank him back. “It’s the middle of the night! People are sleeping!”
Reyes ignored her and pounded on the door again. “Open up in the name of the king. Failure to comply will result in forced entry and search and seizure. Any damages incurred by inaction will be the fault of the homeowner alone.”
“Reyes, what is this?” Solana caught sight of a curtain folding back in the window next door. Faces peeked through the dark and then disappeared. A tingle of alarm tickled her palms.
The door swung open and revealed a man and a woman, their faces grim and haggard, their eyes burning with tears and determination.
Solana had the urge to step back, but Reyes stepped forward.
“There’s been a report made that you are harboring demons.
We simply need to check the grounds to clear the claim. ”
Solana’s mouth dropped open. Harboring muki, in their house?
Who in their right mind would do such a thing, and where could they possibly keep it contained?
Solana was about to yank Reyes away by the sleeve of his cloak—clearly he was misinformed—when the woman glanced at the man, whom Solana assumed was her husband, and she saw everything she needed to see in one single look.
“Reyes…” Solana whispered, her voice drifting off.
He turned to her, his silver eyes glowing in the moonlight, and placed a hand over hers. “I know,” he said calmly, and that was all. Two words, and then he turned and strode into the strangers’ house, and Solana had no choice but to ignore every alarm bell ringing in her head and follow.
The moment she stepped into the house, her dagger blazed hotter than a pyre.
She hissed and snatched her hand back. Wherever it was being kept, it was far enough that the walls of the house had concealed it from her.
One of Reyes’s hands went for his sword and the other went out toward the man and woman standing an arm’s breadth away.
“Where?” he demanded of them, voice low.
The woman was crying too hard to do anything but shake her head, her stringy brown hair flying back and forth. The man placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed comfortingly, the defeat in his eyes more than enough to punch a hole through Reyes’s wariness.
“You have our word that we won’t hurt them.”
“Them?” Solana screeched. She slapped a hand over her mouth and winced. “Sorry,” she said to Reyes.
“Down the stairs, in the cellar,” the man finally said, voice ragged with pain. “Be careful.”
The warning was not comforting, and Solana chided herself for not asking questions, for being agreeable, for leaving Qhilli and the simplicity of the callejon for this utter insanity.
People in the callejon didn’t have the space to harbor muki, physically or mentally.
The amount of energy that would take was more than anyone could spare.
It was almost as insane as those who worshipped the demons. For the first time, she wondered if the servants might be harboring muki as well. It didn’t matter—it was none of her concern, and she wished this wasn’t either. Three hundred ilyas a week might not be enough, after all.
Still, she followed Reyes deeper into the long house. The wood floors creaked as they walked through the kitchen and down a hall that ended with a paneled cutout in the floor. They would have to open the panel and descend blindly into a dark room where an undetermined amount of muki resided.