Chapter Twenty-Four
Solana and Reyes stumbled down the hill toward their horses, both of them depleted of their gifts.
There was no time to speak, but they didn’t have to.
Solana knew to ride with Reyes on Laqha.
She knew to lean against him as the horse burst into action.
His arm was like a band around her waist tethering her to him and the horse until they breathed and moved as one.
For a time, all they could hear was the drum of the horse’s hooves against the ground. It pounded through her body and head like a death knell, every beat a condemnation of the choices she had made.
Reyes pulled the horse to a stop. She could feel the heavy rise and fall of his chest through her back. She was about to turn and ask him why he had stopped when she heard it.
A sharp shriek that echoed through the forest.
The trees surrounding them stilled, both creatures and flora alike. It was as if the world had paused just to hear it again.
Another shriek, closer this time.
Reyes’s hand squeezed her thigh. Solana sucked in one shaky breath after another, ears strained, eyes wide open, and they waited.
And heard.
Shadows darted between the trees. Flashes of glistening skin and knife-sharp talons.
Solana’s mare whinnied and burst down the path past them.
Reyes shot after her just in time, flying by a muki that stretched out its arm to catch them.
Laqha needed no more encouragement after that.
They flew through the forest, the trees a blur on every side.
Their pace never wavered. The dread in Solana’s belly never abated.
The closer to the city, the more it compounded, until she could taste it like blood on her tongue.
When they broke through the last of the trees and could see the bridge and the castle beyond, Solana sucked in a breath.
The scent of burning flesh filled her nostrils.
Plumes of smoke barreled into the sky. Demons skittered across the ground and between buildings, screams of terror and agony piercing the air in their wake, the daylight no longer strong enough to keep them at bay.
Solana leaned left, toward the city and their people, where she thought Reyes would also lean, but he veered Laqha to the right and toward the small gate set in the side wall of the castle grounds.
“What are you doing!” she screamed. Her voice was lost to the wind and the sound of chaos rending the air.
All she could do was hold her breath and duck as they cleared the gate.
It dropped with a clang behind her. People raced across the castle yard.
She saw Hakun shouting orders and several of the Masters pouring out of the main gates and onto the bridge.
Reyes swung off and grasped her hips to pull her down. Solana grabbed Laqha’s reins and pulled the beast backward and out of his reach.
Reyes’s eyes widened. “Solana, what are you doing?”
“I have to go out there. I have to help,” she said breathlessly. The way the sun’s light had shifted made it so there were shadows over Reyes’s eyes. He looked more severe and exhausted than she had ever seen him.
“We need a plan,” Reyes argued. “You can’t keep running headfirst into trouble.”
“The longer we plan, the more people die!”
Reyes surged forward and grabbed her upper arms, his grip tight enough to bruise. “You are the only person who can stop what you’ve started. We need you alive for that. Despite how desperate you seem to get yourself killed.”
There was accusation in his tone, but before Solana could say anything, he was storming away, the hem of his cloak whipping angrily in the wind. She had no choice but to leave the horse with Roiden, who gave her a pitying look, and follow behind.
The courtyard was loud enough that Solana could barely hear herself think, but once behind the main doors of the castle, it was all she could hear. The noise from outside fell away and left her with the cold truth of what she had done.
In trying to reverse the curse, she had brought Uku Pacha even closer. She had ushered the beasts that terrorized them right through the front doors, and now they were feasting on the living while she wallowed in guilt and shame.
More than that, she knew without a shadow of doubt that she had paved the way for her father to return. He would delight in her failure and surely use it to further his own designs. What a mess she had made, and there was Reyes, leading the charge to clean it up, just as he had told her he would.
Everything, and yet nothing, had changed.
“Where are we going?” she called after Reyes, who stormed ahead of her.
“To speak to the king.” He answered without bothering to turn around and led her to the same room they had stood in when she had given an oath to serve and protect.
Another way in which she had failed. King Killian stood with his fists pressed into the dark, round table, a sea of maps spread out before him.
The crown atop his head was gone, the rings usually adorning his fingers absent, and his cloak was thrown over a chair beside him. She had never seen him look so human.
Until he raised his eyes to her, and she was reminded of the power he held over her. “You’re brave to show your face here after what you’ve done,” he seethed. “It’s lucky that the Masters are adequately prepared for such an eventuality as this.”
The urge to defend herself was too great to ignore. “I know I’ve failed, but—”
“You didn’t just fail, Solana. You compounded your failures into a colossal threat.
I’m assuming your father is out there?” When Solana only pressed her lips together in answer, he dropped his head and sighed, the sound more shaming than any words could be.
“You couldn’t simply leave well enough alone. ”
“I can stop him,” Solana said, surging forward two steps. King Killian didn’t so much as blink at her approach, though Reyes’s hand latched onto her forearm in warning. “I can fix all of it. Let me call him to me. I think I can siphon his power and reverse the curse.”
“No,” the king said sharply. “The man that has returned is not the same man you knew. The underworld will have warped his body and mind. You cannot trust a word he says.”
“Then I’ll kill him.”
“Solana,” Reyes whispered. His hand slid from her forearm to her wrist, fingers pressing against the pulse point as if to ground her.
Or himself. She focused only on the king, whose icy attention darted from her raised arm to Reyes, searching for something she could only guess at, before coming back to settle on her.
There was doubt in the lines between his brows.
“I’ve been hunting and killing demons for fourteen years.
He is one man.” Solana lifted her arm and pointed at Reyes’s hand.
“Send him with me. And the others. They’ll make sure I do what needs to be done.
” Reyes pulled away, but the pressure of his touch lingered, as if her body remembered him and always would.
The king’s eyes bored into hers. Hands behind his back, he slowly paced around the table and came to a stop at her side. “Fine,” he finally said. A hand landed on her shoulder. “Do not disappoint me again, Solana. We cannot afford another failure.”
She fought the urge to shake off his hand. “And the curse?”
“What about it?”
Solana glanced at Reyes, who watched King Killian closely. “I’m close to figuring out how to reverse it. I need more power and time but—”
“What we need to worry about is cleaning up the mess that’s out there,” King Killian said.
His hand squeezed her shoulder, fingers digging into flesh like a threat instead of a comfort.
“Kill Masimu and contain the demons. Those are your priorities right now. The rest can be dealt with later. We still have many months together.”
The king wasn’t going to execute her for failing so spectacularly. There was time to make things right. “I understand, Your Majesty. I won’t fail again.”
One more squeeze, and then he strode out of the room. The pressure from his touch lifted and something loosened in her chest. His words came back to her, but in a different light. Threatening instead of comforting.
Though she hated to submit to his threats, she meant what she said.
There was so much more at stake now that Sami was dead and his muki form was rotting beneath the castle.
She had not broken her vow to him lightly.
Either she figured out a way to reverse the curse, or she would release Sami with her dagger before she left Supay.
Solana just had to kill her father first. The man who had loved her and raised her and betrayed her by the age of seven.
Who had turned his back on his family, his king, and his people, all in the pursuit of power.
It was him who had pushed her toward a life of hunting and slaying, and now the very gift she had inherited would be used against him.
“So let me get this straight,” Nikolas said for the fourth time in a very short amount of time. “You tried to reverse the curse but actually did the exact opposite while also freeing your father from his underworld prison, and now you have to call him to you so that you can kill him?”
On the path in front of her, Oskar turned and paused. I don’t think this is a good idea, he signed, the words so similar to ones that Sami often said. Despite what he’s done, he’s your father. This should not be your responsibility.
“It’s my responsibility because he wouldn’t be free if it wasn’t for me.
And I may be the only one strong enough to kill him.
” If she could call him to her, who was to say that she wouldn’t be able to command him like she did the muki?
Then she could order him to kneel and slice his throat before he could utter one single word.
“All you need to worry about is keeping away any muki that might be attracted to the summons.”
“Oh, is that all?” she heard Suri mutter from somewhere behind her.
“It’ll be fine,” Cora whispered. “As long as you stay close by.”
“She will.” They were the first words Reyes had spoken since they left the council room and walked into the city, and he stared into her eyes as he said them. It wasn’t a suggestion, but a threat. “She won’t put anyone else in danger.”
Solana bit back the sharp retort on her tongue and freed her dagger from its sheath. The hilt was warm but not burning hot. “Switch,” she said, holding it out to Reyes. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Any blade will kill him.”
But Reyes pushed her hand away. “No more deaths than necessary tonight,” he said and turned, giving her his back. “Let’s get this over with.”
The others moved into their positions in a circle surrounding her.
They were in an emptier part of the city that existed nearer to the forest than most people were comfortable with.
The strangely hued sun had finally fallen and the night was quiet, save for the moans and growls of roaming muki that had managed to escape hunting Masters.
Rolling her shoulders back, Solana closed her eyes and blew out a breath.
She focused on the beat of her heart, let it lull her into a calm that plunged her deeper into the center of her power.
The warmth she usually felt pressed against her palm spread all over her body.
She knew she could give a single command and muki would appear just as Sami had answered her.
But it wasn’t muki she wanted—it was her father.
A single human life in the sea of the dead.
When she found him, she gasped at the sensation.
“Solana.” It was Reyes, concern lacing her name. She held up a hand but said nothing, too afraid to break the growing connection to her father’s mind.
It didn’t feel chaotic or fragmented like she had assumed. There was a sense of overwhelming grief, but otherwise, it felt familiar. Comfortable, even. That was more terrifying than anything.
And it recognized her in return.
Ususi.
The word was a scream inside her head. Solana panicked and retracted her power, grasping at her chest as it curled into a knot. Regret simmered in her belly, but the damage had been done. Masimu knew where she was, and he was coming.
“He’s coming,” Solana said aloud. Five pairs of hands tightened. Knees bent in preparation. Eyes narrowed to peer into the shadows.
Time seemed to slow until every beat of her heart was a solitary thump in her ears, every detail surrounding her was carved in excruciating clarity.
One moment, her eyes were wide open and burning, the next, there was nothing but shadows and icy mist, a pressure against her body that made her jump and scream in surprise.
Someone yelled her name. Solana blinked and her friends were gone. She was on her knees and there was dirt underneath her where there had been stone before. Black spots danced at the edges of her vision and her stomach turned, thick saliva coating the inside of her mouth.
Swallowing it down, Solana pushed back onto her haunches and lifted her head. One moment, there was no one there. The next, a cloud of shadows appeared, a cloaked figure within them. He was half mist and half corporeal, a man of myth and legend. A cautionary tale. A nightmare that would not end.
“Hello, Father,” Solana hissed into the gloom.