Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Masimu understood the single word and tapped his forehead. “Mental manifestation of memories. Just one of our gifts.”
“I spent so much of the next four years reading everything I could find about our bloodline, the curse, Supay,” he went on, eyes distant as if he was still within his own mind.
“I shared everything with Killian, except for the truth of who you were meant to be. I was afraid he would want to encourage you to grow into your purpose. He was so passionate about breaking the curse. I thought we had the same dream.” Masimu’s voice broke with his last words.
She saw his knuckles blanch under the weight of his grief. “But I was a fool.”
“It was my idea to go to the caves. I thought I could use my blood to cut the curse at the root. Killian had convinced me that it was possible, though I knew better. He had plans of his own.” Masimu leaned forward and snatched up a book.
The pages creased under the force with which he turned them.
When he found the page he was looking for, he turned it to face Solana.
She leaned forward. On it were sketches of demons, hundreds of them lined up until they dissolved into a swath of black ink.
At the center of their throats, suspended on what looked like a band of metal, were shining purple stones.
Next to them, a diagram of how he intended to make the contraption. A collar.
“He thought that the dagger I had made, the things that I could do with it, were because of my gift. He planned to use me to free the demons, bind them to him, and create an undead army under his complete command. With his gift and his army, he thought he could take control of all Auquis—”
Solana’s head snapped up. “What gift?”
Masimu gave her a sad smile. “Persuasion. It’s not as strong as his father’s was, and very few people knew he had it, but it’s enough that the effects go unseen until eventually, you believe every word he says,” he said.
“With it, he had been able to create a sort of elixir that mollified muki, but the effects were short-lived. With our gifts combined, he thought he would be able to create a stone that could bend the muki to his will. Imagine his shock when his plan turned to ash in front of his eyes. My blood was useless to him. But yours is not.”
I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Reyes had said to her in the alley in Qhilli.
At the time, she thought it had been because she was a criminal escaping his clutches again and again.
And then she had thought it was because of her blood that could potentially create a solution for immunity to demon poison.
Now she knew it was because the king had been searching for her. The hunter had become the hunted.
The king might have failed in winning Solana entirely over to his side, but she had failed even more spectacularly.
“The things you can do are meant to aid you in releasing us from the curse. You are the perfect weapon against it. But in the wrong hands, your blood is a danger to all.”
“He has it,” Solana murmured regretfully. “So much of my blood. Reyes said we could make an antidote, and then we planned to make more daggers like mine, to help people, and we so desperately wanted to—”
Cool hands covered her cheeks and forced her head up. Masimu’s eyes met hers. “You didn’t know,” he said firmly. “You couldn’t have known.”
“We have to go back. Now.” She backed out of Masimu’s hold and stood.
Masimu’s hand latched onto her wrist and tugged her to a stop.
“We need a plan. I think it’s safe to assume Killian has succeeded in making collars, which means he’ll be able to use the muki to locate you and command them at will.
You will have no control over them. You might be able to physically release them with your dagger, but that would kill you before you could finish.
” His eyes were hard, his free hand tightened into a fist at his side.
“We need to kill Killian first. His power over them will die with him, and then you’ll be free to release the muki as you did your mother, and then release Supay from the curse. ”
There were so many pieces to consider, so many questions to ask, all of them hinged around her and her blood.
But they were out of time. They had to act, and fast, before things got more complicated, more people died, and the king had more demons at his disposal.
Solana removed the dagger from her hip and extended it to her father.
“We’ll split up and create a false trail.
I can make more daggers, and there will be more people who can release muki and confuse the king. ”
Masimu wrapped his hand around hers over the hilt. “And leave you again?”
She pulled away. Too many years of hate and loneliness between them, of being entirely on her own to keep accepting his comfort. “You can’t protect me from this.” She pushed the dagger into his hand. “We have to stop Killian.”
“Solana,” he said, stopping her again with a hand on her arm.
“I never would have willingly left you and your mother. You both were the light of my life on even the darkest of days, and I wish I could take this responsibility from you. If I could go back, I would do it all differently, even if it meant leaving you sooner. I’m sorry I couldn’t fix this for you.
I’m sorry you had to figure everything out on your own. But I’m here now, and this curse, it—”
Solana covered his hand with hers. “Tell me after we kill the king,” she said softly, squeezing his fingers. “Promise me we’ll fix this together.”
There was a beat of hesitation where Solana thought he might say more, where she would have to pretend that everything he said wasn’t exactly what she had always wanted to hear, that every word wasn’t a knife through her already battered and bruised heart, but then he placed his other hand over his chest, fingers curled into the fabric and flesh. “On my life,” he swore solemnly.