Chapter Thirty
The best Solana could do was get them to a place nearby that they had visited once while hunting.
It was at the edges of Sonqo, a courtyard with a small fountain in the middle where the horses had drunk while Solana stretched her legs, before she had become accustomed to riding.
The fountain was destroyed, and water pooled in the middle of the square.
Reyes grabbed Solana’s hand and pulled her into the shadows of the closest building.
A curtain fluttered in a window across the street.
She felt raw and exposed in a way she had never felt in the callejon.
There, her people knew her by name. They mourned the loss of her mother with her, despite how badly she wanted to claim that pain as her own.
These people only knew her as the Demon Hunter of Supay, and Masimu as the Traitor of Supay, as the decrees proclaimed.
Nobody would mourn the loss of him. Perhaps, after all of this, the king would paint her face next to her father’s, the sum of her reduced to another cautionary tale for any who dared defy the king.
They turned down a small alley behind a row of houses and then turned again toward a door set into the corner of the last building.
Reyes pressed his palm to the wood and the handle turned with a click.
The hallway beyond was pitch-black. She could hear their breathing, feel the pulse of Reyes’s heartbeat pressed against her hand.
For a moment, Solana considered whether this could be a trap, but the thought was fleeting.
A leftover habit from when they were closer to enemies than allies.
Now she didn’t know what they were.
The hallway brightened enough that Solana could see the outline of Reyes and the room ahead. There were dark shapes that she assumed were furniture, and then a dim orange light appeared, along with a face attached to a familiar person.
“Gods, Reyes,” Cora whispered. She rushed forward and Reyes released Solana to catch Cora in a tight hug, her head cradled gently in one hand against his chest. Everything had felt distant and muffled until that point, when a flare of envy lit within Solana.
It was silenced when Cora reached for her, drawing her into their hug and pressing against the ache of loss threatening to drown her. “You’re alive,” Cora said breathlessly.
Their arms around her back were like a band of strength that carefully rearranged the bricks inside of her that had been erected after so much betrayal and death. Solana slowly exhaled and sunk into their embrace. She didn’t protest or pull away when they didn’t let go and spoke over her head.
“Nikolas?” Cora asked.
She felt Reyes shake his head, and then Cora’s forehead pressed against her temple. Reyes’s chin rested on the top of her head. Solana let herself be held and share their pain, committing all of it to memory. This was why she continued to fight. This was all that mattered.
“I’ll make coffee,” Cora finally said. She pulled away slowly, reluctantly, and looked into Solana’s eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Didn’t you know I would be?”
Cora shook her head. “There were so many choices you could have made. Nothing is certain, but what matters is that you’re here now.” She gently squeezed her cheeks and then padded away.
More of the room had come into view, but Solana was distracted with considering Cora’s words. There were so many choices you could have made.
“I’ll go wake the others,” Reyes said suddenly, his voice close in the quiet. “And then I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
She nodded absentmindedly and took off in the direction Cora had gone.
The house smelled old but not unclean, as if it had been sitting empty for many years.
The black shapes she had seen were pieces of furniture covered in blankets.
There was a fireplace on one side of the room and a large table on the other covered in maps with ilyas marking certain points across it.
Next to them were scribbled words in Reyes’s handwriting.
Leaning closer, Solana saw that they were notes.
There was one by the Academy that said, too many risks here.
Another by the docks in Qhilli that said, contention—citizens unlikely to cooperate.
They were right about that. The docks in Iques were circled, with several question marks nearby.
Solana slid her finger from the southernmost tip of Qhilli, up and over to the west and along the forgotten coast there, where she knew a certain group of people who worshipped the muki lived very quiet lives in a small patch of forest bordering an empty shore.
If they were looking for Killian and his undead army, that would be the perfect place to start. Solana plucked an ilyas from a pile on the table and placed it over the spot.
“What’s that?” Cora joined her by the map, a steaming mug of coffee in each hand.
“A place we should check for the missing muki.” Solana took the mug she handed her.
“There’s a sect of people who live there and sometimes wander through the markets of Qhilli looking for souls to recruit.
Mostly orphaned children.” She squinted at the map, remembering the last time she had seen them.
“And guard muki in the dungeons, apparently.”
“The Servants of Death,” Cora whispered. “But they seem so peaceful and mostly keep to themselves.”
“They aren’t popular among the people in Qhilli.” Solana paused to work through her thoughts. “But they would support the king’s plans, and their hidden existence would work in his favor.”
Cora dropped into a seat and blew out a breath. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.”
“It’s not as though your gift of discernment makes you all knowing.” It was said mostly in jest, but Cora’s fingers tensed around her cup and her lips pressed tight. Solana sat forward and lowered her voice. “That’s not how your gift works, right? You didn’t know any of this would happen.”
With a sigh, Cora set the mug on the table and stared into the dark liquid. “I knew that in order for this to happen, certain other things had to happen.”
“Certain other things like Sami dying? And my father?” The quiet that followed her question was heavy. “Did you know they were going to die?” Solana asked outright.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.” Cora abandoned her cup and enveloped Solana’s hand in hers. “You would have gotten yourself killed trying to prevent it and then damned us all to the king’s whims and the curse.”
Solana snatched her hand out of Cora’s, her elbow knocking into her mug on the table. Coffee sloshed over the rim and onto the map, a blotch of brown over the sea. She stood and paced away, breathing out the anger that she knew wasn’t for Cora.
It was for herself.
Had she consulted Cora first about her choices, would the outcome have changed? If she had trusted someone, relied on others, would the Uku Pacha have stayed closed, and Sami and her father be alive, and Killian not be so close to complete control?
In the next room over, stairs creaked and footsteps headed toward them.
Solana angrily wiped the tears from her cheeks and turned to face the rest of the team.
Oskar walked into the room first, eyes red rimmed, and stopped in front of her.
His fingers flew in the space between them, saying, I’m glad to see you, and then he grabbed her hand and placed it against his heart.
Behind him, Suri moved to Cora and leaned down to whisper in her ear.
Oskar squeezed Solana’s shoulder and then scooted by her to sit at the table.
“She lives,” Suri said, deadpan. She dropped into the seat behind Cora and reclined leisurely, as if waiting for the explanation she felt owed.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Solana shot back. “I can leave, if you’d like.”
Suri shrugged and swept a hand around the room. “It wouldn’t surprise anyone.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Solana said through gritted teeth. “Are there more of us?” A quick glance past Reyes told her it was only the five of them. Five against hundreds. The odds weren’t in their favor. “What happened?”
“You first.” Leaning forward, Suri clasped her hands over the table. “Explain it to us like we’re children, please. Tell us everything.”
All eyes were on her, waiting with a kind of anticipation that Solana hadn’t experienced before.
There was trust, but mostly, there was hope.
That she hadn’t betrayed them, that she had answers and possibly a solution.
For the first time in a long while, Solana was acutely dreading the possibility of disappointing someone.
The heaviest gaze came from Reyes, who leaned against the wall to her side, arms crossed over his chest. Distant, but not hostile. Giving her the space she needed to keep a clear mind. Solana dropped her eyes to the map and began the story of where she had been and what she had learned.
There were some details she left out, like the memories of her father and mother, and releasing her mother’s muki form, but they listened intently as she told them about her ability, her blood, her fate. ?akapana. Cursebreaker. A daughter of the dark.
Reyes’s hand tightened into a fist when she told them about the king’s proposal and how she couldn’t reach the muki under his control. How her father might have had the answers, but they died with him.
“How did we miss it? How did none of us see who he truly was?” Cora asked no one in particular, her eyes unfocused as if seeing every past interaction and weighing it against the truth of him.
She felt a pang of sympathy, knowing how it felt to fail.
But Cora hadn’t failed, and it was possible Solana hadn’t either, if she extended herself the same grace.
They simply didn’t have all the information. And by the looks on their faces, they didn’t know what Solana knew about the king. “Killian’s gift is persuasion. His father before him had it as well.”