Chapter Thirty-Six
The well within her was full to the brim.
Reyes’s love had given her so much more than she could have possibly imagined.
When she waded in up to her knees, it began to overflow, and the deeper she went the more space she demanded.
That power, his and hers, flowed through her blood and out of her, to the core of the earth where himaya ran deep and wide, where the blood of Supay formed the land’s beating heart. Where the curse was held and cradled.
In her dreams, the dark had called her ususi. The muki called her nakapana. She was a daughter of the dark, a destroyer of the curse, the salvation for her people. Her blood was her gift and with it, she could call and command and free.
Tendrils of red sank and snaked through the earth, reaching across the land like a web seeking sustenance.
Muki were trapped within its touch, paralyzed as the blood latched onto them and spread like tiny rivers up their legs and torsos and chests, to the place where the himaya rested against their throats.
The sounds of battle dissipated and were replaced with an ear-piercing screech.
Each of the muki stood frozen in place, their bodies rigid and their heads stretched so far back that Solana thought they might tear away before she could finish.
The himaya at their throats glowed bright as a star, and Solana pushed more of her blood into the earth and into the himaya, watching with awe and pleasure as the stones exploded one by one, a brilliant shower of red dust left in their wake.
The clank of metal echoed across the beach.
The quiet that followed was heavy with anticipation.
No one knew what to expect except Solana, but she was too weak to shout a warning.
The world tilted and she crashed to the ground, watching as the muki, now free from Killian’s control but not the curse, burst into movement.
Firm hands slid under her neck and supported her head. Gray eyes found hers and coaxed them to open wider.
“Stay with me,” she heard Reyes whisper, the touch of his gift cooling her fevered skin. She let it wash over her and strengthen her enough to sit up.
“I’m not done,” she gasped out. “I have to release the curse.”
“Breathe with me.” Reyes’s hands shifted to clasp her face and forced her to look into his eyes.
“I am here with you. Take what you need. My power is yours. My life is yours. You are not alone. Never alone.” The words were stronger than any prayer she had ever heard.
A confession of possession, of trust and faith and love.
Cheeks wet, Solana nodded and entwined her hands with his, their shared power creating a circle in her mind. There was a sense of completion that she hadn’t felt when accessing her gift before, as if all the barriers that might have existed were entirely gone.
Around them, the battle raged on. Her friends and people fought for their lives, and she dove into the dark to join them in that fight.
With Reyes’s gift coursing through her, filling her well, she reached deep into the earth and sought the heart of Supay.
The greedy god that had started it all. The land had been forged from his flesh, and it was his cursed blood that bore them.
It ran through the earth, brackish and perverted, like a sticky web that ensnared and condemned.
Their combined gifts stretched across it, burning a deep purple before it fizzled out, first slowly as if it was holding on for dear life, and then altogether in the blink of an eye.
On the shore, the muki it was attached to turned to ash and shadow, but its soul was released from eternal damnation.
All at once, the other muki stilled and turned their heads to her.
From far-off, like the irritating cawing of a distant bird, she heard Killian’s commands. The muki were no longer under his control, but the servants were. They joined the fray with a cry of conviction that sent a chill down Solana’s spine.
A sense of urgency spurred her on. Solana strained her senses to focus on the point of contact between her and Reyes from where her power began and flowed outward. It pulled from deep within both of them, and with each thread of the curse that dissolved beneath her power, more blood was demanded.
The king was right—sacrifices were necessary.
The well of her power lowered until it was at her forehead, and then her eyes, and then her nose.
She felt the brush of cold air on her cheeks.
Felt the caress of death on her lips. There were more threads spread across Supay than there was blood in her body.
It would require so much more of her than she had to give.
Still, she persisted. She untangled the web one thread at a time, and she breathed out her power with every exhale.
But she could feel her strength flagging, her sense of self faltering with every beat of her heart. The resentment and regret and rage inside of her was a stain on her soul, on her gift. It would darken and devour until all that was left was a shell of who she was.
Heart pounding, she glanced at the circle of her friends just as Cora fell to one knee.
Solana jerked forward as if to catch her, but Reyes was there, stretching out an arm to give her a strengthening touch so that she was back on two feet.
Suri and Oskar guarded their backs. Her eyes darted across the sand toward the small docks, searching for the faces of the people she loved.
There was a frantic energy distracting her that she could not escape.
The repercussions of failing were too severe.
The pressure would buckle her knees and break her back.
She should have left when she had the chance, before she got entangled, before she was willing to set herself on fire to keep everyone else warm.
With each thought, her power lessened and Reyes’s gift withdrew. Instead of breathing it in like air, it choked her like water, frigid and sharp as it tore her insides and cringed away from the taste of her insecurities.
She had not survived this long only to succumb to the same weakness that killed her mother.
Love. Blinding and binding and bracing. Her talents were better used on the shore, fighting hand to hand with the monsters that had ruined her life.
She could get to Killian and tear the heart from his chest before he knew it was her hand inside of him. She could—
Someone called her name. It wasn’t a scream, but it jolted her all the same. A voice in her head that interrupted her spiraling thoughts and demanded to be heard.
Scalding hot tears rolled down her frozen cheeks and fortified her fractured mind. It filled the cracks with certainty, lifted a hand in selfless support.
The pieces inside of her that had begun to separate and fragment snapped back into place. The resolve of retribution steeled her spine. It was Reyes’s unfailing love that saved her then as it did only days ago.
When her well emptied, it was Reyes’s power that filled it up.
It was his love that gave her the strength to push her blood deeper into the earth, beneath the generations of anguish and into the core of the land where Supay’s own heart was buried, hardened and blackened, seeping through the earth and into the caves and rivers and sea, the tendrils of it spreading to divide and consume.
There were pieces of it in the daggers she had made, in the homes of those privileged enough to afford it, across the seas in the hands of those who shunned her people.
Himaya was nothing but a vessel waiting to be filled, and the curse a vessel waiting to be shattered. With more pressure, Solana could destroy it all.
But she saw the drying of Reyes’s well, what it would mean to give more of herself over to her fate, and she yanked her hands away.
The world around them burst into life. Screeches of the suffering pierced her ears.
The circle of her friends was closer than before, their ragged struggle breathing down her neck.
To end this, Solana would have to give the ultimate sacrifice. She would have to die, and entwined as they were, Reyes would die with her.