Page 13 of Daughter of the Dark

He produced a narrow length of black fabric from behind his back and stretched it between two hands. Solana couldn’t help but flinch back when he moved forward, but the fabric was cool and soft against her fevered and tired eyes, and she didn’t have the energy to fight it. Reyes released first her legs and then her hands from the chair and pulled her up. He held her steady as he shifted her arms behind her back and transferred the shackles back onto her wrists.

Restrained again, but at least her legs were free.

“Do I have to carry you, or can you walk?” His voice was close, his hand on her arm firm but not painful.

Solana had begun to shake again, and she clenched her jaw to tamp it down. “I’ll walk,” she decided.

Though it felt good to take back that tiny bit of control, every part of her body ached. Reyes’s gift had healed whatever physical wounds he had given her, but there were deeper pains—memories stored in her blood. Fear cradled in her mind. A new weakness infused into the marrow of her bones that would not allow her to forget just how vulnerable she was.

The frigid air did nothing to help the shiver that rattled her teeth. It was a long, cold walk deeper into the castle, every step a test of strength and willpower, but Reyes never once hurried or threatened her. He only guided her lightly with his hand around the bindings at her wrists, until finally, she heard the clank and echo of a metal door.

“Master Reyes,” someone said. “We readied a cell for her here.”

“Thank you, Henry. I’ll return for her in a few hours.”

Solana whipped her head to Reyes. “I answered all your questions.”

“Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe that there was a single ounce of truth in anything you said?”

“Yes,” Solana said through gritted teeth. “See? I can be truthful.”

A fist landed in her stomach, stealing her breath and forcing her to her knees, Reyes’s grip never lightening, so that her shoulders were bent at an unnatural angle. The blindfold was torn from her eyes and she blinked at the sudden light.

A man in the gray robes that belonged to the Servants of Death stood over her, his head and face eerily devoid of all hair, the color of his eyes darker and larger than what seemed normal. A trick of the light, perhaps.

And what was one of the servants doing in the king’s dungeons? He was a long way from plucking orphans off the streets of Qhilli. Solana committed his face to memory, nonetheless. One day, she would kill him, all of them, for manhandling her.

“All right, Henry. I can take it from here.”

After a quick bow, Henry shuffled away and through a nearby door that was too dark to see beyond. Reyes’s hands wrapped around her upper arms. “Come on,” he said, pulling her to her feet and guiding her down a long, dim corridor with several doors on either side. One was open and waiting for her. A maw ready to devour.

The walls closed in, the impending doom like a weight on her chest, Reyes’s hand on her arm like the shackle it was. They would lock her in a cell and then she would never see the sky again—at least, not as a human.

Panic rose like a tide lapping at the shore of her logic. Solana threw her head into Reyes, satisfied when he grunted and stumbled backward, but her victory was short-lived. A hand tangled in her hair and yanked. Tears burned her eyes.

“This is not a fight you can win,” Reyes murmured into her ear, his chest rising and falling against her back, his warm breath fanning over her cheek. She tried to turn her head to meet his eyes, but he held her tighter against him. “What happens next is out of your control. Your fate belongs to the king.”

“Detaining people for the crime of defending themselves, torture and experimentation, possibly murder. All in the name of your king? It seems like you are the only one with no control here.”

Reyes shoved her into the small cell and slammed the door behind her.

“I’m not the problem you think I am!” Solana shouted, her voice echoing back against the stone walls.

“We’ll let my king be the judge of that,” he said through the iron slab.

Reyes’s footsteps thudded away, and then she heard the clank of the dungeon doors opening and closing. Quiet fell. The dark lessened until Solana could see the outline of the door. She crawled with a hand outstretched and then turned and leaned against the wall.

And then she waited.

It was another three days before the door opened fully. By that time, Solana was barely conscious. Her head throbbed, and she was cold all the time. It was never clear if she was awake or asleep, so she was uncertain whether the arms that carried her were real, or if the bed they laid her on wasn’t a pyre.

They poured icy water over her body and held her down as she thrashed and screamed. She was dying. Her worst fear come to life, to die on Supay. She only hoped that, when she returned, they would have the decency to put her demon form out of its misery.

CHAPTER SIX

The first thing she noticed about death was how bright everything was. The ceiling above her was white. The blanket wrapped around her body was white. The light pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows was white. It was blinding and disorienting, enough so that she didn’t stop to consider that death would have been much, much darker.

Perhaps I’m dreaming. But even her dreams were dark, filled with the emotions of the muki she dispatched, always craving and grieving and desperate, so much so that she had begun to wonder if those were her emotions as well.