Page 42 of Daughter of the Dark

Solana needed to get the smell of him and the hint of his gift off her as soon as possible. She half ran through the halls to her rooms and almost bowled over several of the attendants going about their day. The guards had already gotten used to her antics and barely glanced her way.

Finally, alone in her rooms, she stripped out of her blood-crusted clothes and opened the water spicket that hung suspended over the stone tub in the ground. Warm water poured out, and she sighed as she sunk in.

It had been twenty years since she had been able to take a private bath regularly. There were bathhouses available in Qhilli, but they were communal and unnecessarily expensive when forced to choose between warm water or a meal. Food always won, and so what if that food also included a glass, or several, of pisco? There were so few things she allowed herself to enjoy, and a stiff drink was one of them.

Solana missed Jacobi’s pisco and Celeste’s haunting songs. She missed Sami’s constant presence and the stories he’d tell to pass the time, about distant lands and impossible love and greedy gods. She especially missed the arepas and picarones from the market. Though she had been born in Sonqo and lived there for the first seven years of her life, Qhilli was her true home. Those narrow streets had raised and shaped her, had carved her edges into weapons. They had prepared her for this moment.

Reverse the curse. She didn’t know if she wished more that it were possible … or not. If it was, and Solana was the one who could do it, it would make amends for all her father’s sins. But not her own. The lives she had taken in the almost fifteen years since she had started hunting muki would be murder. It would mean every release, every mercy, had been the opposite. The people would grieve and riot. They would hate her.

She would hate herself.

And yet, she found that she was willing to try if it meant ensuring that her loved ones and the remainder of her people could live and die without fear. To clear her conscience, of course. In the end, all of this would benefit her the most.

Solana was dressing for a night of hunting when there was a soft knock on her door. Cora stood on the other side with a sly grin spread across her face. “I heard something very interesting,” she said, casually pushing past Solana into the room.

“Those boys are worse than the kitchen gossips.” She slammed the door and leaned against it to finish tying up her boots. “Nothing happened.”

“Nothing?” Cora asked. “No exchanging of fluids? No tumbling in bed?”

“Well, yes, actually, those things did happen, but not in the way you’re thinking.” Solana sighed and proceeded to tell Cora about King Killian in the training room, how she had almost died on Reyes’s bed, and how his gift had saved her. Again. “Now I owe him a life debt, which is very unfortunate.”

But Cora didn’t laugh. Her eyes were distant, and one hand was curled and pressed over her heart. “Things have changed,” she said vaguely. “Everything feels … different.”

Solana narrowed her eyes. “Good different or bad different?”

With a shake, Cora shifted back to her bright and effervescent self. “I’m not sure, but I guess we’ll find out. Come have dinner with us.” Solana opened her mouth to argue, but Cora stopped her with a hand pressed against her lips. “Don’t say no. You’re a part of this team, for however long, and it’s time you start acting like it. It’s dinner, not an exchanging of blood.”

Sami had said something to the same effect last time they hunted together. Dinner with my family. It had been meant to appease her, but the idea of a family, of belonging and the expectations that came with it …

But she couldn’t say no to Cora, who had been beyond welcoming since the very first day.

“Fine,” she agreed, and Cora twisted their arms together and led the way to the kitchens where Reyes, Nikolas, and Oskar sat on one side of a small table, and Suri and two empty chairs on the other.

“Ah, she graces us with her presence.” Suri directed the words at Solana, her hand possessively on the back of Cora’s chair.

Solana placed a hand to her chest. “You seem very concerned with my presence.”

“Only because I prefer the lack of it—”

“Enough, Suri.” Solana bristled at the way Reyes stepped in but didn’t spare her a look. “We’re going to be working more closely together,” he continued, “so if there are any grievances, now is the time to air them.”

Oskar bumped into Nikolas’s shoulder, a smile wide on his face as he signed, Is that what they were doing last night? Working closely. He finished his sentence with air quotes and waggled his brow for extra measure.

Suri’s head whipped to Reyes. “So much for, she’s of no consequence to us.”

The room fell awkwardly silent. Whoops, Oskar added.

The words stung, but Solana kept a confident smile on her face as she plucked a slice of fried yuca from the table. She tore a chunk off before leaning back in her chair and brandishing the rest toward the group. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I got hurt in training and he healed me. That’s all.”

“For a fearsome demon slayer, you end up hurt a lot,” Suri responded.

Solana’s patience snapped. “For a highly paid Master, you seem to do…” She waved her yuca in the air. “… nothing but complain.”

“See, this is my problem with you—”

“I thought you didn’t give a shit about me,” Solana interrupted.

“—coming here and judging us when you know nothing about us, nor have you tried to get to know anyone.” Suri jabbed her Masters badge. “You see this badge and you assume that it was handed to us because of privilege. Cora’s family spent every dime they had to send her to the Academy,” she said, pointing at Cora. Then at Oskar. “He had to overcome an entire system that was not created to benefit someone without hearing and, on top of that, he forged a path for those to follow.” She pointed at Nikolas. “He’s here out of privilege, but he’s loyal and decent. That’s more than you can say. And Reyes—”