Page 49 of Daughter of the Dark

“Well, then you’re fortunate to have ended up at the Academy.”

Jealousy, hot and heavy, swirled in Solana’s gut. If she had known of her gifts and used them to gain access to that kind of education, could she have saved her mother? Was the king’s benevolence more than just a charade? But, no. She was the daughter of the traitor of Supay. The man who had brought upon them a demon horde. There would have been only shackles and death for her and her mother.

“Speaking of what you can do.” Solana stopped walking, and Reyes turned. He was downhill from her, at eye level, and she was increasingly distracted by his full attention. “How could I feel your gift before? While we were fighting the muki?”

Reyes gave her a pleased smile. “You recognized it,” he said smugly. “Most people don’t. It’s something I figured out I could do with my mother. Soothe her anxieties and paranoia. It seems to only work on certain people.”

“I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but don’t do it again. I don’t need it.”

He placed a hand over his chest and dipped his head. “You have my word,” he said somberly.

Strange thing was, she believed him. Of all she knew about Reyes, she knew the most that he would keep his word. They walked a few more steps, and then she asked, “Your father? What of him?”

“It was always just us. I never knew him.” Twigs and leaves crunched underfoot. Solana tried to think of something to say, but Reyes asked, “What about you?”

This was the part where she would tell him the thing she had told everyone, including herself, for twenty years. “I never knew my father either.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. The man she remembered was not the same man whose face was a warning, whose name was a curse. It was easier to believe that he had been a stranger all along. “My mother died when I was thirteen, and then it was just me.”

Reyes’s shoulder bumped into her. “We’re a pathetic pair,” he said lightly, and Solana laughed, grateful that there was no pity in his eyes or apologies in his words.

“I had Sami,” she said, unbidden. She didn’t know why, except that she felt like she had to make it known that she hadn’t been alone. That there were people who loved her. That she was lovable.

Smile gone, Reyes set his eyes forward. “He’s the one you bargained for.”

“The very one,” she said dryly.

“And you love him?”

“Yes,” she said simply. “Like a brother.”

“Does he know that?”

“Yes.” The word was harsh, fueled by guilt and resentment. They walked a few steps in silence, Solana’s mind working through every interaction with Sami that she could remember, all the times she had refused his invitations, his advances, his love. “I was never dishonest about what I want.”

“And what is that?” The question was soft. She glanced at Reyes to find his head bent and slightly tilted, leaned toward her as if he was genuinely interested in her answer. The way he gave everything his full attention made her skin buzz with some feeling she couldn’t quite place.

“Freedom. A fresh start somewhere far away.” Acceptance, she didn’t say. But when it came down to it, Solana knew it was more than freedom—she wanted to belong, to thrive. She couldn’t do that in Supay with her father’s legacy hanging over her head, with the burden of his mistakes seeping into her dreams and consuming her life, with the responsibility of the muki on her shoulders. If she went somewhere where nobody knew who she was, she could be whatever she wanted to be.

Perhaps softer, more idealistic. An appreciator of the smaller things in life. Perhaps she could break that third rule, do not be idle, and truly cement herself squarely among those banned from Hanan Pacha. It would be worth it for some rest.

“You can’t run from yourself,” Reyes said, but the words weren’t sharp. “Or what you can do.” He glanced at the dagger at her hip, and Solana knew that the moment for avoidance was over. “It’s only you that can command and release them.”

The events of the night played back in her mind. The way she had felt the release even though she wasn’t the one wielding the dagger. Those red stones in the hilt had been made with her blood, or with someone’s blood who was very closely related to her. Someone like her father.

With a sigh, Solana looked away from the intensity in his gaze and into the trees, where the only danger was the expected kind. Wild animals and venomous creatures and a mazelike spread of foliage. “Now we know at least one thing for certain,” she said, ignoring the fact that the thing they didn’t know felt like the most important mystery of all. “What comes next?”

“We experiment.” Already, she could hear the excitement in his voice. The eagerness for possibility. “We make more daggers, an antidote. Find a cure for the curse. We change everything.”

The words, though hopeful, made her chest squeeze concerningly. Solana only hoped it was her hatred of change and not a foretelling of what was to come.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

They arrived at the castle gates right before the sun set the world on fire in its final blast of glory. The dusk bells rang as they gave Laqha back to Roiden. “Will you be attending the ball tonight?” Reyes asked him.

Roiden grunted. “Do I look like a man that attends balls?”

Reyes laughed and patted him on the back, and then Solana followed him out of the stables, toward the front entrance of the castle. They were farther apart than they had been when walking in the forest, and not just physically. Solana could feel the halter of their normal slipping back into place. He was the king’s loyal servant, a Master with duties and a reputation. She was a nobody—a temporary fixture gone in several months. Even if she wore the badge and the uniform, hunted and killed beside him, they would never be equals.

They nodded at the guards manning the large double door. The receiving room was aflutter with activity, staff finishing the last touches before the ball began later this evening. The globe lights that hung from the walls were on their brightest setting, and every shadow, every speck of dust, was cleared from the corners. The silver gilding bordering the room and frames of art hanging on the walls glittered beautifully.