Page 58 of Daughter of the Dark

He nodded toward the bed. “Shift back a little further, please.”

She did as he asked and then watched as he rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. It was lightweight enough that those dark markings could be seen through it, and the fire burning in the corner made it appear as if it were glowing. Solana was barely aware of anything else as Reyes stepped closer.

“You’ll have to unbutton these,” he said, gesturing toward the two small buttons on the front of her shirt. “And pull the collar down.”

Again, she did as he asked, hoping that he didn’t notice the way her fingers shook and fumbled the buttons. Once they were free, she pulled the shirt down so that her shoulders and chest were exposed to the top of her breasts.

“I’m going to put one hand here.” His palm hovered over the center of her chest, his long fingers reaching from shoulder to shoulder. “And the other hand here.” He bent over her and reached behind so that his arms were a cage. She tilted her head back to give him more space, but it put her mouth right at his neck. She saw as he swallowed, and swore she could see his pulse racing in his throat.

“This is going to hurt, but I’m not trying to hurt you.”

Those words again. They were unnecessary, but she appreciated them all the same. “I know,” she breathed. And then she exhaled into his touch.

There was ice in her veins. Spears of it stabbing and stitching and mending. Solana whimpered and dropped her head against Reyes’s shoulder. She could feel him speaking, the vibration of his words penetrating the deep, agonizing ache of his gift, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. She was too aware of herself, of every inch of her body that was broken and bruised. If only he could mend the darkest parts of her. Let the cold of his gift shatter and repair the selfish and the undeserving right out of her. Take this gift she felt lurking deep within and give it to someone else.

“How much longer?” she gasped out.

As soon as she said the words, the cold was gone, replaced with an emptiness that left her reeling. Reyes’s body bowed into hers. They were a tangle of heaving chests and shaking arms.

“You fight me at every turn,” he said between deep breaths. “It would be so much easier if you’d let me in.”

“I thought I was,” she replied breathlessly.

Reyes huffed a laugh and then extricated himself from her and flopped onto the bed, his arms coming to rest over his eyes as if he could sleep for the next several days. She thought perhaps she would feel the same, but she was too wound up. Too full of regret and resentment and wishful thinking to lie down next to him.

When she slid off the bed, Reyes said nothing. He kept his eyes covered even as she walked to his desk and the books spread across the top. With gentle fingers, she turned a page, then another. Then she slid a book to the side and glanced at the one underneath it.

So many words and drawings and diagrams. There were notes written sloppily into the margins and Solana smiled knowing that his handwriting was grotesque. She couldn’t read any of it and wondered if even he knew what he had written. She kept flipping and glancing until she saw something that stopped her cold. Her eyes devoured the word that made it hard to breathe.

A trick of the light, she thought, but she bent and inspected it closer.

Ususi, it said.

Solana fell into the chair and pulled the book closer. “Reyes,” she whispered urgently. “What is this?”

He was beside her a moment later, leaning into her space and peering down at the book she pointed at. “It’s the history of Supay and our working knowledge of the curse.”

“Read it to me,” she begged.

“It’s in the gods’ tongue. I’m only able to read a few words.” He pointed to the word allpa, then at his notes. “This means land. And this”—he ran his finger down the page to the word ususi—“means daughter.”

Daughter, her dreams had whispered, come closer.

All along, it was her father in her head, sending visions and nightmares and messages veiled in darkness. She closed her eyes and tried to remember his face as it was twenty years ago, the sound of his voice, the relief of his embrace, but she couldn’t. It was too buried beneath resentment and regret.

Solana flipped to the next page, and there was another word she recognized. Vision gone blurry, she pointed at an underlined word in the center of many. “And this one?” she asked.

Reyes leaned ever closer. “Ñakapana means destroy, I think. I haven’t been able to confer with our head librarian because he’s been—”

The door burst open. Solana and Reyes jumped apart as if guilty, both of them reaching for weapons they weren’t wearing, but it was only Cora. Solana knew immediately that something was wrong.

“Reyes, come quick. Someone’s been hurt.”

Without question, Reyes ran after Cora, Solana following close behind.

They could hear the screams before they reached the infirmary, shrill and tortured, and the low hum of others trying to calm them down.

Reyes flew into the room with the kind of calm borne of someone who had seen his fair share of pain and death. Solana herself had seen it when he hovered over her with his knife, the way he maintained his composure even as she screamed and begged.