Page 62 of Daughter of the Dark

That she was making amends.

That she was powerless against her fate.

With a gasp of recognition, Solana stepped one foot into a vast well of her gift. In it, she felt the fate that tethered them to Supay by their very souls, and through that tether, she felt the unending despair. No longer was she afraid of the dark that would come to claim her. No longer would she allow it to control her choices.

There was a team at her back, a well of power at her fingertips, and endless possibility reaching far ahead of her.

Solana began to hum a soft lullaby Lucia had sung to her on their loneliest nights. When the pain of missing Masimu would become more than she could bear. When Solana was inconsolable with hunger those first months in a new city. When there seemed no end to their loss.

It was an old song about the power of love and the importance of dreaming, with low notes that made her throat tickle from disuse. Solana let the notes crack and sway and slid ever closer to Nikolas and the dark, to its tether in her mind, to the well of power in the depths of her soul. She waded and waded until there was nowhere left to go, and she slowly extended one gentle hand.

Nikolas’s chest rose and fell like that of a feverish bird’s beneath her palm, fighting to stay even as Solana scrambled for wisps of death.

A flash of light, of life, seared her eyes. The tether yanked her down into the pits of the dark, to the place where caves of black stone pulsed with the curse. A scream tore through her mind and shattered the images she saw. Hands pressed to stone. Mists of blood and shadow swirling in the emptiness. The same words said over and over like a chant, a plea, in a voice both familiar and unfamiliar at once.

Don’t do this, they screamed.

It yanked her deeper into her gift, beneath the waters of her well until she was drowning in it, clawing for the surface for breath, for life, powerless against the breadth and depth of the curse and its ties below the earth. The words rose into an indiscernible screech and then morphed into the howl of a monster. Solana’s throat burned with the force of it.

It was her screaming, and it was her body that was shoved into the present by an arm wrapped around her waist, dragging her backward. Nikolas’s body was arched off the ground, Reyes’s hands both cause and comfort. Oskar’s hands were on Reyes’s shoulders from behind, giving him that boost of longevity he so desperately needed. It was Cora holding her down, whispering something over and over that Solana couldn’t hear over the frantic beat of her blood and the panic churning in her gut as she watched Nikolas’s body bend to near breaking.

A roar filled the quiet of the room. The veins in Reyes’s neck strained to the point of danger. The muscles of his arms and back jumped and shifted. The cooling waves of his magic lessened until there was nothing left but an icy prick that dissipated like muki in the light.

A ghostly breeze blew through the room, and then Reyes fell back into Oskar. Suri caught Nikolas’s body before it hit the ground, and they all stilled. She placed her ear to his chest and closed her dark eyes.

One second passed, then three, then five. “Alive,” Suri finally said, the tension exhaling into relief.

They lingered there for a moment, in a place of loss and victory. Everyone was alive, but Solana was no closer to an answer than before. The curse had been as slippery as the bloody dagger in her hand, the dark inviting until it had felt the touch of her gift and spit her back out.

“I’m okay,” she heard Reyes murmur. Through a sheen of tears, Solana watched as he extricated himself from Oskar and crawled toward her, eyes searching, hands reaching. They pressed into her legs, her hips, her shoulders until they came to rest on either side of her neck.

Nothing needed to be said to explain that their theory had been tested and failed. The proof of that was in Solana’s eyes and in Reyes’s defeated exhale. He dropped his forehead to hers and she breathed him in. The room faded away. The whispers of the dark dissolved.

Solana was left with the profound knowledge that she had failed. If there was a way to save them all, she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to accomplish it.

Every time Solana closed her eyes, she saw a dark world and a shadowed man, her hands covered in the blood of those she loved, faceless forms and whispered words and impressions of a haunted life.

And she heard the same words, a melody on the breeze, a never-ending whisper in her ear.

Daughter, come closer.

It forced her out of bed to pace in front of the window. It lingered in the racing of her pulse and the shaking of her hands. She was filled with wariness, with restless energy, with the need to run or fight or both.

Her feet were carrying her away before she made the decision to move. The thin material of her nightgown was no barrier against the cold, and by the time she made it to his door, her teeth were chattering.

It opened before she could knock, and there he was, bare chested and barefooted, his silvery hair loose around his face, his eyes locked on hers. Reyes didn’t say a word as he stepped back and made space for her to slip in. She didn’t explain or ask questions. Simply padded past him, aware of every sound, every intake of breath, the air between them thick with anticipation.

It was exactly as it had been several nights ago: warm, and messy, the smell of smoke and wood lingering in every inhale. Solana turned to face him. She swallowed at the weight of his patience. She knew he was going to make her say it, and she was terrified that he would refuse.

How many times had he made it clear that she was everything he couldn’t stand? Solana wasn’t sure what it said about her that still she felt the deep and burning desire to feel his skin pressed against hers, to know what his mouth tasted like, if only this one time.

She licked her lips and was satisfied when Reyes’s eyes flickered toward them. “I can’t sleep.”

Reyes took a slow step forward. His hands were in his pockets, but she could feel his eyes like fingers on her skin as they traced her collarbones, her breasts, her hips and thighs. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice husky, making her stomach dance with desire.

It felt dreamlike, seeing him like this, hearing his words just for her. She couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a dream, but she worked up the courage to say, “You. I know that we aren’t anything more than reluctant allies, but we don’t have to like each other to enjoy each other’s bodies. I just need—”

“To forget?” Reyes interrupted, taking another step closer on silent feet, his eyes penetrating as they held hers. “To feel good?”