Page 70 of Daughter of the Dark

“I’m almost done,” he said, but she was barely aware of the ruined flesh on the palms of her hands or the bits of himaya embedded in her skin. She was too busy watching birds flutter into the strangely colored sky. Droves of them in bursts, first close, then farther and farther until they were fleeing from the center of the city.

The ground rumbled deep and far. Solana pressed her hands to it and knew, at that moment, what she had done.

Come, she had said to her father, to the dark, to the Uku Pacha and all of its children. One command, and they had obeyed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Solana and Reyes stumbled down the hill toward their horses, both of them depleted of their gifts. There was no time to speak, but they didn’t have to. Solana knew to ride with Reyes on Laqha. She knew to lean against him as the horse burst into action. His arm was like a band around her waist tethering her to him and the horse until they breathed and moved as one.

For a time, all they could hear was the drum of the horse’s hooves against the ground. It pounded through her body and head like a death knell, every beat a condemnation of the choices she had made.

Reyes pulled the horse to a stop. She could feel the heavy rise and fall of his chest through her back. She was about to turn and ask him why he had stopped when she heard it.

A sharp shriek that echoed through the forest.

The trees surrounding them stilled, both creatures and flora alike. It was as if the world had paused just to hear it again.

Another shriek, closer this time.

Reyes’s hand squeezed her thigh. Solana sucked in one shaky breath after another, ears strained, eyes wide open, and they waited.

And heard.

Shadows darted between the trees. Flashes of glistening skin and knife-sharp talons. Solana’s mare whinnied and burst down the path past them. Reyes shot after her just in time, flying by a muki that stretched out its arm to catch them. Laqha needed no more encouragement after that. They flew through the forest, the trees a blur on every side. Their pace never wavered. The dread in Solana’s belly never abated. The closer to the city, the more it compounded, until she could taste it like blood on her tongue.

When they broke through the last of the trees and could see the bridge and the castle beyond, Solana sucked in a breath. The scent of burning flesh filled her nostrils. Plumes of smoke barreled into the sky. Demons skittered across the ground and between buildings, screams of terror and agony piercing the air in their wake, the daylight no longer strong enough to keep them at bay.

Solana leaned left, toward the city and their people, where she thought Reyes would also lean, but he veered Laqha to the right and toward the small gate set in the side wall of the castle grounds.

“What are you doing!” she screamed. Her voice was lost to the wind and the sound of chaos rending the air. All she could do was hold her breath and duck as they cleared the gate. It dropped with a clang behind her. People raced across the castle yard. She saw Hakun shouting orders and several of the Masters pouring out of the main gates and onto the bridge.

Reyes swung off and grasped her hips to pull her down. Solana grabbed Laqha’s reins and pulled the beast backward and out of his reach.

Reyes’s eyes widened. “Solana, what are you doing?”

“I have to go out there. I have to help,” she said breathlessly. The way the sun’s light had shifted made it so there were shadows over Reyes’s eyes. He looked more severe and exhausted than she had ever seen him.

“We need a plan,” Reyes argued. “You can’t keep running headfirst into trouble.”

“The longer we plan, the more people die!”

Reyes surged forward and grabbed her upper arms, his grip tight enough to bruise. “You are the only person who can stop what you’ve started. We need you alive for that. Despite how desperate you seem to get yourself killed.”

There was accusation in his tone, but before Solana could say anything, he was storming away, the hem of his cloak whipping angrily in the wind. She had no choice but to leave the horse with Roiden, who gave her a pitying look, and follow behind.

The courtyard was loud enough that Solana could barely hear herself think, but once behind the main doors of the castle, it was all she could hear. The noise from outside fell away and left her with the cold truth of what she had done.

In trying to reverse the curse, she had brought Uku Pacha even closer. She had ushered the beasts that terrorized them right through the front doors, and now they were feasting on the living while she wallowed in guilt and shame.

More than that, she knew without a shadow of doubt that she had paved the way for her father to return. He would delight in her failure and surely use it to further his own designs. What a mess she had made, and there was Reyes, leading the charge to clean it up, just as he had told her he would.

Everything, and yet nothing, had changed.

“Where are we going?” she called after Reyes, who stormed ahead of her.

“To speak to the king.” He answered without bothering to turn around and led her to the same room they had stood in when she had given an oath to serve and protect. Another way in which she had failed. King Killian stood with his fists pressed into the dark, round table, a sea of maps spread out before him. The crown atop his head was gone, the rings usually adorning his fingers absent, and his cloak was thrown over a chair beside him. She had never seen him look so human.

Until he raised his eyes to her, and she was reminded of the power he held over her. “You’re brave to show your face here after what you’ve done,” he seethed. “It’s lucky that the Masters are adequately prepared for such an eventuality as this.”