Page 72 of Daughter of the Dark

Ususi.

The word was a scream inside her head. Solana panicked and retracted her power, grasping at her chest as it curled into a knot. Regret simmered in her belly, but the damage had been done. Masimu knew where she was, and he was coming.

“He’s coming,” Solana said aloud. Five pairs of hands tightened. Knees bent in preparation. Eyes narrowed to peer into the shadows.

Time seemed to slow until every beat of her heart was a solitary thump in her ears, every detail surrounding her was carved in excruciating clarity.

One moment, her eyes were wide open and burning, the next, there was nothing but shadows and icy mist, a pressure against her body that made her jump and scream in surprise.

Someone yelled her name. Solana blinked and her friends were gone. She was on her knees and there was dirt underneath her where there had been stone before. Black spots danced at the edges of her vision and her stomach turned, thick saliva coating the inside of her mouth.

Swallowing it down, Solana pushed back onto her haunches and lifted her head. One moment, there was no one there. The next, a cloud of shadows appeared, a cloaked figure within them. He was half mist and half corporeal, a man of myth and legend. A cautionary tale. A nightmare that would not end.

“Hello, Father,” Solana hissed into the gloom.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The figure stepped out of the mist and into the shaft of moonlight spearing the ground. Suddenly, all those features she had forgotten with time and resentment were clearly visible. His searing, sympathetic eyes and sharp, stubborn jaw and sharper teeth that he bared in a sorrowful smile. She had the strangest urge to walk toward him, to demand answers and beg for the truth and fall into his arms. Did it hurt to see her? Did he care that she wasn’t the same person he had left behind?

“You’ve made a name for yourself,” he said coolly. His voice was deep, piercing. Another step closer, and she could see the dimple on his left cheek that matched hers, and the piece of parchment in his hand with her face on it. “The Demon Hunter of Supay,” he read. “You’ve become a formidable fighter.”

“Life has been a formidable foe,” she said harshly.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. Solana knew she should push to her feet and command him immediately, but she couldn’t help but wonder what he would say or do next. In the twenty years since she had last seen him, she had never once considered coming face-to-face with him again, and certainly not like this. If anything, she thought she would come across his muki form, that her soul would have recognized him and she would have the opportunity to release him and herself of his legacy.

She was partially right. Her soul still knew his, but seeing Masimu alive was entirely different than seeing flashes of him in her dreams. Those images were hard to hold on to. This version of him was solid and clear. The proclamations splattered across the land did him no justice, the stories told to children painting him as a monster with sharp teeth, cunning eyes, and fingers curled and ready to kill.

The reality of it was that he looked just like her, but with gray streaks in his hair and deeper lines around his eyes and forehead. Time had continued to move forward for both of them and so much had been lost to it. She was no longer the girl with stars in her eyes and hope in her heart. The dark in her had replaced both and spread to consume her every thought. Now, she only wanted her father close enough to press her dagger to his throat.

“You called?” He gestured around them, to the city, to the dead demons left in her wake. “Your timing isn’t great.” She bristled at the implication. As if he hadn’t taken the first opportunity to walk back into the living realm and face her.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest dramatically. “Would you rather wait until everyone on Supay is a muki? Would that serve your plans better?”

“My plans? Is that what you think?”

Solana gritted her teeth. “It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is that you betrayed them. Betrayed us.” She jabbed a finger at her chest. “And the only thing I want is to kill you.”

Masimu’s face softened, the shadows shifting and highlighting his eyes, which glistened with unshed tears. It made her falter the tiniest bit. When she was young, she would sometimes catch him staring at her in just the same way. While she played, while she sang, while she trained with a wooden sword against matchstick men.

“What?” she asked with a giggle.

Masimu smiled and tilted his head with one eye narrowed. “Nothing, daughter of mine. I’m just making sure you’re real.”

“If you kill me, then you’ll never know the truth,” he said, his voice rougher than she remembered it. He shifted a step forward and Solana clutched her dagger tighter.

King Killian had said his mind was warped, that nothing Masimu said could be trusted, but it didn’t feel warped. She had touched it and recognized it. Perhaps the king was wrong, and Solana could get the information she needed, after all. She could get close enough to use his power as her own.

But if she was wrong …

“The king lies, Solana. You cannot trust him,” he said, as if she was so easy to read.

“I don’t,” she snapped, but it felt like a lie. In his presence, it was easy to believe every word he spoke. Only when she was out from under his attention did she think to doubt him. It made it difficult to trust herself and her instincts, and now there she was, allowing another man to have the same effect on her. Solana surged to her feet and extended her dagger, the point eye level with Masimu. “How do I reverse the curse?”

He raised his hands in surrender and shook his head. “It’s not that simple. Let me—”

But there was no time to waste. Her friends would find her soon, and Solana only had until then to get what she needed. “Kneel,” she commanded, voice laced with power. Masimu didn’t so much as twitch to obey. Panic fluttered in her chest, and she squeezed her dagger tighter than possible to quell it. “Tell me how to reverse the curse,” she ordered.

“Solana,” he said on a sigh, as if she were an exasperating child and he the doting father with endless patience.