Page 95 of Daughter of the Dark

Except it didn’t move again. It froze with her blood dripping from its wide-open maw. A glance at Reyes told her that his muki had also frozen in place. All down the alley were bodies of blackened flesh sitting unnaturally still.

Then, as one, as if their heads were on a string, they all turned to her. Their nostrils flared and their mouths opened wide, a single word chanted over and over dripping from their lipless mouths.

Ñakapana, Ñakapana, Ñakapana.

Solana slowly backed away, Reyes beside her and gripping the back of her shirt as if she might disappear before his eyes. They sensed her blood and who she was, but they sought her for Killian, an army with an order from their commander. She could feel the turmoil inside of them, the clash of desire and direction, their movements jerky as they fought themselves but surged ever forward.

One broke from the rest and lunged at her head. Solana ducked and dodged and swung, severing life and limb. Its grief hit her like a wave in the moment of reprieve after its death, and it was that short moment that broke the dam.

The rest came at her like a flood. Reyes screamed her name and yanked her by the back of her shirt into the tavern. The door closed behind them with a deafening thud.

Chest heaving, Solana pressed her back against the wood and turned to Reyes. “They’ll follow me if I run.”

“Don’t you dare,” Reyes spit out, his harsh tone a stark contrast to the gentle fingers that came up and brushed her shoulder. The worst of her wounds faded with every beat of her heart. “Do not do this again.”

“This is different.” She covered his fingers with hers and squeezed. “I have another one of my reckless plans. Do you trust me?”

“Always,” he murmured without hesitation.

“I’m going to rift now, and they’re going to follow, but they won’t be able to reach me where I’m going. Gather everyone with a dagger and head to the docks. Don’t stop fighting, okay? No matter what.”

Reyes drank her in as if he were a man dying of thirst. “No matter what,” he whispered solemnly.

She pressed her lips to his one last time, and then she rifted away.

Solana stood in the middle of the sea on a rock big enough for only her. Behind her was nothing but wide-open water and the dark, fathomless sky. Above her were the stars like watchful eyes, twinkling with amusement or awe or pity. Below her were swirling waters filled with the yakumama.

Just as she had hoped, the muki had followed her trail. They were amassing on the shores of the beach in front of her, a writhing sea of glistening flesh and knifelike talons.

Though she couldn’t feel the curse beneath the shell of Killian’s control, she could feel the muki themselves. How they yearned for freedom, the tendrils of their darkness that was so like hers. She breathed in their rage and their despair, and she beckoned it closer with gentle promises and peaceful offerings. Because the king had commanded they follow her, they rifted into the water, abandoning the fight on land and buying her time while she patiently waited for them to gather and her friends to appear.

There was no safe place for them to land. They splashed into the churning sea, their limbs uncoordinated and their minds clouded with hunger. They came, and they sputtered and sucked in lungfuls of water, and then they sunk below the surface, the glow of their collars growing smaller and smaller, until one by one, they disappeared.

But it wasn’t the depths of the sea that swallowed them. It was the mouth of a large, snakelike beast with glowing green eyes. When it felt Solana’s attention, it turned its head and met her gaze. She swore it smiled at her before it swallowed another muki in one bite and then turned away.

It was her worst nightmare come to life, though they weren’t the bodies of her friends floating around her, and she breathed out the terror trapped within her chest at the possibility of it. They ran onto the beach, fully alive and raring for a fight, a crowd of her people following behind them and plunging into the mass of muki with a roar of determination. A different kind of fear swelled within her at the sight.

This time, she could not fail.

Solana rifted to Reyes’s side. He didn’t so much as blink at her sudden appearance, absorbing her movement as if it were his own. “I need your help,” she told him.

“Whatever you need,” he said, slashing at a muki that came too close. They had all turned their attention to her, their gaits slow and confused as they switched directions.

A different kind of threat appeared at the top of the hill behind the docks, ushered in by a cloud of smoke and men in gray robes.

Killian sat on a large black horse, the prongs of his silver crown piercing the cloudless night above him. Even from such a distance, Solana could feel the stab of his icy gaze, the eagerness to get his hands on her and her blood. She was the only thing standing in his way of total and complete control.

Her blood was the only thing that could end this all.

With his eyes on her, Solana brought the edge of her dagger to the inside of her wrist. She sliced deeply and slowly, ignored the burn of pain and seed of doubt that told her this might not work.

“No!” Killian screamed over the chaos. “Stop her!” The Servants of Death and muki surged forward at his command.

“What are you doing?” Reyes reached for her, the tendrils of his gift already beginning to heal her torn flesh.

But Solana slipped his grasp and pushed his gift away. “Not yet,” she told him. “Not until I say. I just need time.”

Reyes’s eyes held hers, and in them she saw everything she needed and more. She dropped to her knees and pressed her bloodied palms into the sand, watching with awe as the earth greedily drank her in.