Page 23 of Daughter of the Dark

None moved, save for the slight rising of their shoulders or shifting of their elongated feet.

“How?” Solana whispered. The lone word echoed against the bars and disrupted the synchronized breathing and dripping. It was one thing to receive the king’s edict, the one that forbade them from killing any more demons, and it was entirely another thing to see them held, trapped in this cruel state of undead torment.

“They’re subdued upon capture, with an elixir that Reyes created, and once they’re put in with the rest, they just kind of … go dormant. Nobody knows why.” Cora’s words were a whisper that floated away after several heartbeats. Solana’s mind raced, but she didn’t say the words on the tip of her tongue. How could she describe the thickness of suffering or the desperation for release that she felt in the air? They were trapped. Physically and mentally. Prisoners to the curse and man.

“If the curse can be reversed, then all of these demons might be able to return to their families and lives.”

And that was the ultimate reason why what Solana did was so heinous and unforgivable to the people who had the privilege of possessing hope. The Masters patrolled Sonqo and Iques, perhaps even the outskirts of Qhilli, where the borders of the inner cities touched and the docks were busy with trade. But deep within Qhilli, in the callejon she called home, her people possessed no hope. They could not afford it.

So Solana hunted, and she killed, and she protected herself and her people to the best of her ability. It mattered little that it was done mostly out of guilt and as recompense for the actions of her father.

Masimu had been working with King Killian on a solution for the curse, not just to end it, but to reverse it. A way to give people back their loved ones, to rescue them from the eternal fate of a monstrous existence with no chance of ascending to Hanan Pacha.

It was a story they were told from the day they were born. A fate they all knew would come for them. The Uku Pacha was a realm that was meant as a holding place, an in-between while souls acclimated and ascended, but for the blood of Supay, it was perverted. Their souls became trapped, their bodies vessels of their god’s punishment.

The space before her looked like exactly that. An in-between. A fate worse than death.

After King Killian’s first attempt to reverse the curse was thwarted by Solana’s father and demons poured into the mortal realm unlike anything they had seen before, officially confirming their damnation, the king created a whole system dedicated to defending his work.

The Academy began training those with gifts for the more serious work of hunting and containing demons, and everyone else learned to exist in their respective roles of society.

The wealthy hired private retinues of Masters to keep their neighborhoods clean. The middle class relied on their proximity to the wealthy, and the lowest of low class relied on Solana and their own common sense to keep themselves alive.

Then there were those who hired Solana because they would rather see their loved ones released than rescued. The ones who could not wait for a possibility.

This was her father’s legacy. A dungeon full of monsters and a daughter with the almost intolerable itch to swipe her dagger across their necks, to sever their spinal cords and end their torment. Regret simmered in her belly. She wished she hadn’t asked to see the dungeon. She wished she could continue to claim ignorance of this. She wished she hadn’t agreed to do the king’s bidding.

Six months, she reminded herself.

Without another word, Cora turned to the stairwell and led Solana back up into the castle proper, through carpeted halls full of signs of the living, where warmth flooded her veins and soothed the disquiet in her soul. By the time she was back in her rooms, the sea of demons was just a flash with every blink. An inconvenient reminder of mistakes made and sidestepped fates.

A tray of dinner awaited her return, and Cora showed her an armoire full of nightclothes, luxurious dresses, and several sets of a richly made uniform, including a cloak and a Masters badge that glittered in the low light. The cloak was billowing and black, just like Reyes’s. Perfect for hiding her face from the people sure to recognize her.

Solana ate, but her belly was unsettled, her nerves frayed from the constant state of fight-or-flight she’d been in since waking in the infirmary. By the time she lay in the giant, overplush bed in the middle of the room, exhaustion pulled her under faster than her thoughts could keep her captive.

But her dreams were full of anguished cries and desperate pleas. At one point, she felt like she was being suffocated by it, only to wake and find her dagger in her hand and the unnecessarily plush pillow over her face. She untangled herself from the layers of sheets and dragged a single blanket and pillow over to the set of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the castle walls and the swath of city beyond.

The moonlight that washed over her was the most familiar thing in the room. It reminded her of the last time she had lain side by side with Sami, the rooftop under her belly, a dead city and bleak future spread before her.

So much had changed, and yet Solana felt the same. As if nothing in this world could satisfy the yawning hunger within her.

As she watched, the light shifted from a watery blue to a full-bodied orange and burned her sensitive eyes. Solana covered them with two hands and groaned. It felt as though she had been beaten and dragged through the cracked and crumbling streets of the callejon.

The food from last night sat mostly untouched on a table nearby, and her dress was tossed haphazardly over a lush chair. It wasn’t difficult to imagine this would have been her life had she stayed at the castle. The richest foods whenever she called for them. Dresses tailored to her every dip and curve. Late and slow mornings. Days spent socializing and shopping. Nights spent drinking and fucking and not hunting.

Speaking of hunting, Solana glanced at the window and noted the position of the sun in the sky. It was just cresting over the tops of the trees, casting the sky in shades of orange and yellow and pink that reminded her of the pastel buildings in the callejon. But something was off. Solana felt disoriented, until she realized the sun wasn’t cresting, but setting. She had slept away the entire day.

Stripping out of her underclothes on the way, Solana rushed to the armoire and yanked out a clean uniform. The fabric was crisp and unworn, scratchy against her sleep-sensitive skin. She tugged the black pants on, then the tunic, along with the leather vambraces and chest piece that fit eerily perfectly. She slid the black boots over her pants and tied up the sides with deft fingers. And then she threw the cloak over her shoulders and pinned it at her throat, the Masters badge like a weight.

When she was a girl, she had loved watching the graduation ceremony that took place in the castle every year. The Masters would showcase their skills in each of their gifts, a leftover magic from the gods that had become the lands of Auquis. A small remnant of their power, and a reminder of the potential that would never be fully realized. Their gifts were limited, and they were only recharged at night with restorative sleep. One could go their whole life without knowing they had one, or how to use it, which was where the Academy came in.

If one had the means, they could pay for testing and training. Solana had thought that she would one day attend the Academy and proudly bear the king’s badge, but she had never in her wildest imagination expected it would happen like this. From criminal to hunter. Prisoner to Master.

The shame of it had her itching to rip it off.

But she’d done her time, had more experience than Reyes and his team combined. She’d been living on her own since she was thirteen, had figured out the best way to kill a muki on her own, had stitched up her wounds on her own, had kept herself alive on her own. She deserved to be there just as much as anyone else.

Fully dressed and convinced of herself once again, Solana swiped her dagger from the bedside table, slipped it into a new sturdy leather sheath, and bolted for the door, only to lose her footing and almost die from a slip of parchment splayed on the floor. With a curse, she bent and ripped it open.