Page 47 of Daughter of the Dark

It came and it went like a held breath released with a sharp exhale.

The forest came back to life slowly. A moth with white wings warily hovered over Solana’s cheek before it landed and clung to a lock of her hair. Reyes shoved the demon to the side, slid his legs out from underneath its body, and scooted backward until his back was against a nearby tree. Then he looked at her. “What was that?” he asked, shoulders heaving with ragged breaths.

“A monster,” Solana whispered, the tang of its fury still coating her mouth. The moth fluttered away and lost itself among the canopy of leaves. She kept her eyes on the demon as she edged closer to Reyes. “Did you feel any of that?”

He looked at her strangely. “No,” he answered. Elbows on bent knees, he inspected the dagger in his hand. “I felt nothing at all except—”

Through the trees, there was a crash and a sharp screech. The forest fell silent again. In Reyes’s hand, the red stone in the pommel of her dagger lit up like a small sun. He hissed and dropped it, but Solana was already lunging toward him and scooped it up.

“We need to run,” she said breathlessly.

Reyes shot to his feet and grabbed his dagger and her free hand. “I know where we can go,” he said, and then he yanked her behind him, through the trees and up a steep incline, over gnarled roots and large rocks. Solana’s hand burned, but her mind felt sharper and clearer than ever, her senses finely attuned to the muki giving chase.

If she had been in the city, surrounded by familiarity and with Sami at her side, she would have known exactly where to go. But as it was, the forest floor was unfamiliar, the trees an obstacle she didn’t know how to overcome, the muki somehow more terrible than the ones she knew.

Everything felt different and wrong.

Finally, Reyes pulled her over a rocky outcropping, into the mouth of a small cave that was wet with cold. What little light there was disappeared, but Reyes kept a tight hold of her hand, his steps steadfast as he guided her deeper and deeper.

She allowed herself to be led, to be pulled further into the dark and her trust in Reyes. There had been a time when she would have wondered if he was planning to murder her and dispose of her body far from where anyone could find her, but that time had seemingly passed. Instead, her hand in his felt safer than anything else. More natural than letting go.

Solana did exactly that, an old habit for self-preservation rearing its ugly head. Reyes won’t notice. Her hand in his was the least of his concerns at the moment.

But he paused, and she felt him searching the space between them for her once again. “Solana?” He said her name as if he sensed the trail her thoughts had taken, and though it was dark, she could imagine the way his eyes glinted while they darted back and forth, searching for her. “We’re almost there.”

She wrapped her fingers around his waiting hand. “Sorry, I had an itch.”

The lie was hollow, but Reyes accepted it all the same and tugged her forward, grip tighter than before. They turned a corner, and the space opened. The chill in the air deepened and sent a shiver down her spine. Reyes was the one to let go of her this time, but only for a moment before a small, circular light appeared above his palm.

It was a miniature version of the globe lights in the castle, and it sent a pale blue wash over their faces. “You can manifest,” Solana said, lifting a finger to prod at it. Supay’s magic was the most creative of all, in her opinion. The ability to will something into existence. She had never seen it up close. Could never have imagined that the results were so tangible.

And then there was Reyes, with not one gift, but two.

“Not very well,” he admitted easily. As if on cue, the small light sputtered and then solidified again. Shadows flickered over the space they were in, some sort of entrance where beyond she could sense an even larger space that bent away from the light and drifted into complete darkness.

“My father is—or was—from Supay, but my mother is from Achiq.”

Solana listened and hummed as something caught her attention. She stepped closer to the wall with eyes narrowed. “Your healing gift is from her?” she asked absentmindedly.

“It is. She doesn’t have it herself, but—”

Reyes’s voice faded, replaced by the whispering dark and the strangest urge to reach out and touch the wall. Running through the dirt were veins of something darker, something iridescent and unknowable, a stone she had watched turn to a bloody red before her eyes. It beckoned her closer, tempted her to touch and feel and take.

Solana had never been good at avoiding temptations, and when her fingers pressed against the veins of himaya, the longing she felt stirring in her belly sucked her under and wrapped a fist around her lungs until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

Couldn’t help but finally see.

Deep underneath the earth, far below the living and closer to the dead, was a room of stone. A place where life and death met and swirled in a delicate balance, where the pulse of the heart of Supay could be felt through the ground and the air was perpetually cold. The black stone spread like a spiderweb through the core of the land, the blood of their god solidified, invasive and consuming.

Two men kneeled in the center of the room, their palms pressed to the earth where the black stone was the thickest. One who believed he could use his blood to cure, one who intended to use his blood to command, their intentions swirling thick in the air. They poured their gifts into the rock. One shone blue, the other red. One with eyes like onyx, the other crystalline. Both of them bent in supplication, in desperation.

A roar rent the air. The walls shivered.

The one encased in red snapped his head up to meet her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, torment seeping through his pores. “It’s time to rise.”

Solana woke with a gasp that echoed against the stone walls and mocked her. Above was a ceiling of dirt threaded through with tree roots and veins of black. Below was a body, warm and firm. A hand was tangled in her hair, another resting on her abdomen, fingers curled softly in sleep.