Page 76 of Daughter of the Dark

“I don’t have your power. The most I could do was keep her company.”

Solana didn’t know if it was a comfort or not, knowing that he had been with her mother all this time when it was all she had wanted when she was alive. But it was Solana that was left alone. Without guidance or explanation, left to fend for herself. “What do you mean, your power?”

With a sigh, Masimu shifted to face her. “I can’t call them or release them. I can rift, and I’m immune to their poison. The perfect soldier, but nothing more. Only you can release them.”

Which meant that he couldn’t break the curse, or call and control demons as the king claimed he could, and possibly everything she thought she knew was a lie. Including the truth of where Lucia’s soul had rested all these years.

Instinctively, her hand moved to the hilt of her dagger, dreading the idea of using it against her mother, but a gentle touch stopped her short. “You can do it without your dagger,” he said softly. “Your power is so much greater than you know.”

Because you weren’t there to teach me, she wanted to say, but it wouldn’t change anything, and she was grateful to have this opportunity to see her mother one last time, to finally give her a true death.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Solana strode forward and grasped the handle. It turned easily—Masimu must have fixed it—and the room came into view slowly. It was nothing like she remembered it. There were books piled all over the floor, and small globe lights that cast a warm orange glow over the space. The table to the left was covered in papers and a pair of spectacles that looked vaguely familiar. The chair on the right had a blanket tossed over the back that wasn’t moth- or mice-eaten, and on the bed, curled into a ball on its side and pressed against the wall, was a muki.

Solana knew it was Lucia immediately. She could feel it in her soul. The muki was still, as if it were sleeping or dead, but its lidless eyes were forever open. It made no move when Solana stepped farther into the room, or when a shaft of watery light touched the edge of the bed.

Stomach in her throat, Solana stepped slowly closer, past the books and the cracks in the stone floor, to the same bed she had sat beside for three days straight before her mother left the mortal realm forever. She imagined Masimu sitting there instead, day after day, powerless to help Lucia but unwilling to let her suffer alone. The pain it must have caused him.

The pain she was now willing and eager to accept.

“Tell me what to do,” she whispered.

Masimu’s voice was equally soft and soothing, reminding her of the nights she had trouble sleeping and he would tell her stories to settle her mind.

“You have to wield your gift like a knife. This is not about letting go or surrendering. It’s about control and intention.” Masimu moved closer and placed his hands on her shoulders. She didn’t feel the need to shake them off. “Find her soul and cut it at the root.”

With his touch grounding her, Solana sunk deep into the well of her gift and imagined honing it into the sharp edge of a blade. The waters were her weapon, not a threat. They answered to her command, just as the curse would. She let out a deep exhale and extended her awareness toward Lucia’s muki form, prodding at the edges of her quiet consciousness with gentle pressure.

Those familiar emotions were there waiting for her, but nothing so agonizing as before. Solana was able to navigate them with a quiet certainty and heartbreak until she found the very core of the muki’s being, and placed the tip of her gift against it.

Fear, sharp and hot, stabbed her in the chest. A drop of sweat rolled down the middle of her back. Her mother’s grief was heavy, pressing against her, threatening to suffocate and snuff out the power she had collected to release her.

“Breathe, Solana,” her father said, his voice distant but within her all the same. “You are in control. You are strong and capable.”

He was right—Solana knew that. Her power was glowing in her mental mind, the edge glistening against the pit of the curse waiting to be severed. This was what she had always wanted, what she had been waiting and waiting for. It didn’t matter that it might hurt; Lucia had suffered enough, and Solana wasn’t a little girl anymore. She wasn’t afraid of pain.

“Do you want to say goodbye?” she asked her father.

There was a pause, and then he said, “No,” so softly Solana almost didn’t hear it. “The last thing she feels should be you.”

So, Solana exhaled all of her doubt and inhaled a steadying breath. “Hello, Mami,” she said gently. “I’m here to set you free.” She pressed her power deeper and then paused again. “Thank you for saving me. Thank you for making me strong and brave and difficult. It’s kept me alive all these years. You have kept me alive all these years. I want you to know that.”

Solana didn’t expect to feel or hear anything in return. She didn’t wait for permission or for forgiveness, but she felt it all the same. A gentle warmth that washed away the cold anticipation. A burning, healing love that strengthened her gift and steadied her hand. The light of the blade cut into the darkness with little effort. A graceful severing that rushed through Solana like a wave of freedom so fresh and pure that she felt like she could breathe for the first time in fourteen years.

She was weightless. More powerful than ever. Free.

Lucia’s muki form dissipated into smoke, the fragments of her soul swirling around her like tiny shards of diamonds and stars. The pressure of Masimu’s hands lifted, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she found him on his knees, one hand in the air lovingly caressing those shards of stars, rivers of tears cutting through his cheeks. Solana swiped away the moisture on her own.

“What else do I need to know?” she asked firmly.

Masimu sniffed and lifted his head. He left the tears where they were, unashamed to let her see his shared pain. “There’s so much,” he said, eyes distant. “But we’ll start here.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Books and papers covered the floor, some in a language Solana didn’t understand but looked slightly familiar from the night she had seen them in Reyes’s room.

Reyes. She thought of the betrayal she saw on his face, how he must think her just like her father. Solana watched Masimu on his knees beside her, rifling through sheaves of information, his black cloak spread onto the floor like a puddle of ink, and felt a pang of sorrow. That she had so easily believed the worst of him. That she still wasn’t certain he could be trusted, even after the gift he had just given her. That she had lost so much to the whims of gods and men.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Masimu said, a shaky hand pressed against his brow. “Our gift and our purpose have existed since the beginning of time. There’s so much you don’t know, so much that we—”