Page 90 of Daughter of the Dark

Her family.

The dawn bells began to ring, and they pressed their hands to their hearts as she passed by. As unworthy as Solana felt, she didn’t take this moment from them. She let their silent support carry her all the way to the blacksmith’s house.

It would stay with her until the day she died, and well beyond that.

Cora said nothing, only wiped at her eyes and waited for Lochan to answer his door.

It had been a long time since she saw him. They had briefly played together as children, before he got too busy to come down the hill and Sami began spending most of his time with her. He was only a year older than her, but he looked weary and worn with his light brown hair sticking out in all directions and the buttons on his shirt half done.

The shop was smaller than she remembered. When she placed a purse full of ilyas on the workbench between them, Lochan’s eyes flared wide. “That’s a lot of ilyas, Solana.”

“We have a big ask,” she said, pulling the himaya from her pocket and handing it to him. “We need you to add this to the hilts of several blades you’ve already made.”

“How many is several?”

Cora slung the bag of himaya onto the bench. The ilyas rattled in their bag.

“As many as you can make today.”

Lokan stared at both bags for a moment, lips slightly parted, and then he glanced at Cora before giving Solana his attention once again. “What will happen to the people on the other end of these weapons?”

“They’ll die, just like any mortal would, if the curse didn’t exist.”

His eyes narrowed. Solana thought he might ask more questions, but he stuck out his hand and said, “Come back tonight and I’ll give you as much as I can finish.”

Solana left with something like hope stirring in her chest. They were higher up from where she lived, and several of the alleys unfurled below them in a riot of muted blues and greens and purples. This wasn’t a part of the city she often visited, and she was glad to be able to see it like this, awash in sunlight and peaceful, one last time.

“There’s something I need to do before we go back to Jacobi’s,” she said to Cora, a second pouch of ilyas clutched tightly in her cloak pocket.

Sami’s house was a pretty light blue with flower boxes affixed to the small window to the left of the door. The curtains were drawn, so she couldn’t see inside, but she had knocked and waited for what felt like an hour before deciding either they were gone, or they didn’t want to see her. She was afraid it was the latter, even as she hoped for it, and she didn’t have the time or the courage to wait and find out.

The extra purse of coins she had brought for them was heavy in her pocket as they snuck their way back to Jacobi’s, dipping in and out of side streets to avoid the collared muki that patrolled the city. They didn’t seem to be looking for anything in particular, which felt more dangerous than mollifying.

Cora remained quiet, but Solana could feel her worry just as sharply as her own. It felt as though Killian was waiting for something. What, she didn’t know. What she did know was that she had to fight to stay where she was instead of rifting to where Killian might be. Where Reyes might be.

But she would never forgive herself if she failed again. The only logical thing to do was wait and plan, to be certain that everything was thought out and taken care of, even if it meant accepting help.

The door to Jacobi’s gave way after a complicated jiggle and swung open to reveal a hush of conversation. Her eyes adjusted and she gaped at the room before her.

It was filled to the brim with people. Jacobi was behind the bar pouring drinks. Oskar and Suri were with him, while Celeste and Alina ferried glasses from the bar to tables. Mouth open, she watched for several heartbeats before someone said her name, the conversation slowly quieted, and all eyes turned to her.

There were faces she recognized and some she didn’t. Children she had snuck sweets to after a particularly lucrative kill. People whose loved ones she had freed. An older couple who hadn’t been able to pay her and had fed her dinner for three nights in a row instead. And then a face came into view that she knew from a distance, that she recognized only because it had the same kind eyes she had looked into for so many nights.

Sami’s mother approached her slowly, her eyes already filled with tears that pooled along her bottom lashes. There was a cool hand at her back that nudged her forward, into the waiting woman’s arms, and then she was enveloped. “Solana,” she whispered.

Nothing else was said, but nothing else needed to be said. They had both loved Sami so much, and the loss of him was like a piece of her soul forever missing. She couldn’t imagine what it would have felt like to lose a son. She didn’t deserve her comfort, but when she tried to pull away, Mariana only pulled her closer.

“Sami made his choices. He loved you,” she murmured into her hair. “Do not use his death as an excuse to sacrifice yourself.”

Mariana pushed her to arm’s length and that was when Solana noticed the rest of the room had stood, the weight of their eyes solemn and heavy. “We’re here to fight with you.”

Solana looked at their faces, young and old, people she had lived beside and survived beside her entire life, and she knew that some of them would not survive what was to come. She wanted to tell them to go home, to lock their doors and close their curtains, to take this from them so that they never had to face it. But it was their own choice to help her. Whether they were simply repaying debts or something else entirely, Solana nodded and accepted her people for who they were. Fighters willing to die to save their city. They were the best of Supay, her people, and she would serve them to the best of her ability.

By the time night fell, the daggers were ready and spread among everyone in Jacobi’s tavern, including herself. The room was full of people she had known for her whole life and people she had just met, all of them eager and willing to die to release the people of Supay and protect all of Auquis from Killian. The responsibility was not hers alone, and it never had been. Solana felt the burden of it lift from her shoulders, replaced only with the desperate, aching need to save Reyes.

“I’m coming with you,” Cora demanded for the tenth time, but Solana only shook her head. “You can’t go alone. What if you’re caught? What if—”

“I can rift out if I need to, but it’ll be more difficult to rift both of us. This is the best option.” Cora stared at her, jaw working. Oskar leaned back in his chair with a mostly full glass of pisco swirling in one hand. The mood was somber, but there was music, food and drink, and good company surrounding them. A strange contrast to their conversation.