Chapter 47
Daisy
Istep into the darkened tub, the black gown I wear clinging to my body, the fabric floating in the water like spilled ink.
The liquid is warm, murky, and dense, clinging to my skin with the weight of something unnatural.
The scent is overwhelming, like earth, ash, and ancient magic long since rotted.
The tips of my hair brush the surface, steam curling around me like a living thing.
I lower myself until the water reaches my neck, my breath hitching as anxiety claws at me.
“If you fucking hurt her,” Korithax snarls, taking a step toward me. His voice is low, a lethal warning.
“Oh, please,” Maelkar says, waving a lazy hand. “Like I’d be stupid enough to piss off the Heir of Hell. I’m not suicidal, Korithax.” He smirks, gliding to my side. “Back up, princeling. Unless you want your own memories peeled from that pretty skull.”
Korithax’s jaw flexes, his eyes seeming to have a glowing ember behind them.
“It’s okay, Korithax,” I whisper, meeting his eyes. “I’ll be okay.”
Reluctantly, Korithax steps back, but the murderous energy radiating off of him could ignite the walls. Gods, if looks could kill, every inch of Noxthrallia would be ash.
“Alright, sunshine,” Maelkar says, lowering his voice into a croon as he moves behind me. “Lay your head back and let the water hold you. Just relax for me.”
I inhale sharply and do as he says. My head tips back against the curve of the tub, the warmth lapping at my throat.
He gathers my hair with a reverent touch, letting it fall like a golden curtain over the outside edge of the basin.
I look up and see Maelkar’s eyes gleaming, those pitch-black irises circled by that eerie violet ring. His thumb strokes my bottom lip.
“Delicious,” he murmurs.
His face is breathtaking. Beautiful in the way a predator can be—mesmerising, exquisite… and absolutely wrong. Korithax snarls from across the room, a guttural warning that shakes the very air.
Maelkar merely chuckles, drawing his hand back from my face. “Down, boy.”
He leans in, his voice velvet, his murky scent invading my senses. “Now… let’s open that little door in your mind, shall we?”
I nod, breathing through the knot in my chest. I find the door—the one I had slammed shut earlier just to stay sane—and I let it creak open.
The memory waiting behind it slithers into the forefront of my mind like a venomous fog.
It rises, threatening to choke me, but I don’t fight it.
I let it in. Maelkar’s nostrils flare, his pupils dilating so much that the violet completely vanishes.
His body trembles as he moans—low and guttural, like he’s tasting something exquisite.
“Close your eyes, sweetheart.”
I obey, and his hands slide to my temples, cool and firm. The world falls away, and I’m there again.
The hospital room is white.
Too white. It smells like bleach and sadness.
Machines beep softly behind me, counting down the seconds to a final breath.
I’m seven years old, clutching my mother’s hand in both of mine, my little fingers barely able to wrap around hers.
Her skin is pale—almost translucent. Her lips are dry and cracked.
She’s bald beneath her bright yellow silk scarf, her once-glowing blonde hair now only a memory.
Her honey eyes, sunken and rimmed in purple shadows, flicker slowly open. She smiles.
She always smiles. Even when the pain’s unbearable. Even when the nurses whispered, and the doctors stopped offering words of hope.
“Sunshine…” she whispers, her voice so faint it could be mistaken for wind. “You’re…so brave…”
Her hand twitches in mine, her thumb barely grazing my knuckles.
“I’m scared,” I say through tears. My nose is running, my cheeks soaked. “Don’t go.”
She smiles again, weaker this time. Her chest rises with a shallow breath, then another. Then… stillness. The beeping slows. Then a long, solid tone fills the air.
“NO!” I scream, pushing to my feet. I shake her with as much force as my tiny body can manage. “No, mama! WAKE UP!”
I scream until my throat aches. I scream until my voice cracks. But she doesn’t wake up. She never wakes up.
My father sits in the corner, head down, a single tear tracking down his cheek.
He says nothing. Offers nothing. Just stands and walks out of the room, leaving me alone.
Leaving me holding my mother’s hand as her body slowly turns cold.
After what feels like hours, my father returns, beckoning me to leave.
“No. I can’t leave her here. She has to come home. She has to.”
I scream and scream and scream as he tears me away from her. My little arms and legs kick furiously as he drags me away from my mama’s cold, still body. Down the too-bright hallways, and back to a house that will never feel my mother’s warmth again.
A sob tears from my throat, and I jolt upward—but Maelkar’s hands keep me still.
“It’s done,” he whispers, his voice hoarse with power.
I open my eyes, gasping. The tub feels colder now, the frigid water lapping at my skin. The memory fades like smoke, vanishing from the forefront of my mind, but the ache of it lingers, like a phantom limb that still tries to twitch. I blink up at Maelkar, my entire body trembling.
He smiles, looking almost drunk from the power of the memory he stole. “Such pain, so very young. Absolutely beautiful.”
Korithax is instantly by my side, growling at Maelkar as he wraps his arms around me and scoops me out of the tub, the warmth of his magic drying me. His voice comes out as a low snarl. “Don’t fucking touch her again.”
Maelkar raises his hands. “I’ve taken what I wanted. Now let’s give her what she came for.”
He walks towards a slab of stone in the centre of the ritual chamber, his fingers trailing violet sparks in the air.
Korithax helps me to my feet, holding me against him like I might shatter.
I’m shaking, every nerve in my body buzzing from the emotional storm I just endured.
But I’m still standing, I’m still me. And I’m about to become so much more.
The warmth in Maelkar is gone, replaced by something cold, something almost sinister.
The air around us thickens as he lifts his hands, sleeves swaying as he claps twice.
A sudden gust of unnatural wind sweeps through the chamber, snuffing every flame in the room.
The only light now pulses from the corrupted runes etched around the slab of stone.
Maelkar gestures to the slab, and I hesitate for a moment, a voice in the back of my head screaming at me to run the other way.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Daisy. It’s okay,” Korithax murmurs, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear.
I stare up into his depthless onyx eyes, knowing my mind is already made up.
I wasn’t leaving this place without my immortality secured.
I wanted as long as possible with this man at my side, and there was only one way to do that.
Besides, what were my other options? Go home, back to my miserable life, my miserable world.
Or even worse, return and be killed by the Divine Six. Not a chance.
“I’m ready.” I nod to Maelkar, placing a soft kiss on Korithax’s lips before padding over to the dark stone in the centre of the room.
Maelkar gestures for me to lie down on the slab, and I position myself before lying back slowly, the cold of the stone seeping into my bones, making my body erupt with goosebumps. He slowly begins to circle me, his bare feet slapping against the flooring, his violet-glowing eyes fixated on mine.
“Sunshine,” he croons, “be still. What I’m about to do is going to hurt. More than anything you’ve ever known. This is not magic that is kind to mortals. This is the shadow in the marrow of the gods. This is death rewritten. Prepare yourself.”
I grip the edge of the stone, my nails aching with how tightly I hold on, like it’ll make any damn difference.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask, my voice steady. Barely.
He smiles, stopping at the edge of the stone beside me. “Bleed.”
He draws a long, curved blade from his robes—black metal veined with his violet light. It hums like it’s alive, the entirety of it vibrating with power. More and more runes begin to glow around the room, seeming to pulse in time with my heartbeat.
“This blade is called Il’kethai. The Tongue of Undoing. It was forged from the bones of the first mortal ever turned immortal. It carves the soul from the flesh and then remakes it.”
Korithax’s wings rustle behind me. I can feel the tension radiating off of him, like a dam about to break.
I swear I can feel a tug between us, one so taut it feels like it’s going to snap.
Maelkar places one hand gently on my forehead and presses the tip of the blade to my chest, just above my heart.
“Your blood is the ink. Your pain is the price. Your soul… is the canvas.”
He begins to chant in a tongue I don’t understand:
“Verev’ash kar talren.
Ilk’s shoran ez’kai.
Velar na’kheth ai’sora…”
The blade cuts into me, and I scream. The sound tears out of my throat before I even know it’s happening.
It feels like fire—pure, liquid fire—spilling down from the blade into my flesh as it slices in a single, clean line.
My blood hisses where it touches the runes, turning them a deep, shimmering red.
Maelkar doesn’t stop. He presses his hand to the wound, pushing into it—into me— and I feel my soul flinch.
My vision fractures, my breath catching in my lungs. This time, when the screaming begins again, it’s not just mine. Voices. Memories. Too many. Not all mine.
I see myself in the mirror at seven years old, crying in a hospital.
I see myself as a teenager, bleeding alone on a bathroom floor.
I see Ethan. His eyes. His hands.
I see Korithax. His smile, his fury, his hands on my throat, on my heart.
I see a throne made of black stone and ash. I see fire licking at the stars.
I see my own face, but different. Older, crowned, terrifying.
“Vel’shakar, naevrith al’domai…” Maelkar chants louder, voice now echoing all around me.
The stone beneath me seems to burn. My back arches, my body thrashing as it’s held down by an unseen force.
Then, I can’t move. I can’t scream. I feel like my bones are shattering, reforming, and crashing open just to be rebuilt entirely wrong.
My soul… it hurts. Not my body, not my mind—my soul is burning.
Like it’s being torn in half and sewn back together with needles of the purest flame.
I feel everything. Every nerve, every inch of my body, screaming in pain.
I see flashes of myself—but not myself. Other lives, other worlds.
A woman with silver hair and black eyes standing in the middle of a battlefield, crowned in fire.
Another sitting on a throne of ruin, lovers and enemies bowing at her feet. I see her mouth moving, words forming—
“From the ashes…”
My lungs seize. The room tilts. I feel the string of my being fray, unravel, twist into something new. And then—
Silence.
The pain vanishes, the stone beneath me cools, and I…