Chapter 4
DAISY
Sleep doesn’t come easily, and when it does, it comes in jagged fragments.
After everyone left me, I decided it was best to just try and rest before I tried to resume life tomorrow.
I had a bubble bath, the water so hot I came out pink and sweating.
It helped distract me from the never-ending pain residing in my chest. The place that’s reserved especially for Korithax and Talia.
Lyvia had helped me get ready for bed, her sad eyes saying everything she didn’t voice.
She pitied me. But there was also a weariness, like maybe she feared me, too.
I guess word got out fast about my outburst. I couldn’t fault her for fearing me.
Because I fear me too. I fear the feelings that sit inside of me, the power that writhes beneath my skin like a living, breathing thing.
I fear what this grief is going to do to me, what it’s already doing to me.
I barely survived the loss of my mom, struggling through life painfully after she died.
I guess in a way, I lost my dad too—just not to death.
So now, to lose two more important people in my life, it just seems unfair.
Even before my life as Daisy, life never seemed to be on my side as Dasmyrin.
What cruel fate decided I had to endure so much pain, so much betrayal and hurt?
Every time my eyes close, I see blood. I see Talia’s lifeless body in my arms. I see Korithax’s body disappearing in front of my very eyes as the Divine Six tore him away. I hear my own scream echoing back in the cavernous throne room, raw and animal, like it didn’t even belong to me.
When I finally give up on attempting a restful sleep, the sky outside my window is turning pale with dawn.
My body feels leaden, my mind foggy. I drag myself out of bed and into the adjoining dressing room.
It’s ridiculous how many dresses are hanging in there, all shimmering silks and embroidery that look like they belong to someone else.
A real queen. Not me. I’m assuming the help pulled everything from my original rooms and placed them all in here.
Nobody has yet been brave enough to ask me if I want to move into my old room.
The one I shared with him. I pull on the plainest thing I can find—a soft, grey dress that falls to my knees.
It feels wrong to wear anything beautiful.
It feels wrong to pretend I’m anything but a shattered, broken girl.
When I return to my room, the little table by the window has a tray sitting in the middle of it.
Breakfast. A single plate of warm bread, a soft egg, and a steaming cup of coffee, exactly how I like it.
I stink into the chair slowly, staring at the food without touching it. Eating alone feels…wrong.
A flash of memory strikes me: breakfast with Korithax, his towering frame folded awkwardly into the chair in our room.
He had tried the coffee, taking his black, grimacing after every sip.
But he drank it because I did, and he said that it was like trying on a piece of my life.
I teased him endlessly for it, how he as a whiskey drinker couldn’t handle the bitter taste of coffee.
He’d argued for ten minutes straight on how his whiskey was smoky and delicious, and didn’t taste like burnt soil like my coffee did.
My throat tightens as I lift the cup, inhaling the sweet scent of caramel.
Talia’s face flashes into my head. Our coffees on campus, her mocking how sweet I enjoyed mine whilst Ezra would sit stuffing his face full of pastries, acting like nobody could see him.
My chest aches like it’s being pried open.
We’ll never do that again. Never sit as a trio, laughing over nothing and pretending like the weight of the world wasn’t looming over us.
A tear hits the back of my hand. I blink hard, trying to push them back, but more follow.
I thankfully haven’t bothered with makeup, otherwise that would be smudged all the way down my cheeks now.
I guess it would just add more mess to the outside to match the disaster warring inside.
I haven’t even tried to untangle my hair properly.
It’s scraped into a messy bun at the top of my head, and I honestly don’t care.
I feel like I should be stronger. I should be confidently stepping into the role they all keep pushing me in to.
Queen. Avenger. Destroyer of gods. Instead, with each hour that passes, I feel weaker.
Smaller. Like the world is swallowing me whole and spitting out my bones.
I don’t feel like an almighty queen, fit to take over the throne of Hell.
I feel like Daisy Sandoval. The same girl who tried to kill herself in her shower all those months ago.
I reach for my coffee again, but my hand hesitates.
The ruby ring catches the light—Korithax’s mother’s ring, the one with the twin serpent heads biting the stone.
His mark on me. His promise. A raw, feral noise claws out of my throat as the sadness combusts into something darker.
Pure, unadulterated rage courses through me.
I hurl the cup across the room, coffee splattering across the obsidian stone walls as the porcelain shatters into a thousand tiny pieces.
“FUCK.” My scream rips through the chamber, echoing off the high ceilings. The doors burst open and one of the two guards’ rushes in, sword held tightly in his hands. His eyes are wide, scanning for threats.
“Your Highness—?”
“GET OUT!” My voice breaks. He hesitates, his eyes raking over me to ensure I’m not hurt. “I said, GET OUT.”
Heat surges through me, raw and unchecked.
My hands blaze with pale fire, and before I can pull it back, it whips towards the guard in a blazing inferno.
He stumbles, raising his arms to brace for the impact.
But the fire never hits. Instead, shadows rise from the floor like smoke turned solid, curling protectively around the trembling guard.
My magic meets the darkness with a hiss, swallowed whole.
I stumble back, my heart hammering behind my ribs.
My own flame just tried to hurt an innocent man doing his job.
And I had absolutely no control over it happening. Again.
The shadows dissipate slowly, leaving only a man leaning lazily in the doorway, hands in his deep-purple trouser pockets, with a grin plastered on his face like sin itself.
“I see the rage muffin is in full swing this morning,” Maelkar purrs. “Good morning, my little hellflower.”
My face flushes. “I—oh my gods, I’m so sorry, Corin,” I stammer to the guard now staring at me from behind Maelkar, his once deep blue skin now looking more like a pale blue, with a sheen of sweat across his brow.
“It’s okay, Your Highness,” he mutters, eyes averted. He bows once before he slips back outside to his partner as quickly as he can.
Maelkar tilts his head. “Wanna tell me what that was all about, queenie?”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap. My hands are trembling, but thankfully the flames have once again died out.
“I’m just frustrated. I’m supposed to be getting stronger.
I’m supposed to be handling this. But every time I think I can, the sadness, the anger, the rage—it all comes back and crushes me.
I feel like I’m falling apart. Like I’m getting weaker, not stronger. ”
He steps fully into the room, his presence somehow filling it as the door clicks shut behind him.
“Daisy, it has been just more than a week since it happened. Give yourself some fucking grace. You may not be mortal anymore, but you still have a beating heart. Your husband and your best friend were murdered, right in front of you. Of course you’re not okay. ”
I swallow the growing lump in my throat, not able to stop my lips from trembling. “But—"
“No buts.” His voice is firm, slicing through my self-loathing like a blade. “Shut up and listen to me. You are allowed to not be okay. The only thing you’re not allowed to do is wallow and rot. So, hurry up and get ready. We have training to do.”
I glance down at myself and gesture to the dress with a frown. “I am ready…”
He looks me over and actually scoffs. “You cannot train in a dress, Daisy.”
With a lazy flick of his hands, shadows plume over my bed, and when they dissipate, a set of fitted black leather pants and a plain black long-sleeved top appear atop it.
“Get dressed in that. I’ll meet you in the training ring. And try not to roast anyone else alive whilst I’m gone.”
Without letting me respond, he vanishes into the hall, leaving me standing in silence.
I stare at the doorway for a moment after Maelkar disappears, my pulse still thundering from the outburst. I blink at the now empty space, forcing my breathing to calm before finally padding over to the bed to grab the Shadowtongue’s gift.
The leathers are smooth and cool to the touch, the fabric shifting under my fingertips like water over stone.
I shuffle into the dressing room with the clothes in hand.