Chapter 14 #2
Time seems to stretch, my rapid heartbeat not calming for a single second whilst I wait.
And wait. And wait. Minutes go by, and my anxiety can no longer take it.
I can’t sit here a second longer and wait for him to return.
I push to my feet, determined to go in after him.
But just as I stand, a figure emerges, covered in soot and debris, coughing and spluttering from the smoke inhalation.
His emerald eyes are streaming, leaving wet tracks through the grey dirt coating his skin.
In Aran’s hands, shaking but held firm, are Marta’s cracked, ash-smeared glasses.
I lurch forward, sobbing, and snatch them from him before crushing him into a hug, whispering thank-yous through hiccups as he wraps his arms around me.
Dropping back to Marta’s side, I brush the soot from her cheeks and carefully slip the frames onto her face, making sure they sit comfortably behind her pointed ears. The glass is fractured, but it doesn’t matter. She looks whole again. Complete.
“They’re not perfect,” I whisper, my tears spilling down onto her cheeks. “But at least now you’ll see him. Tell him, I love him. Tell him, I miss him. Please… please tell him.”
I lower my head onto her chest, clutching her already cooling body like she can still hold me. My sobs sound through the chaos surrounding us, my tears soaking into her burnt apron.
“I’ll miss you, too,” I whisper. “So much. Take care of him for me. Take care of Talia. Take care of my mom. And make them your tarts, okay? They’ll love them…
they’ll love them just as much as I did.
” I lay with my head on her chest for a while before a warm hand rests on my shoulder, pulling me back into the present.
“Daisy… we need to move, so they can take her.” I look up through blurred vision.
Aran is staring down at me, raw grief swimming in his eyes.
My gaze shifts to the soldiers hovering close, waiting patiently to take her.
Heat simmers in my chest, my power thrumming in my veins at the sight.
Why am I mad at them? Why do I feel rage when I see them standing there, waiting to take her away from me? To dispose of her like she’s nothing.
I close my eyes, trying my best to swallow down the anger. “Does she have any family?” I rasp.
A blonde demon with stark white horns and tanned skin shakes his head. “No official family. Everyone here loved her—but no blood relatives.”
“So what happens to her body?” My voice cracks.
“Burned with the rest, Your Majesty.”
I swallow hard, fighting the lump in my throat.
I have to resist the urge to punch him in the throat for the way he said those words so casually.
There’s no way. There’s no way I can let her just burn in a pile of bodies like she didn’t mean everything.
She meant something to every single person in this realm.
She was a home away from home, a safe place, a mother to many.
She cannot just sit on a pile of bodies and burn, her ashes mixing into a pile.
“Let me. Please.”
“Daisy, you don’t need to—” Aran starts gently.
“I want to. Please.” My voice breaks entirely.
“Just… carry her over there.” I point towards a quieter stretch at the village’s edge on the southern side.
The soldiers nod, laying the sheet back over her before lifting the stretcher and moving carefully.
I follow, my dress dragging through ash and debris until they lower her to the ground once more.
“I’ll miss you so much,” I whisper to the sheet that veils her face. “Everyone will.”
I let the fire thrum to life beneath my skin, aching for release.
But I use every ounce of my energy to keep it soft.
Gentle. Flames bloom at my fingertips, stretching out to kiss the linen.
The sheet catches fast, fire racing over her, consuming without pain.
A thin layer of sweat beads at my brow as I focus the best I can, ensuring my flame doesn’t lash out.
This needs to be as beautiful as it can be for her.
She doesn’t need chaotic, unchecked magic.
She needs beauty and serenity in her final moments.
I try my best to keep it going until nothing remains, but my head swims with exhaustion.
I pull the flame back into myself, leaving the stretcher burning steady, until only ash will remain.
Tears stream freely as I bow my head one last time to the woman who showed me nothing but kindness from the moment we met.
To the woman who made me feel welcome in a realm that didn’t choose me.
“I would like to leave now,” I murmur, barely louder than the crackle of the fire.
Aran nods, murmuring something to the guards about gathering her ashes, then begins to wave a portal. I glance once more at the wreckage—the bakery, broken walls still smoking—when something bright catches my eye in a pile of rubble.
“Wait.”
I hurry forward, my breath strangled in my throat. There, half-buried under stone and mortar, a small orange horn juts through the ruin.
My knees hit the ground. “No.”
I claw at the rubble, tearing my nails bloody. “No, don’t do this to me. Please.” The stones are too heavy for me to move. There’s too many. I can’t. I can’t do it. “HELP!” My voice rips raw from my lungs. “Someone help me!”
Soldiers rush in, heaving stone aside. More and more until my worst fears are confirmed.
“Theodus,” I sob. His small, broken body emerges from the rubble, black hair matted with ash, blood streaking his tiny face. I drag him into my arms, cradling him against me. “No. No, baby no. Theodus?” My fingers shake as I brush his hair back. “It’s Daisy. Come on. Please.”
I lower my ear to his lips, desperate to hear just the tiniest of breath. But there’s nothing. “Help him!” My voice shatters. “Please. He can’t be… he’s too young—”
A soldier kneels and takes the boy from me, laying him gently on the floor.
I watch as he presses his hands to his small chest, pumping, pinching his nose and breathing into his little mouth.
Again. Again. I watch. Not daring to blink.
The pumps get slower and slower until the soldier slowly stills.
His head bows, tears streaking his soot-stained cheeks. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I crawl forward, pulling Theodus back into my arms. His body is limp. Too light. Too still. Too small. “Where was his home?” I whisper, my voice hollow.
“This way,” another soldier gestures shakily.
I carry him through the ruin, his body cradled to my chest as the world seems to go silent around me as eyes notice the tiny, lifeless frame in my arms. Until one singular voice breaks it.
“Theodus?” A woman stands frozen ahead, bright orange horns gleaming through the smoke, her black hair tumbling wild.
Her eyes lock onto her son in my arms, then climb slowly to mine.
She collapses to her knees in the middle of the wreckage surrounding us, and the scream that leaves her throat splits me in two.
I numbly walk forward, falling to my knees with her to place the small boy into her trembling arms.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I whisper.
She doesn’t answer. Only rocks him. Pressing her face to his with her hand cupping his cheek, wailing as her body shakes violently with grief. My lip trembles, my eyes burning with hot tears as I watch her hold her boy for what will likely be the last time.
I rise unsteadily and turn to the nearest soldier, my voice steel, though I feel hollow. “Take care of her. Whatever she needs—see to it. Do you understand?” He nods once.
I can’t look back as I turn to walk away.
I can’t. Because the image of a mother cradling her lifeless child will follow me into every nightmare, every shadow.
And the worst part—the part that tears me apart—is knowing it’s all my fault.
If I had never stepped foot in this realm.
If I had never looked twice at Korithax.
If I had never let myself love him, never bound myself to him, none of this would be happening.
No Divine Six retaliation. No shattered villages.
No mothers screaming over the bodies of their children.
This war, this ruin, all of it… it’s because of me.
I meet Aran’s eyes and nod once. He opens the portal straight to the door of my chambers.
I step through the portal and push the door open, slamming it closed behind me so nobody can follow.
My body can no longer hold me; my strength is gone.
I drop to my knees as a guttural scream tears from me so raw it doesn’t sound human.
Flames engulf me, wrapping my body as grief turns into fire, devouring me whole, until I’m nothing but fire and agony.
People died today because I couldn’t stay away from him.
Because I was selfish. Because I was weak.
This is my fault.
All of it.
All my fault. All my fault. All. My. Fault.