Chapter 37
DAISY
The next morning doesn’t feel normal at all.
There is no softness. No sense of rest or renewal. Only the dull, relentless need to keep moving before my thoughts can catch up to me. The indoor training ring reeks of scorched stone, iron, and sweat by the time Maelkar finally lowers his sword and tells me to take a breather.
I shake my head immediately. If I stop, I’ll think. If I think, I’ll remember the look on Korithax’s face. The way Maelkar’s throat sounded beneath his grip. The black fire. The fear. So I keep moving.
Sweat clings to my skin, dampening the back of my tunic as it clings to my spine.
Every muscle in my body aches from hours of punishment, but pain feels cleaner than panic.
Simpler than grief. My fire hums beneath my skin, restless and volatile, answering every sharp emotion I try, and fail, to bury.
I haven’t slept properly. Truthfully, I don’t think I could even if I tried. Every time I closed my eyes after Korithax left, I saw Korithax standing over Maelkar like a stranger wearing my husband’s face.
Maelkar circles me with maddening ease, sword loose in his grip, shadows swirling around his boots. “You’re overthinking again,” he says mildly.
“I’m really not,” I snap, unleashing my flame.
White fire roars from my palm, racing down my blade and igniting it. I slam my sword into his with enough force that the metal screams. My sword glows, warps, then melts, hitting the ground in a smoking heap. I stare at it, chest heaving.
“…Shit,” Maelkar mutters.
I close my eyes and exhale through my teeth. “Another one.”
There’s a beat of silence before footsteps fill the space behind me. I don’t turn around. I don’t need to. I feel them before I hear them. Sunlight and pure light magic, warmth, and gravity. Sariya and Elyistria stand at the edge of the ring.
“Where is Korithax?” Sariya asks gently.
I don’t answer. Instead, I stride forwards with a new blade and channel my fire again, harder this time.
I swing fast as Maelkar barely blocks. The blade shrieks in protest, the metal buckling.
Gods fucking damn it. My flame is getting stronger, making the swords in this godsforsaken realm unable to sustain it any longer than a few seconds.
“Daisy,” Elyistria says quietly.
Another strike, another waver in the steel. I grind my teeth. “Another one.”
I stalk to the weapons rack and yank free a fresh sword, rolling my shoulders as heat coils down my arms. When I turn back, Elyistria is blocking my path, lifting her hands to halt me in my tracks.
“I think,” she says slowly, “I have something that might fix that.”
She moves to a carved stone stand near the far wall, where several covered weapons rest beneath layers of silk and dust. With careful hands, she pulls back the dark fabric draped over the largest one.
Light spills from her palms as she touches it, soft at first, then brightening in thin ribbons across the metal as if her magic is waking something ancient, rather than creating it. She lifts the sword and turns back to me. It’s breathtaking.
The blade is pale silver, flawless, and gleaming.
Its surface etched with extremely faint, ancient runes that seem to breathe when I look too long.
The hilt is forged from dark metal shaped into elegant, sharpened curves, and at its centre sits a ruby, deep red and glowing faintly, like a captured heart.
My breath catches. “What is this?” I ask as she strolls over to me, handing me the beautiful creation, my fingers tightening around the grip.
The moment I touch it, something flares. Images crash through me violently.
A battlefield beneath a burning sky.
Blood soaking into scorched earth.
A woman standing tall amid ruin, white flame in her veins, the same ruby blazing in her sword.
Dasmyrin.
“Was this—” My voice breaks. “Was this hers?”
Elyistria smiles, sad, but with a fondness in her eyes. “It was Dasmyrin’s, yes. I’d… forgotten I still had it.” Her luminous blue eyes linger on the blade. “The stone is a Pyraxis Heart. An ancient crystal that was created to house divine flame without breaking its vessel.”
She tilts her head, her pale glowing hair falling over her shoulder. “Try it. See if it holds yours.”
My pulse pounds as I slowly let my flame slide down my arm, into the hilt, and into the ruby. I stare in awe as the blade doesn’t waver. It drinks the flame, holding it as if welcoming it home.
I look up at Maelkar and smirk. “Ready?”
He grins. “Always ready, Hellflower.”
We clash. Fire pours into the sword, more than I’ve ever dared channel into a weapon, and it holds. The runes burn bright, the ruby blazing. No warping, no cracking. Just pure, clean, lethal power.
When we finally stop, I’m breathless, sweat dripping down my spine.
“This is incredible,” I say quietly. “Thank you. For keeping it safe.”
Elyistria inclines her head. “Of course.”
Footsteps echo again, and I glance over to the door to see Aran striding towards us. He scans the room immediately. “Where is he?”
I turn away, grabbing the glass jug, and pour myself a glass of water with steady hands. “I don’t know.”
I make sure my voice sounds flat and unbothered. Like it means nothing to me. Like I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing, or whether he plans to come back at all.
There’s murmuring behind me, hushed voices with careful tones. Something inside me snaps.
I straighten, gripping the glass together than necessary. “Stop talking like I’m not here,” I say sharply. “I don’t know where he is.”
I turn just enough for them to see the coldness in my face, the indifference I’m forcing into place. “And I don’t give a shit where he is, either. I have training and a war to focus on.”
The lie burns all the way down. The room goes so silent, I can hear every person’s heartbeat. I place the glass down with a thud just as Aran explodes.
“Are you fucking serious, Daisy?”
The words hit harder than any slap ever could.
Aran has never raised his voice at me. Never sworn at me.
Even at his angriest, he has always been measured, gentle in places where most people choose cruelty.
Hearing that tone from him makes my heart drop so fast, it feels like missing a step in the dark.
He looks wrecked. Eyes bloodshot, grief carved into every line of his face, Velentha’s absence hanging from him like chains.
“Velentha sacrificed herself,” he continues, voice shaking so badly fury is the only thing holding it upright. “She gave her life to bring your husband back. Your Mate. And you don’t know where he is?” His laugh is sharp and broken. “Or even worse—you don’t seem to care?”
“Aran,” I say softly, guilt hitting me in the chest so hard it steals my breath.
“No. Don’t Aran me.” His emerald eyes are blazing, wet with tears he refuses to let fall. “I would give anything for her to still be here. But she isn’t. Because of you!”
The room stills. Even the air feels shocked. Then he turns and storms out, the door slamming so hard behind him the walls tremble. The sound echoes through me long after it faced. For a moment, no one speaks.
Tears burn instantly behind my eyes. I bite the inside of my lip hard enough to taste blood, but it does nothing to stop shame flooding through me. Shame, humiliation, grief, anger at myself—too many things at once, all clawing for space.
Elyistria moves towards me, but I shake my head quickly, wiping at my eyes with the heel of my hand before the tears can fall properly. “I deserved that.”
I sink onto one of the benches, every ounce of fight I had within me just moments ago draining out of me. My shoulders slump beneath a weight I don’t know how to carry. “I don’t know how to deal with all of this.”
Maelkar and Sariya exchange a glance. No words pass between them, but they understand enough to quietly leave, footsteps fading until only Elyistria and I remain.
“He’s changed,” I whisper eventually, staring at the old training marks on the floor. “He’s… different.”
“So are you,” Elyistria says softly as she lowers herself beside me. “His death changed you. You are no longer the soft sunshine, Daisy. You are a hardened, blazing inferno.”
I drop my head into my hands. “I know. I just…”
I don’t even know how to finish the sentence. I just miss who I was. I just wanted him back the way he was. I don’t know how to love someone who came back carrying darkness in his bones, when I came back carrying it too.
She exhales slowly, the sound threaded with old sorrow. “I was lost for a very long time I when I lost you—Dasmyrin.” Her voice trembles. “She wasn’t just my sister. She was the other half of my soul.”
I look up, stunned to see tears shimmering in her luminous blue eyes.
“When she died,” Elyistria continues, “I did not only lose her.” She glances down at her hands.
“I lost a piece of myself, too.” A pale strand of light curls around her fingers.
“My gift of life vanished with her. As you know, I was the life to Dasmyrin’s creations.
I was the giver of magic to those we rose together.
But the day she died, that power left me. ”
I stare at her stunned. I had no idea, and the fact I hadn’t even heard whispers of it, must mean nobody else knows either.
“I do not know why,” she admits quietly. “I do not know if it was grief… or if some parts of me were so bound to loving her that when she went, they went too.”
My chest tightens painfully. I don’t harness Dasmyrin’s gift of creation either. Of being able to create anything I wish, of being able to mould the world as I see fit, just like she could. But now isn’t the right time to bring that up.
“I let guilt make me cold,” she continues. “Death does that to people.” She meets my gaze, her eyes clashing with my own. “And then you came back. But you’re her—and you’re not. And that hurts, some days.”
I reach for her instinctively, threading my fingers through hers. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I haven’t even tried to connect with you since everything changed.”