Chapter 43
DAISY
“Oh, sweet girl you are doing so well.”
My eyes snap open. Darkness presses in from every direction, impenetrable and endless, like I’ve surfaced at the bottom of the ocean. My heart slams against my ribs as I twist, searching for walls, for ground, for anything familiar. But there’s nothing here. No sky, no ceiling, no horizon.
Nothing except one lone mirror in the centre of the space.
It floats there, suspended in the void, the only solid thing in existence.
I step towards it slowly, my pulse roaring in my ears.
The floor beneath my bare feet ripples with every movement, as if I’m walking across still water rather than solid ground.
Each step sends soft waves outwards, vanishing into the dark.
The mirror glows faintly, a soft silver shimmer that lets out a vibration that hums low in my chest. It isn’t glass—not really. It feels more like a window. A doorway. A wound in the dark.
“Hello?” I call, my voice barely above a whisper. The sound echoes strangely, stretched and distorted, as if the space itself is listening and swallowing my voice.
“There you are,” a soft feminine voice replies.
It doesn’t come from behind me. It comes from inside the mirror. My breath catches as I step closer.
Except, it is not a mirror. I am not staring at my reflection. Not Daisy, not Dasmyrin, nor any fractured version of myself I’ve ever known.
Standing before me is an ethereal woman, tall and lean, her presence commanding without effort.
Long hair cascades down her back, shimmering like falling starlight, each strand catching the faint glow of the mirror-like portal.
Her skin is impossibly pale, almost luminous, as though light lives beneath it.
Her eyes—violet and bright enough that they almost burn.
They are not cold, yet not warm either. Not welcoming, but not cruel.
Something about them tugs at the edge of my memory.
A strange, impossible familiarity. Not enough to place, but enough to unsettle.
As if I’ve seen them somewhere else, hidden behind another name.
She’s so beautiful, it steals the breath from my lungs. So elegant, so utterly other that my instincts falter. I don’t know whether to kneel, or to run, or to stand perfectly still. Power radiates from her in quiet waves, pressing against my skin, my bones, my soul.
She does not belong to this world. Or any world I’ve ever seen.
“Who are you?” I ask, my voice unsteady despite my best efforts to remain calm. “Why am I here?”
“You do not know me,” she says, her voice like delicate bells stirred by wind. “Yet you do. I needed to see you, to speak with you. The war that is coming will not be without its devastation, Sunshine Queen. But just as you were born from the ashes, you will burn them all.”
A chill runs down my spine. “What are you saying? That I will win this war?”
“Win?” she echoes softly. “Such a small word for what must happen.” Her lips curve. Not into a smile, but something else. “You cannot win this war alone. You are not one, but two. And two will destroy the worlds as we know it. Just as I need you to.”
“Korithax?” I breathe.
Her gaze shifts then. Not away from me, but through. Like she’s looking past my skin, past my soul, into something deeper.
“He is not broken,” she says softly.
My breath catches. “He is corrupted.” The words taste almost bitter on my tongue.
“Yes,” she agrees. “Touched. Changed. Fractured.” She steps closer to the threshold of the mirror, violet eyes burning brighter. “But still fit for purpose.”
Something about the way she says it makes my blood run cold. Purpose. Like he’s not a person, but a key. A weapon. A door she has been waiting centuries to open.
I shake my head. “The Void is eating him. It wants pain. Destruction. It wants to take everything from him.”
A quiet, knowing hum leaves her throat. “The Void is not rot,” she says. “It is pressure. Absence. Hunger shaped by will.”
Her fingers lift, ghosting through the air as if tracing something unseen. “It does not choose at random, Sunshine Queen. It does not cling to the weak. It bonds only to those capable of containing it.”
My chest tightens painfully at her words.
“He survived what no other soul could,” she continues. “He endured death, isolation, grief, and love turned into torment—and still returned with enough of himself intact to fight it.”
Her eyes soften, just slightly. “The Void wanted a weapon,” she says. “It found a vessel who could say no.” A pause, her eyes gleaming. “And one who, when needed, will know when not to.”
My heart stutters, my pulse hammering in my ears. “But it’s changing him.”
“Yes,” she says again. “Because it must.”
Her voice drops, heavy with inevitability. “What is coming cannot be faced with purity alone. Light will fail where absence is required. Flame will falter where consumption is needed. Mercy will kneel where ruin must stand.”
She meets my gaze fully now, her full attention making the hairs on the back of my neck raise. “He is not corrupted beyond use,” she says firmly. “He is precisely what this war requires.”
A shiver runs through me at her words, but I can’t bring myself to speak.
“Even now,” she adds, quieter, “he chooses restraint. He chooses isolation. He chooses your safety over his own peace.” Her expression shifts. For one fleeting second, it almost looks like grief. “That is not corruption. That is control.”
“So, what you’re saying is that… this is all going to work in favour of the war?” I murmur.
“Yes. The Child of Ruin and the Sunshine Queen. Born for each other, both born for purpose, both born for ruination.”
“Born for purpose?” I snap. “I was not just born, I was made. I existed to create this world, was destroyed, then reborn again.” Irritation flares hot in my chest.
Her expression remains stoic despite my outburst. “I know, my girl. But alas, you were born. Not here. Not there. But just like him, you were born for a reason. But reasons have changed. You were theirs–” she tilts her head, her shimmering hair flowing around her softly as she lowers her voice to a whisper. “And now you are mine.”
Her words sink into my bones. Her eyes seeming to see everything as she speaks. Every choice I have ever made. Every choice I have yet to make.
“I have waited for a very long time for the world to become soft enough to break,” she says so quietly, I barely hear her.
“For every throne to rot from the inside. For every god to believe themselves untouchable.” The mirror hums louder.
“For the right king to return from death with shadows in his lungs. For the right queen to learn that mercy is not the same as weakness.”
Her violet gaze burns impossibly bright, as though she is glowing from the inside. “And when the two of you stand where all worlds meet, when blood has answered blood and flame has answered silence, the old design will finally fall.”
I shake my head in confusion. “What design?”
Her smile is faint. Terrible. Something sinister laying behind it that gives me goosebumps. “An imperfect one.” The darkness behind her shifts like wings. “Everything broken can be remade, Sunshine Queen. Even gods. Even realms. Even fate itself.”
“Remade into what?”
She doesn’t answer straight away. But when she finally speaks, her voice is barely more than a breath.
“A world that does not require daughters to die for the sins of their fathers. A world where monsters are made useful. A world where my boy lives long enough to see peace and hates me for the price of it.”
My boy… “What did you just say?”
“When you win this war with him by your side, you will know all,” she says, dismissing me entirely. “Keep going. You are stronger than you could ever know.”
I watch as she fades and the mirror shifts.
And suddenly, I’m staring at myself. I stand there, breath caught in my throat.
My golden hair is braided into a long plait streaked with silver, resting over my shoulder.
My eyes are harder. Sharper. Older. I’m dressed in an armour I have never seen before.
Black skin-tight fighting leathers cling to my body like a second skin.
Over my torso, iridescent crimson scales form fitted armour, protecting my heart and lungs, glowing faintly as if alive.
Onyx boots laced tightly up to my knees.
My dagger sits sheathed at my thigh. And strapped across my back—my sword.
Its hilt crowned with the ruby that’s glinting over my shoulder like a captured flame.
I do not look like a queen that was made for peace. I look like a queen made for war. A ruler forged for bloodshed. I look like death incarnate. A woman ready to burn the gods to ash for daring to believe they could ever silence me.