Chapter 51
DAISY
Iknow something is seriously wrong before I reach the war room.
Fear has a scent. I hadn’t realised it until I was dragged into this world of gods and monsters. But it does. And tonight, it clings to the air like smoke, suffocating everybody in its presence.
Aran is standing at the door, waiting for me with a serious look on his face.
“Come,” he beckons, pushing the heavy doors open before the guards even get the chance.
I step through, Ezra and Cassyr at my back, and stop.
Virena stands at the centre of the war room.
For a moment, I don’t recognise her. The Mother of Mists is always composed.
Ethereal. Untouchable. But now? She looks carved from ruin.
Her silver-grey hair hangs in tangled strands, no longer floating on the phantom winds that usually surround her.
One side is darkened with dried blood—not all of it hers, if the colour is anything to judge by.
Her pale skin is fractured with thin lines of ice that spiderweb across her throat and collarbones, melting slowly, dripping into the erratic mists that swirl at her feet, darker than I have ever seen.
Her hands are shaking. Virena does not shake.
Korithax is already there, standing at the far end of the table, his expression unreadable. But the smoke coiling from his shoulders tells me everything I need to know about the violence simmering beneath his control.
Ezra stands quietly behind me, his throat still bruised, with Cassyr as a silent wall at his shoulder. I realise now, it probably wasn’t a good idea to let Ezra and Cassyr come along with me. This isn’t just a meeting with Virena. Something catastrophic has happened.
No one speaks, so I step forwards slowly, my voice low in a way you’d speak to a wounded animal you’re trying not to frighten. “Virena.”
Her eyes snap to mine. Gods. I have never seen terror look so alive inside another being.
“They came at dawn,” she says.
No greeting. No preamble. Her voice is raw, scraped hollow, like she has been screaming for hours on end with no reprieve.
“The sky split open.”
A cold ripple slides down my spine, my skin erupting in goosebumps.
“They didn’t march,” she continues, her words slightly unfocused as if she’s still seeing it all unfold. “They descended.”
Korithax’s voice is lethal calm. “How many?”
Virena lets out something that might be a laugh, but it’s edged with a darkness that only comes with grief. “Enough.”
The torches flicker as Korithax’s growls under his breath.
“They were not soldiers as we know them,” she says. “Some wore armour I did not recognise. Others…” Her throat bobs. “Others were beasts stitched together from magic I cannot begin to understand.”
Ezra shifts behind me, the sound of his heart erratically beating filling my ears. Yep. I shouldn’t have brought him.
“They burned everything,” she whispers. “The mystic forests. The citadels. The rivers turned black with ash.”
No one interrupts her as she relays the horrors she witnessed. Instinctively, I realise she’s speaking in fragments because if she stops, she may never start again.
“I rallied what forever remained. We fought.” Her lips tremble. “We lasted less than an hour.”
Silence detonates the room and my entire body trembles slightly. Less than an hour, with five thousand soldiers…
“The only reason I stand here,” she says, her gaze locking onto mine. “Is because they allowed it.”
“Why?” I ask quietly, though I’m not sure I want to know.
Virena’s mouth curls into a sad smile as she looks at me. “So I could bring you a message.”
The room shrinks as she takes a step towards me. I hear Korithax shift, his presence instantly at my back as a low warning snarl sounds in his throat.
“This,” she says, voice cracking like breaking ice as she takes my hands, her mis-matched eyes never leaving mine, “is what your realm will look like next, Sunshine Queen.”
The nickname feels like a blade sliding between my ribs. For a moment, no one breathes. They let her live to deliver a message of ruination. They let her live to show that whilst they can grant mercy, they will have none when it comes to me. When it comes to my people, my kingdom.
Before I can stop myself— “I want to see it,” I say.
Aran turns sharply to face me, his voice stern. “Daisy—”
“I said, I want to see it,” I reply, leaving no room for argument.
I feel Korithax’s gaze burning into the back of my skull. I glance at him, his eyes measuring, calculating.
“You should not,” he says, though it’s more of a suggestion than a command.
“I should,” I reply. “If we’re going to fight this war, I’m not doing it blindly.”
A long pause, his eyes darting back and forth as they search mine. Then he nods once. “Stay close to me.”
He wraps an arm around my waist, grabs hold of Aran, and signals Virena to hold onto me.
“Tell the guards to have the rest of the leaders summoned here for when we return,” Aran says to Cassyr and Ezra.
Before he has a chance to respond, the world shifts and everything lurches.
Teleportation with Korithax is never gentle.
It feels like being dragged through the throat of a star, and I can’t say I missed it too much.
I stumble before quickly righting myself as my feet find solid ground.
Huh. Not as bad as when I was mortal. Good to know.
I’m met with stillness. Cool, crisp air slams into my lungs and my heart falters.
The first thing I notice is silence. No wind.
No wildlife. No giggling sprites or stags made of mists galloping around with the distant sound of rushing water.
Nothing, other than the sound of Korithax’s sword scraping out of its sheath.
I pull my dagger from my thigh, just for precaution.
The second thing I notice, is the smell. Burned magic. It’s sharper than smoke—metallic, wrong, and almost sweet in the way decay sometimes is.
Ahead of us stretches Fjellheim Heights. Or what remains of it. When I was here last, it was an indescribable realm of floating clouds, rainbow bridges, and crystalline structures that were all surrounded by melodic sounds of tinkles and chimes. Now? It looks like the bones of a dead god.
Structures have melted into warped skeletons of glass and stone.
Entire valleys appear flattened, as though a giant hand pressed down from the heavens and simply…
erased them. The rainbows are gone. Even the sky looks wounded.
Streaked with unnatural colours that ripple faintly, like bruises across reality itself.
Virena does not move forwards. I glance at her to see she’s staring straight ahead, devastation plastered across her features.
“I have not walked it yet,” she admits hoarsely.
Understanding hits me. She couldn’t bear to look. To see the destruction of a realm she governed with such pride. What once was a glorious realm of mists, clouds, and rainbows. Something I imagined heaven would look like, if it were real… is now nothing but a grim landscape of death.
I make the decision to step first. Boots meet ash along the clouded ground.
It crunches beneath my feet, and I realise it is not ash at all, but bone.
Fragments of people that once were, that will never be again.
I swallow down the bile threatening to rise.
Bodies lie everywhere—some armoured, some not.
Many frozen mid-motion, expressions locked in the final shape of their terror.
“What could possibly do this?” Aran whispers behind me.
Virena answers without looking away. “Something that wanted us to understand how small we are.”
Korithax kneels near a felled stag, a long burned-out arrow buried within its chest. He drags his fingers along it, pulling it out carefully as he inspects the tip.
“Starfire,” he mutters. I look at him as he frowns down at the arrow in his hands. “That is not Divine magic.”
A new fear blooms inside my chest. What have they done? What have they created?
Virena speaks again, her voice distant as she finally takes everything in. “My remaining forces are withdrawing.”
Korithax rises slowly. “You are abandoning the war.” It isn’t a question. “You are being a coward.”
Virena whirls on him. “COWARD?” She screams. “Do you not SEE what has happened, Korithax?!”
The air trembles, dark rain clouds gathering as mists swirl erratically at her feet.
“There is no winning this war!” she screams. “They have beasts you could not imagine. Soldiers drawn from a realm I do not understand!”
Her voice breaks as the rain begins to fall in fat droplets from the clouds above. “My people are dead.”
The storm queen trembles. And suddenly, she looks very, very tired. I turn away, unable to watch her fracture further.
My fault. My fault. My fault. The voice whispers in my head over and over. I squint my eyes, rubbing at my head to try and remove the manic whispers of guilt in my thoughts. My eyes quickly widen when I see a dead soldier.
He lies partially buried beneath collapsed stone.
But it’s not the sight of a dead soldier that has me focusing on him.
It’s something about his armour that catches my eye, so I step closer.
The metal is unfamiliar: dark, almost liquid in appearance.
It’s etched with symbols that shift if I stare too long.
Recognition prickles as images of the grimoire flash through my mind.
“Is that…” my voice tightens. “Saerathi runes on his armour?”
Beside me, Aran goes still. “Y—yes.”
The word is barely air as realisation settles.
“So they managed it,” I murmur. “They gained the hand of the Saerathi… but why? Why would they help the Six?”
Aran doesn’t answer me as I see curiosity has taken over and he slowly lowers himself to kneel beside the body. It’s as if he’s moving on autopilot, reaching out to trace his thumb across the runes etched on the soldier’s armour.
Aran gasps. But instead of it sounding startled, it comes out wounded. Like something inside him just tore open. He goes utterly motionless and panic rises in my chest.
“Aran?” I step towards him.
His eyes are unfocused, moving rapidly as if seeing something none of us can. His breathing turns ragged, his hands beginning to shake as his thumb manically swipes back and forth over the runes.
I drop down beside him, touching his shoulder gently. “Aran.”
He doesn’t hear me. His lips part, his complexion paling as his eyes continue to search.
“No…”
The word fractures, sounding just like it did the day he realised Velentha was gone. My pulse hammers as I feel him tremble beneath my touch. Korithax shifts closer to me, forever the protector at my back.
Aran’s shaking suddenly stops, his head dropping on a ragged gasp. I watch warily, as his shoulders rise and fall in rapid succession. His head lifts slowly, his gaze locking on to mine. The look he gives me sends chills across my body. He’s looking at me like he’s seeing a ghost.
“I thought you were dead,” he whispers.
Every nerve in my body ignites as I subtly shift away from him. “What are you talking about?”
His chest shudders. “They told me you vanished.”
Confusion churns and I swallow the lump forming. “Aran…”
The freezing rain pelting my skin does nothing to take away the fire I feel from seeing the look of devastation across his face.
His voice breaks completely. “You never returned.”
He stares at me like I’m something fragile, his deep-black hair drenched and plastered to his forehead. And the love that he usually has for me in his eyes burns so much fiercer.
“My sister.”
The storm sounding ahead is nothing compared to those two words echoing across the graveyard of the fallen realm.
Impossible.
My brother.
Impossible.
And yet… somewhere deep inside me, a recognition calls. A familiarity I have never placed. No memory stirs. No thought. But something older than both screams to life at his words.
I rise, the ground feeling suddenly unsteady beneath my feet. “Aran…” My voice is barely there. “What did you just say?”
A sob breaks from him, tears falling from his emerald eyes to mix with the rain from the storm above. “My sister lives.”