Korithax doesn’t speak, but I feel his hand close around mine like a silent vow. He’s not letting go, even if the truth changes everything.
Chapter 51
Korithax
Ifollow them through the garden like a ghost.
Daisy walks beside Elyistria and Aran with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, the loose strands of her golden hair catching the late afternoon light like silk. Her bare feet brush against the soft grass, her movements slow and wary. Like every step forward might crack the ground beneath her.
I don’t speak as I follow. I can’t. My thoughts are a storm, and I’m trapped in the eye of it. The silence between us says more than I could ever voice aloud right now. She’s my wife. My mate. My Daisy. But now she’s something else too. Something ancient, something that was forgotten. She’s something that rewrites everything that I thought I knew about this world. I took her to Noxthrallia to become immortal, and she’s returned as someone else entirely.
She chooses the far edge of the gardens, near the blood blossom vines and the thorned fruit trees, where the air hums with quiet. Aran gestures to a nearby bench, but she shakes her head and continues to slowly pace, and I find myself pacing intime with her. Elyistria gives me a look that warns me to be still, that my confusion, anxiety, and irritation are all shining through too loudly. But I can’t stay still. Every muscle in me is thrumming with tension, and my jaw aches from how hard it’s clenched.
Finally, Daisy stops walking and speaks without turning to look at us. I stand still, listening to her words. “I saw everything,” She says softly.
The fragility of her voice punches the air from my lungs.
“I saw her. Me. I saw how she died.” Her voice wavers. “I saw the mirror. I saw him.”
She turns then, her eyes glassy with tears as they find mine. “Your father, Korithax. Korran.”
The name hits me like a blade to the gut, my skin crawling at the mere mention of him. “What?”
“He… he killed her,” she whispers. “He burned her for three days in a pit of fire before her body gave out. He wasn’t alone. The Divine Six helped. Then they stood by and watched as she suffered.”
“No,” I breathe. “No, that’s not—he was… He told me…”
My thoughts fracture. I’d heard whispers. I’d heard he had some kind of hand in it. Part of me believed it. But another part of me, deep, deep down, thought it was bullshit. That the man who had sired me couldn’t be such a heartless bastard.
I look to Elyistria. “Tell me she’s wrong.”
But of course, she doesn’t deny it. She steps forward, her eyes dim with grief. “She’s not wrong.”
My hands ball into fists as the information goes from speculation to fact. He truly was a coward. A betrayer. A worthless piece of shit.
“He betrayed her,” Elyistria continues. “He was her second. Her most trusted general. The Divine Six promised him thethrone, and he snatched up the opportunity without a second thought. They feared what she was building.”
“What was she building?” I ask.
Elyistria sighs. “Hope. Dasmyrin ruled with a sacred codex. A law that declared all souls must be judged with truth, not fear. Her court was called the Court of Embers. She didn’t rule through terror; she ruled through reckoning. Through understanding. She offered sanctuary to fallen angels, and sinners were given the chance to change. She believed in evolution, in rehabilitation.”
I stare at her like I’ve been struck. I’d heard the rumours of how she had ruled, how Hell once was. My father could never be like that. He loved the fear, the tyranny.
“And that made her dangerous?” I ask.
Elyistria nods slowly. “To those who profited from fear? Yes.”
Daisy crosses her arms tightly across her chest. “I don’t want this. I’m sorry. But I just want to be,” she pauses, looking at me with tears in her eyes. “I just want to be yours.”
Something inside me cracks at the sight of her. I walk to her slowly, closing the space between us until I’m just inches from her.
“You already are mine,” I say, my voice rough. “No matter what else you become—who else you become. You’re mine.”
The tears glisten, one rolling down her cheek. “Are you saying that to me, or to her?”
I ignore the sting from her words and reach for her hand, placing it in mine. “You, Daisy. I’ve felt the pull to you since before we even met. To you. To my little flower. The sunshine who looked the Heir of Hell in the eye and cursed him out for getting smoke on her rug.”
Her lips twitch with the ghost of a smile.
