Chapter 9 : The Daughter Returned

The Daphe’s scream shattered the silence of the chamber.

“Has it come to this, Zerach?” Daphne’s voice trembled with fury, her golden hair falling loose about her shoulders. Her hand clutched the doorframe as though it were the only thing keeping her from collapsing. “My king, my husband—on our bed, with a maid?”

The sight before her burned into her mind: Rosa, curled against the Horned King’s chest, his arm wrapped around her as if to shield her. Their closeness, their whispers, their ease together — it was a lover’s scene, cruel and undeniable.

Zerach’s head lifted at once. His storm-dark eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in something heavier, darker. He rose slowly, every movement deliberate, though Rosa clung desperately to him.

“Daphne…” His voice was deep, low, almost breaking. “You are wrong.”

Her laugh came bitter, sharp. “Wrong? I see what stands before me. Do not insult me with lies.”

Rosa wept silently, her fingers twisted in the folds of his tunic. Yet Zerach did not push her away. Instead, he placed his hand gently on her trembling crown, as a father might comfort a child.

“She is not my mistress,” he said at last. His eyes locked onto Daphne’s, unflinching. “She is my daughter.”

The words struck Daphne harder than any blade.

For a moment she could not breathe. The walls seemed to tilt around her, the floor sliding away beneath her feet. Her lips parted, but no sound came.

Rosa’s sobs filled the silence.

Daphne forced a broken whisper: “Your… what?”

Zerach’s jaw clenched. His hand slipped to the chain Rosa wore around her neck, tugging free a pendant worn with age. He took it and crossed the chamber, his heavy steps echoing. When he reached Daphne, he held the small relic out to her.

Her fingers curled slowly around the metal. It was cold, heavy, and when she lifted it into the light her heart stopped.

The horned sigil, carved deep into the pendant’s face. Old, but unmistakable.

She had seen its twin once, long ago — when Zerach had first taken her as his queen. The day he laid aside all other tokens and crowned himself only in shadow and steel.

“This,” Zerach said, his voice raw, “belonged to her.”

Daphne’s hand trembled. “Her?”

“My first love,” he admitted, the words thick with grief. His gaze drifted, unfocused, into the past. “Seventeen years ago. Before I crowned myself. Before the world named me king and monster. I found her in the ashes of war — not a queen, not a noble, only a woman who dared to see the man beneath the fire. For a time, she gave me peace. And then the war called me away. I left her, thinking I would return.”

His eyes hardened, but the pain beneath them was sharp as broken glass. “When I returned, she was gone. I searched, but the land had burned. I thought her lost forever.”

Rosa’s voice broke into the telling, trembling yet strong: “She lived. She bore me in silence, never once cursing your name, though pain was her only companion. She grew sick as the years passed, wasting away. But she gave me this pendant. Take it to him, she said. If he lives, he will know it, and know you are his blood.”

Zerach bowed his head, shoulders trembling. “I did not hide this from you out of betrayal, Daphne. I only… I needed time to believe it myself. That the child I thought dead stood before me.”

Daphne’s heart twisted with shame. She looked at Rosa again, and this time, the likeness struck her: the dark fire in her eyes, the sharp line of her jaw, the fierce way she held herself. Shadows of Zerach lived in her face.

The Queen staggered back a step, clutching the pendant as though it burned.

Rosa knelt suddenly, pressing her forehead to the cold stone. “Forgive me, my Queen. I entered the palace as a maid because I feared I would not be believed. I only wanted to stand before him, to show him who I am, before it was too late. My mother still waits for me in a village across the border. She is frail. I came to beg his help.”

Daphne’s throat ached. Guilt rose like a tide, bitter and suffocating. Every cold glance she had cast, every suspicion, every night she had turned from her husband’s arms — all of it felt like poison in her chest.

Her feet moved before her mind decided. She reached for Rosa, her hand trembling as it came to rest on the girl’s shoulder.

Rosa flinched, but Daphne’s voice was soft, breaking with remorse. “I thought you a thief who came to steal what was mine. But you are the blood of the man I love. That makes you mine as well.”

Rosa’s sobs broke free, raw and childlike, as she lifted her face. Daphne pulled her close, wrapping her arms around her. For a moment, the Queen and the maid were only mother and daughter.

Zerach’s eyes shone with something rare: tears. He stepped forward, drawing them both into his arms, his voice breaking like thunder turned to rain. “Forgive me. Both of you. For the years lost, for the secrets kept, for the pain unspoken.”

And for the first time in many nights, the storm inside the black-stone palace stilled.

⸻

The days that followed seemed brighter. Rosa was no longer a shadow in the halls but a daughter restored. She sat beside her father during feasts, her laughter softening even the harshest of generals. She walked with Daphne in the gardens, listening, learning, sharing the small joys of a life she had been denied.

The whispers of betrayal faded, replaced by songs of unity.

The Horned King, the Golden Queen, and the Daughter Returned.

For a time, the palace breathed in harmony.

But shadows never die so easily.

One night, Daphne stirred from her sleep to find Zerach gone from their bed. She rose quietly and followed the faint sound of voices. At the balcony overlooking the moonlit courtyard, she found him — not alone, but with Rosa.

They spoke in hushed tones, their faces solemn. Rosa’s hand brushed his arm, and he leaned close to listen. When Daphne stepped into view, they stopped.

Rosa bowed and excused herself swiftly, vanishing into the dark corridors.

Zerach kissed Daphne’s brow when she approached. “Go back to sleep, my queen. It was nothing.”

But Daphne’s heart twisted with unease.

And though the family lived in harmony, though they laughed, though they shared meals and walked the halls together, a single thought echoed in Daphne’s mind like a curse:

Was Rosa truly here only for her father’s love? Or was there another reason she had entered the palace in secret?

The answer, she feared, would shatter the fragile peace they had found.