However, there was a part of the story that Daemon hadn’t paid attention to the last time he read it, because it hadn’t been relevant to his immunity from Prince Gin. He saw it now, though, because it had been underlined.

The warrior’s small daughter rode in the saddle in front of him, and as he lit the ground aflame with his newfound magic, she whispered, “Papa, I want fire, too.”

Kitari was his only child—her mother had died shortly after the girl’s birth—and the warrior spoiled her because she was the only thing connecting him to his wife. He could not deny Kitari any request, especially when she looked at him with her mother’s eyes. And so he held his daughter close and breathed some of the devilfire into her cupped hands.

Daemon frowned as he read to the end of the legend, where Luna killed the warrior and sent his soul to the hells as punishment for distorting the magic she’d given the taigas. That part Daemon had inferred from what Zomuri had told Prince Gin.

But the part that bothered Daemon was that there was no mention of what happened to Kitari, other than the warrior asking Luna to spare her. Had the girl survived? Or maybe the author hadn’t wanted to include the grisly death of a child in the story.

But then why mention her at all?

Maybe there’s something else about her in this book.

He flipped farther into the book, and sure enough, one of the other dog-eared pages marked a tale titled “Kitari and the Curse.”

Fairy returned to the desk. “Nothing in the walls,” she said. “What are you reading?”

Daemon explained the legend of Dassu, then shifted the position of the open book so Fairy could read Kitari’s story at the same time he did.

Magic did not belong to humans. Only the Society of Taigas was permitted its use, and even then, solely in the limited capacity granted by Luna. Kitari was well aware of this, for she had watched her father die for his transgressions, his soul sent to the hells to be tortured for all eternity. Because of this, she hid the devilfire he’d given her, hoping to avoid the same wrath of the gods.

The years passed uneventfully. Kitari grew from a child to a woman, making a quiet living as a laundress in a town by the sea. She married a shrimp fisherman and bore him three children. Their hut was filled with the contentment of a small but safe existence, and as the years passed, Kitari let down her guard and began to use devilfire here and there, but only innocuously, to light a fire in the hearth when they were out of wood or to put on shadow puppet shows for her children. After a long life, Kitari passed away peacefully in her sleep.