Dominion's Daughter

Owo woke as she always did—slowly, reluctantly, in pieces.

Blink.

Stretch.

Yawn.

Shiver.

Cold?

She frowned, eyes still closed. She never woke up cold.

She scrubbed her hands over her face and looked around her bright room. Special day. That’s all.

She yawned before starting the usual battle with the bed. The usual mantra. The usual graceless face-plant.

“I did move,” she announced to the empty room, untangling herself from the sheets. She had never once managed a clean dismount from that ridiculously soft bed. One of these days—

It felt—off.

She slowed. Looked around.

Slowly gathered the evidence back on the bed before Asha could see. Not that it mattered. Asha always knew. There would have been a lecture. There was always a lecture.

She could see Asha’s calm face even now: “Situational awareness? Lacking. You would have handed yourself to an attacker on a platter. With a pretty little bow.” She could see Asha in front of her, fingers pinched, an imaginary bow in her hands. Her hand reached for her curls. Asha would have cuffed her on the back of her head. “Owlet not paying attention again.” Although it had been a while since she had called her that. Not much since she turned sixteen.

Followed by a morning of callisthenics. Hard enough to make a saint weep. Consequences.

Owo shook her head, smiling faintly at Asha’s insistence on making her combat-ready. She couldn’t understand why she needed to be combat anything. The world she lived in was safe.

It had always been.

Nobody would ever break any of her things—let alone harm her.

She was the heir to House Dominion. Deep within one of the most fortified estates of the six houses.

None would dare.

Nothing bad happened here. Nothing interesting either. Nothing ever had.

It was Asha’s quirk. A dangerous one. Training Owo to fight was not a carer’s responsibility.

That a carer could fight was unimaginable.

If Owo ever revealed what they did together, Asha would disappear. She never let herself think past that word. Disappear.

Owo paused.

Caught by her reflection in the mirror at the dressing table. Grinned. Eighteen. Blinked. Blew her hair out of her eyes. Sedate smile. Eighteen? Bounding on toes. Eighteen. But today, she took a deep breath. Today—her first day as an adult. As a matriarch. Ruler of Dominion.

Again, a frown on her face. She saw it in the mirror. It was too quiet.

Asha should have been there.

She wasn’t.

Today was a special day.

She looked down at her hands. The nails Asha had painted the night before. Shell pink. This would be the last time Asha would paint them. Tomorrow Asha would be gone.

Eighteen. Enforcer. The church. She waited for the excitement to arrive.

It didn’t.

Instead—

Tomorrow. Once the ceremony was over. She would rule. Her mother’s confident face came to her. She was nothing like her mother. Asha still had to remind her to stop running.

She closed her eyes.

She had seen it before.

Her mother taking the bows of the other houses.

Her mother’s words followed by the thump on chests as all obeyed.

No questions asked.

Ice flowed down her spine.

Could she be her?

Become her?

The one all those people could rely on. She swallowed. How? Who was she to do this? She knew nothing.

Hundreds of people. Watching her every move. Expecting her to be her mother. She shuddered. She was not ready.

And—Asha.

Asha—would be gone.

She looked away from the mirror. A frown creasing her brow. The look in her eyes something she did not want to see.

The waft of fresh coffee, missing. Warm, buttery pastry, nowhere to be found. Instead—ozone. Burnt. Sharp. Coating her tongue. And beneath it, a faint hum.

She walked to the closet.

The door was still shut. It should have been ajar. No Asha inside, muttering to herself as she worked. She glanced at the clock. Five minutes late.

Asha was never late.

Hesitating, she crossed to the bathroom. Without Asha, the morning had no shape. The mirror first. She scrubbed sleep from her eyes. Anything less than her best today would not impress Asha. She cupped water into her palms and dragged it through her curls, trying to convince them into something resembling order. Her heels bounced against the floor, restless.

This day had finally arrived. She had been desperate for it to arrive. But now. The morning of. Some quiet part of her wanted it not to.

She looked at the one item she knew she could no longer wear. A necklace she had found on one of their little escapades. In the depths of a drawer, in an abandoned corner. It meant nothing. It was worth nothing. But. She put it on. She didn’t take it off again.

She returned to her room.

Still no Asha.

Their last morning. Asha might have done something—a surprise, a gesture. Owo began preparing her face for every scenario.

Mild frustration.

A raised eyebrow.

A sigh that said: I am eighteen now. An adult.

Followed, perhaps, by an eye-roll.

She straightened her back. She was the heir to House Dominion. Chin up. Shoulders back. She crossed to the door. Her hand found the latch. She stopped. Asha could be playful. But not today. Today was too important for games. Asha would know that.

Asha was late.

From the corner of her eye, she caught the flicker of blue lights.

She swung her head to look at the security strip. Frowned. She had never seen them do that before.

Wrong.

Her grip tightened on the doorknob.

Owo turned the handle.

Copper in the air. Blood?

Cold.

Asha’s name formed on her lips as she turned it.

Maybe Asha was testing her.

The door opened.

Asha’s name died in her throat.

Chaos.

Servants screaming. Batons rising and falling. Bodies lay across the pristine marble floor, limbs twisted at impossible angles.

All of it—just beyond her door.

Until now.

A scream cut off mid-cry. A baton struck flesh. Wet. Heavy.

The smell of blood—copper and close. It coated the back of her throat.

Frozen. Mouth open.

Familiar faces distorted. People she had known all her life. Bleeding. Broken. Still.

Across the corridor, one of the armoured figures paused.

He lifted his head from the maid at his feet. Xuli, her personal maid.

Something she did—something she said—had his head swinging towards her. He saw her.

Her hands tightened—claws now—around brass and wood.

He straightened. Began walking towards her.

“No!” A voice in the distance. A shout from somewhere. She heard it. But it was far away. Her eyes locked on his visor and would not move.

He didn’t rush. Didn’t need to. Mouth a grim line. A weapon in each hand.

He kept coming.

Looming over her. Mint in the air—a fresh note against the cacophony of blood and sweat.

Her eyes glued to him as he approached. She could not move. Her brain screamed instructions. Her body refused. Asha had trained her for this. For exactly this. Her body frozen. Her mind—

Move. Block his hand—fingers splayed, wrist locked. Step back—shift weight. Slam the door. Let the room’s security system save her.

Nothing.

Her hands fused to the brass and wood. Her legs had forgotten they were hers. Asha’s name lodged in her throat like a shard of bone. A scream built behind it—hot and frenzied, clawing.

She tore her eyes off him and looked down at her hand.

Shell-pink nails. Looking impossibly innocent. Nothing like the claw she had imagined.

Close the door.

Close the door.

Close the door. The thought beating with her pulse now.

She didn’t move.

Then—

His hand closed on her shoulder. Leather creaked. Pain cracked through her collarbone like something breaking.

Sound flooded back.

Her scream tore free.

She clawed at his grip—no training now, just blind panic.

His other arm came up. The pistol grip caught the light from the crystal chandeliers—black polymer, sharp-edged, indifferent to what it was about to do.

The weapon struck her forehead.

That calm voice, detached: this was the first time she had seen a pistol up close. It catalogued the details with the same quiet efficiency it brought to everything.

She had time for exactly that much.

A crack. Blood, immediate and warm. Copper flooded her mouth as her teeth found her tongue.

Then darkness—not rushing, not gradual. Just there. All at once.

Her last image: her own face in his visor. Distorted. Unrecognisable. Mouth open. Begging. Asha would be so disappointed. Not one punch landed.

The voice—went quiet last of all.