The sun hurt. Even under his heavy cloak, wrapped in all his bandages and behind his thickest mask, the sun hurt. This was perhaps because, even with all that coverage, his mask still needed eyes cut out so he could see--but he didn't think about that. All he could think about was how much he hurt, and then wonder why he thought about it at all. He wondered why he was out in the sun. He didn't rightly know; all he remembered was that the wagon was gone, and so was the Boy; Fion had disappeared with it. Daemon had the vague idea he was meant to follow them, and the set of hoof prints and wheel grooves leading away from him strengthened that idea. But Daemon didn't wander after them; he stood in the sun, under his cloak and bandages and behind his mask, and burned.
He remembered what it was like to burn. It wasn't as gentle as this, as slow and aching in warmth; it hit like a tidal wave, ripped through him and left him an empty, aching husk, nothing but a shadow of before. Daemon wondered if, without his lairs of protection, he might feel it again. Maybe it could work in reverse; maybe, under the rays of the sun, he might turn back into who he used to be. Without Fion around to stop him, and with the fear of pain far in the back of his mind, Daemon deemed it worth the risk to try.
Slowly, he parted the cloak, and undid the ties holding it on his shoulders. Then he took off the mask, the burning getting steadily worse, until his face was bare, his hands beginning to unwind the bandages. He managed to bare his head to the sun before it hit one of his welts, the one across his face, and the open wound itched and burned even worse than before. It was sensitive enough that even the soft rays of morning made it begin oozing blood, and he only managed to unwind his neck, as well, before it got in his eye and he began panicking.
He was dying. He was in the fire again; his howl came out very much like a scream, and he dropped to the ground and began shaking and convulsing, as though he were having a seizure. He made half-remembered gurgling sounds, ones he'd made when his throat and tongue had been burned, and relived his two days of hell in those minutes, so horrified he wasn't even able to cry.
Daemon hadn't even realized he'd done this to himself.
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