In fair Verona, our tale begins with CATHERINE DALY, who is TWENTY-ONE years old. She is often called CORDELIA by the CAPULETS and works as their SOLDIER. She uses SHE/HER pronouns.
She is perhaps the most beautiful PARADOX the city has ever seen. Blasphemous in her honesty, haughty in her humility, and almost vengeful in her forgiveness, the youngest Daly woman has never known how to be anything but authentic—unapologetically true to herself and to her morals. Women like her, born with the world at their feet and silver spoons in their mouths, have no need for VIRTUE—for righteousness, kindness, integrity; there’s no need to play fair when the game’s already been won. It would’ve been easy—understandable, even—for the littlest daughter of Louis Daly to live her life this way, believing that she was entitled to everything she was given and more. Her older sisters did, and their father loved them in spite of it—blind to the wickedness he’d instilled in them with every unwarranted gift or too pleased with their complacency to care. Catherine would’ve received much the same courtesy, had she wanted it (for none of the Daly girls had an inkling of what the word no meant), but GREED left a sour taste in her mouth, as did ungratefulness, and she’d politely declined. Her impeccable manners and mild temper, a sharp contrast to their arrogance and silver-stained tongues, set her apart from her ravenous older sisters as children, and the divide only grew wider through the years—from as small as the puddles they liked to jump when they were young to the oceans they vowed to one day explore.
Her INTEGRITY has always been her weapon and her shield, her greatest strength and most debilitating weakness; it did her few favors as she aged—for the world saw not a good woman but a weak one—but it gave her the gall to look the world in the eye and smile at its naivety, at its belief that her GENTLENESS wasn’t a choice, but something that had been thrust upon her. The truth of the matter is that she chose it: every day and at every opportunity. Every kind word she uttered became another ring in the elaborate target on her back, and every good deed she did placed a dart in the hands of someone far crueler than her sisters had ever been, but that, she’d learned, was what the real world entailed. She was too stubborn to let it change her, to let it turn her into a woman who found her own cheap success on the backs of others, and those who came to know her couldn’t help but wonder if that was what had saved her—her own brand of viciousness. Her NERVE. It was the only explanation they could find for a flower daring to grow back once it had been stepped on, for a woman the world hadn’t turned cold.
Survival of the fittest preys on those who refuse to prey on others; it was the first lesson she learned upon joining the Capulets, and it’s a lesson she’s been trying to outrun since. Louis Daly had gotten rich off of his association with the mob, and new money swears by the foundation of tradition; thus, he’d humbly implored his three daughters to continue what he’d started, and Catherine had acquiesced—for the sake of saving face, for the family name, for HONOR. But serving Cosimo Capulet and killing for him are two vastly different things, and when push has come to shove, she’s laid down her gun and shoved back. Content to deal with money but averse to spilling any blood, she’s tried to become an emissary for nearly two years, but to no avail; she’s too fair, too willing to compromise, and the lifeblood of the mob is its revenue. Her dilemma is unusual, her persecution strange. It’s nothing short of CRUEL, being forced to choose between defending her family’s honor and adhering to her own code of honor, but she intends to meet the challenge as she does most things: with relentless poise and a ruthless sort of grace. Hands like hers weren’t made for blood sacrifice, and her heart wasn’t built to condone it.
But a war is no place for a half-hearted soldier, and those around her have made it abundantly clear that neutrality is a sin. The only way to win this game is to play dirty, but winning has never been a priority for her. They tell her she can’t have both righteousness and justice, that by dragging her pretty little feet, she’s toeing the line of TREASON, but she and the others have vastly different ideas of what constitutes betrayal, and if refusing to be a mindless soldier in a war that she wants no part of gets her shunned, so be it. She would rather live in dishonor—in exile—than compromise her morals, and it won’t be long before her devotion is put to the test. Centuries ago, they called women like her saints. Now, they call them COWARDS.
GRACE & REGINA DALY: Sisters. “Fair skin and light eyes—must be a Daly.” The only thing she shares with her sisters are their family’s defining features; the similarities end there. They were every bit as spoiled as she growing up, but their spoiling turned them rotten, a consequence their little sister was gracious enough to avoid. They’ve never truly seen eye to eye, and their willingness to cut down those around them to ensure they come out on top both scares and disgusts her, but she loves them anyway, just like their father always has. But loving someone doesn’t equate to letting them do their worst, and she’ll do anything she can to stop them from barreling down the warpath they’ve set themselves on.
EVERETT CRAVE & MAEVE PETRE: Superior & Friend. They’re rarities in a city like this: people who cringe at the sound of a gunshot and don’t rejoice in bloodshed. She harbors a great deal of respect for the older man and has found a kindred spirit in Maeve, and she gravitates toward them for reasons both selfish and considerate. Craven’s status awards him quite a bit of sway in the opinions of those around them, and his subtle acceptance of her defiance serves to mollify her critics; they speak only in whispers when the captain enters the room, and she’s found she likes the quiet, for it makes it easier to think. Maeve is even more adamant than she about peace, and such a fact is as comforting as it is alarming. The one thing Catherine isn’t is naive, but the same can’t be said for her younger companion, and though she’d never admit it for fear of scaring the Petre girl, it worries her. They’re her allies in a war waged within a war: a battle for peace, or at the very least, fighting fair.
THEODORA MOREAU: Mentor. It takes a gifted individual to garner power by their intellect alone in this city, a feat few can accomplish; even fewer can wield that power without the influence of malice, but Theodora Moreau seems to have come close to mastering it. Catherine can’t speak for their personal life, but she’s yet to find any trace of a vendetta in the drugs they make. Waging war without firing a gun is a skill she’d like to learn; serving her family well without robbing another of the chance is an option she’d like to have. She’s tried and failed to become an emissary since she was eighteen, but she didn’t have them for a mentor until now. Regardless of whether her early morning and late night lessons pay off, though, she’s glad to have had the experience: it’s intriguing, and so are they.
BRIELLE KING: Interest. Foreigners are to Verona what flies are to a feast – unwanted and slapped away, a nuisance to a city that seeks to put up walls against the conquests of the world. But that is not an inherent hatred found in the young Daly. She can only imagine the fear and loneliness that must plague Brielle in a city built upon bullets. How terrifying and trying it must be to find refuge in a place where guns are exchanged more often than words. So she reaches out to the woman often, finding comfort and an overwhelming warmth when she thinks about their conversations. How her lips always seem upturned in a smile whenever she walks away. Verona is not a place for friendships with outsiders form, but by God she prays that this will be the exception.
