Chapter 133 The Search for Allies Part 2
She was nowhere. Or everywhere. Daisy’s skin peeled away and became sky, then city, then all the places in between. The vision hit her like a tidal wave: the ceramic daisies, not just in Brightwater but everywhere, on city gates, sewn into clothing, scattered in rivers and fields, and on the ruins of dead places. Her awareness shot further, and for an instant, she hovered above a cracked statue clutching flowers in distant Arathe, daisies rooting through stone fingers, petals pressed flat by wind the color of midnight. The pattern was bigger than she’d guessed, bigger than the country, maybe the world.
She saw the daisies connect, not with thread or chain but with lines of power: red, black, white, all the colors of blood, binding reality into a net she could almost taste. The net bent light, bent time, bent the very air. Where it touched the world, the net drained warmth, warped memories, and stitched people into the city's fate, making them forget old allegiances and dream the city's hungers as their own. At the intersection with the city, the magic doubled back, layering over itself, becoming a loop she recognized from her own veins.
Daisy saw the Veilseekers working their own rituals, laying down new patterns atop the old. She saw Willow at the heart of it, hands slick with blood, her eyes hollowed out and replaced with petals that writhed and multiplied, fractal and endless.
Then, above it all, a throne. On it sat a figure, face hidden by shadow, but the silhouette unmistakable: Emperor Varian, the original chainbearer, the first and worst. His body was a map of black veins, each one pulsing in time with the petals. He looked up, and his eyes were her own.
“Finish it,” he said, his voice a thousand echoes, “or become it.”
Daisy tried to pull away, but the vision would not release her, binding her still as its images continued to unfold.
She saw the future—dozens of them. In one, she broke the chain and the world fell apart, every city becoming an island of chaos, the knife-cold wind cutting through the ruins as it did on the mountainside, scraping away what was left. In another, she replaced Willow, stood at the center of the pattern as a black-veined queen, her body radiating dragon heat, burning everything she touched, regret blazing beneath her skin. In yet another, she died, and the daisies bloomed over her grave, roots reaching for warmth in the thin, iron-laced earth, petals shivering in the same bitter air she once breathed. Every future came threaded with the same sensations—wind sharpening the silence, heat that branded, blood quick as a pulse, echoing back and forth through the choices left to her.
She screamed.
Hands shook her back to life. Daisy’s heart hammered in her chest, and it took a moment to remember which world she was in.
Oliver crouched in front of her, both hands on her shoulders, face tight with panic.
“Daisy. Pest. Look at me. You in there?”
She blinked. Her mouth was full of iron. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m—” The lie died in her throat.
He pulled her in, held her until her bones stopped rattling. After a moment, still holding her, Oliver ducked his head, voice low so only she could hear. "Every time you disappear like that, I think about the last time I lost someone up here," he admitted, breath shaky. "Had a cousin. He just... didn't come back from the climb."
Behind him, Xeris stood, not touching but not hiding the way he watched. The dragon’s heat radiated, making the air shimmer, and for once, Daisy was grateful for the warmth.
“What happened?” Oliver whispered. His hands didn’t let go.
She sucked air, felt the black lines on her arms crawl. “I saw it. The pattern. It’s not just a trap. It’s a net. If we don’t break it—” She cut off, remembering the vision of herself, enthroned and dead-eyed. “If we don’t break it, we become the next link.”
Xeris knelt beside them, close enough for his breath to stir her hair. “Show me the locket,” he said.
She handed it over. The blood had vanished, the petal looked unchanged, but when Xeris opened the clasp, the dragon heads moved—just a fraction, but enough.
He clicked the locket shut, then pressed it into her palm. His fingers brushed hers, warm and careless, lingering just a moment longer than necessary. Daisy's breath caught—so soft she doubted anyone noticed, least of all Xeris. “Don’t do that again unless you want to be queen of the dead.”
Daisy snorted, shaky. “Not my style.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Xeris replied, but his voice was soft, his hand lingering on hers a moment too long.
Oliver glared, but didn’t let go of Daisy’s other hand.
Behind them, Cornelius whistled. “Break’s over. If you’re done playing with jewelry, we need to move.”
Delia helped Maribel upright, and Mira waited just ahead, eyes scanning the horizon.
Daisy stood, the locket heavy in her fist, the blood inside her a storm she no longer tried to calm. A sudden gust roared down the pass, battering her and shaking the grit from the stone. For a moment, the wind surged around her in violent spirals, mirroring the wild rhythm pounding in her veins. It howled against her skull, as if the mountains themselves echoed the chaos within, churning air and blood until she could no longer tell where the cold ended, and her terror began.
She looked at Oliver, at Xeris, at the cold mountain that waited to finish what the city had started.
“I’m fine,” she said, this time almost believing it.
Then they moved on, the path narrower, the world sharper, every step another chance for the future to devour her alive.