Chapter 139 Lost the City Part 1
The air tasted of iron and rot. Fog thickened in Daisy’s mouth, cold as blood, leaving a sour slick on her teeth. Something inside her wrist throbbed, echoing a hunger that wasn’t quite her own—an affliction that threatened to consume not only her, but those she cared for. This world was built from fog and memory. Each step Daisy took through the valley stripped her resolve as she struggled with the dual burden of protecting Maribel and containing the chain’s influence inside her. The mist pressed against her skin, wormed inside her clothes, and clung to scabs on her arms and sweat behind her ears. All she wanted was shelter, somewhere safe enough for Maribel to rest—a place where the chain’s whisper might hush, even for a night, and where Daisy might briefly lay down the conflict between her own will and the relentless pull of that internal hunger. Daisy led the pack, though Cornelius or Mira could have read the ground better. Even the dragon trailed behind. Some unspoken rule seemed to forbid him from outpacing her.
The trees were nothing like the willow that had sheltered them at the mist’s edge. These stood older, meaner. Gnarled by centuries, twisted by whatever magic ruled this valley. Branches knotted overhead in ropes, some so thick they seemed ready to snap. Moss draped the limbs in sheets. Now and then, the fog parted just long enough for Daisy to see how the branches bent, not away, but toward. Curious or hungry. When the wind gusted, the forest swayed, and for a moment, she thought she heard it whisper.
They moved forward as a loose group. Oliver was to Daisy’s left, boots crunching through unseen roots as he matched her pace, his breath loud and regular as if he could will himself to sync with her. Delia staggered behind, one arm hooked around Maribel to guide her, the other pressed flat against her own thigh over last night’s wound, which the mist hadn’t stanched. Xeris walked on Daisy’s right, silent but present, his body heat close whenever a bend in the trail narrowed the gap between them. Daisy knew Cornelius or Mira might be better trackers, but she kept herself at the front, believing that if she did not lead, the fragile chain behind her would break, and letting that happen was unacceptable.
Mira slipped ahead of the group, weaving through the mud. For a moment, she walked beside Daisy, then melted beyond a curtain of mist. Only her sharp, herbal perfume marked where she’d passed. Daisy paused to breathe it in, as if it were a signpost. That scent always greeted her at camp mornings. It lingered on Mira’s belongings at night, connecting the memory of a whispered argument by a dying fire, Mira’s touch on Daisy’s wrist, and the promise they would move forward together. Daisy reminded herself to track that perfume as a potential guide if danger found them. She didn’t mention Mira’s absence, instead watching whether Mira’s sudden advance was a strategy, or if she might be in danger herself, used as bait.
The path narrowed and sloped, mud turning slick underfoot. The world shrank to a tunnel. Tree trunks crowded in. Daisy could no longer see her own breath. As the walls pressed closer, she felt her certainty shrink to match; each step forward scraped away her confidence, tightening the space inside her chest.
She was about to call a halt when the mist parted, sudden as a stage curtain, revealing a break in the trees. The settlement declared itself not with noise or light, but with gravity. A certainty that things here obeyed different rules. Cottages hugged the ground like barnacles. Every wall bore patterns that at first seemed like lichen, then resolved into something deliberate: spirals, eyes, daisies with uneven petals.
Runes, Daisy thought, though not any she’d seen. One spiral snagged at her mind, dread prickling up her spine. It reminded her, with sudden clarity, of the pattern etched into the chain’s own links—a resemblance she almost overlooked, but now seemed unavoidable. For a moment, she saw it laid over a memory: her mother’s hand guiding hers, whispered warnings by candlelight, something about doors that should never open and binding spells best left untraced. She paused, sensing a faint vibration in the air around the carvings, as though these symbols acted as both seal and warning—boundaries between what belonged and what must stay out, just as the chain promised containment but hinted at calamity. Sometimes Daisy caught murmurs in the fog when she looked at the glyphs, a low pulse just out of hearing, both invitation and threat. Fear flickered and was gone, leaving only the sense that these shapes meant more than she could grasp, carrying a caution intimately linked to the chain’s origins—a warning as much as recognition.
From the center of the clearing, a colossal tree surged upward, its roots sprawling across the ground and burrowing into at least three buildings’ foundations. The leaves shimmered blue and green overhead, casting everything in a sickly, submerged glow. The only thing that felt remotely human was the thick, rich woodsmoke curling from vents in each cottage roof.
Daisy paused, waiting for someone to challenge their entry. Instead, the air filled with a slow, deliberate humming, and the clearing began to fill with people. Not with guards or warriors, but with ordinary people: older men in patched coats, women with faces half-hidden behind masks of dried leaf and lacquer, children with shaved heads and blank eyes. They stared at Daisy’s group as if they’d been waiting for them. A small girl separated from the crowd, dragging a battered kettle behind her. She stepped close enough for Daisy to see the vein of mud streaked across her cheek, then offered the kettle upward with both hands. The gesture was not quite welcoming; her eyes were flat, watchful. Without a word, an elder woman reached out and gently pulled the girl back, tucking her behind the swirl of her coat. For a moment, the villagers’ humming deepened, the note vibrating through the fog, and Daisy could not tell if it was a warning, a blessing, or both.
At the settlement’s edge, an older woman stood beside a waist-high ring of stones, her posture so bent Daisy wondered if she’d been grown in place rather than born. Her skin was the color of old birch bark, lined and flaked, but her eyes were black as pits and just as deep. The hair on her head was a tangled puff, streaked with white and bits of moss, and she wore a coat stitched from so many kinds of animal fur that Daisy lost count after six. She met Daisy’s gaze and, without preamble, drew a symbol in the air: three circles, then a slash, then a spiral that twisted back into itself. With each motion, her fingertip seemed to drag a faint, silvery line through the mist. As she finished, a thin scent of singed rosemary rose in the air. A low word escaped her, barely more than a breath, and Daisy noticed the older woman’s hand tremble, joints whitening with effort as though the gesture cost her something to perform.
The older woman’s eyes slid to Daisy’s black-veined wrists. The mist must have clung extra thick there. The marks appeared raised and oily, shining in the strange light.
The older woman said nothing, just made another symbol in the air, then turned and walked through the ring of stones toward the central tree, glancing back once to see if they’d follow.
Cornelius gave Daisy a nudge. “Looks like you’re expected.”
“Or we’re walking into a trap,” Xeris added, and for once, she heard more respect than mockery in his tone.
Daisy made her decision in silence. She tucked the locket beneath her shirt, rolled her sleeves down over her wrists to hide the marks, and strode after the older woman without glancing back to check if her companions followed. The valley set its own rules; resolving to meet them head-on, she moved resolutely after their guide.
The older woman led them not to the largest house, but to the one closest to the roots of the central tree. It looked more like a burrow than a home, its door only a little taller than Daisy herself. At the threshold, she waited, gestured Daisy inside, and only then did her voice emerge: low, sandpaper rough, but thick with authority.
“Leave shoes and magic at the door.”
The others hesitated, but Daisy shrugged off her boots and stepped into the dark. The air inside was warm, fragrant with some unfamiliar resin. The walls were lined with shelves crowded by jars, bundles of dried herbs, and a riot of ceramic daisies in every size and color.
At the far wall was a platform covered in moss and pelts. The older woman climbed up, arranged herself with the dignity of a monarch, and beckoned Daisy to stand before her.
The rest crowded in behind, but the older woman ignored them, her attention a spotlight on Daisy. She reached out, fingers crooked like the roots of the willow, and grabbed Daisy’s forearm with a strength that shocked.
The grip dug in above the black veins. The woman leaned in, sniffed at the skin, then released her. “Not the first time it’s found you. May not be the last.”
Daisy jerked her arm away. “I didn’t come here to get diagnosed.” The words came out sharper than she intended, but she bit off the rest. Beneath her irritation, anxiety twisted in her chest—not just for herself but for Maribel and the others depending on her. For a moment, her breath stuttered in her throat, as if what truly drove her—her fear of failing those she cared about—remained unspoken and unresolved.
The older woman smiled, showing teeth that were more tusk than enamel. “You came because you had nowhere else. They all do.” She swept her hand at the jars, at the daisies, at the collection of what Daisy now saw were relics—pieces of other lives, other failed chains.
From the threshold, Delia half-dragged Maribel inside. The older woman was limp in her daughter’s grip, and her face had gone the color of milk. Delia’s own hands shook as she guided Maribel to a pallet near the wall.
The older woman’s eyes darted to Maribel, then back to Daisy. “You lost the city,” she said, not a question.