Chapter 144 Break the New Chain
Night crashed into the valley. The day’s blue-green glow drowned in a submerged black; the trees outside Daisy’s window quivered as silhouettes in the wind. The settlement pulsed with an anxiety Daisy had never sensed: no shouting, no barked orders—only the silent, taut readiness of people bracing for death. Heaviness enveloped, swallowing all sound. Fear glazed the glass, cold and patient, waiting for the world to stop breathing.
Delia and Oliver barricaded doors and windows, every movement taut with urgency. Delia, Daisy’s older sister, always took charge, moving quickly. Oliver, their childhood friend and trusted ally, checked every latch. Mira, Daisy’s closest companion, patched her wounds by a sputtering lamp, face unreadable. Elder Fern, who guided the settlement and taught Daisy old magics, vanished into the darkness—either gathering magic or readying to flee. Maribel, Daisy’s grandmother, had not stirred since collapsing. Though Delia sat with her—hands never still—Daisy knew the truth: if Maribel woke, she would not be herself. Delia’s hands fluttered, smoothing blankets, checking Maribel’s pulse, fingers trembling with the fear she wouldn’t be enough. Beneath her composure, Delia’s hope flickered, desperate for a familiar voice to call in the dark.
Xeris was everywhere and nowhere. He paced the cottage boundary, scanning for threats through cracks. Every hour, he poked his head into Daisy’s room, met her gaze briefly, then slipped away. His eyes flicked across her face, searching for hidden danger. Breaths quick, he hovered in doorways, sometimes stepping forward as if to comfort her, then retreating. Daisy, feeling his attention, pulled away to the room’s farthest corner, wrapping herself in her coat, restless. In that silence, the chain hummed in her blood—a faint tang of metal on her tongue. Shadows of taste crept in when she relaxed. Sometimes the veins on her wrists prickled with cold. Pale fungus on her windowsill pulsed with a dull flicker, winking out as she turned to look. Beneath it, something older worked—a purpose almost sensed. A memory not her own threaded through her mind: warning or promise? Soon, it grew stronger, vibrating in her bones, jaw, and hair roots. No matter how she tried, it pulled her down, always to where the valley’s darkness was deepest.
By midnight, Daisy could not resist anymore.
She slipped out while the others slept, or pretended to. Each step was careful and quiet. The night air bit her cheeks. Inside, she burned. Shadows slid across the blue square, past the dying fire, past the circle of cottages. Only her breath, tight in her chest, broke the silence. She stopped at the great willow’s base.
The tunnel waited, mouth gaping. Daisy ducked inside.
The tunnel was colder than she remembered. The fungus glowed dimly, her shadow stretching along the wall with each step. Roots reached, seeming to trip or anchor her.
She reached the chamber, now feeling smaller, almost tomb-like. Shelves leaned inward, bottles rattling softly. Something precious teetered on the lowest shelf—a tiny painted box, chipped with age, once holding wildflower seeds. The wood was splitting, the shelves shifting, threatening to send it crashing. Bones, jars, and daisy fragments watched with expectation.
The book sat at the center of the stone table, waiting.
Daisy’s hands shook as she reached for the book, fingers finally settling on its cool, worn cover. She forced it open, the chain in her blood overriding hesitation. The pages parted, words crawling across until they formed a single, massive final entry.
The story spiraled. It began with Varian, the Emperor—his childhood marked by hunger and cruelty, longing growing like weeds in barren soil. A flower grew from his first kill, petals white as bone, born from violence—possible only because something else had been buried. Pain, he learned, could be planted and nurtured, harvested to break or remake the world. Every uprooted life, every war, traced back to that first strange blossom. Though Varian was long dead, his legend remained, his will pressed through the chain—an unyielding force.
Daisy read how Varian had seeded the chain in the world, how every bloodline, every magic, every war was a flower in his garden. He had written the Grimoire himself, not just as a record, but as a door—one through which he could watch, and wait, and choose the next root.
For a moment, Daisy remembered the life she’d once imagined: a quiet garden, days beneath an open sky, laughter drifting through windows. She had dreamed of freedom, belonging that meant safety, not just survival. Now, everything she wanted trembled on the edge of vanishing, threatened by the chain’s demands. Fear pressed in, sharp and personal, as she dreaded becoming only a vessel, her dreams smothered by others’ expectations. Yet some part of her clung to hope—maybe she could bear this power without losing herself, maybe still choose her future. Now, Daisy was the root.
The words turned liquid, crawled off the page, and Daisy felt them in her head, her skin, her veins. The Emperor’s voice spoke through the paper, not as a command, but as a whisper in her own thoughts: “You are the chain, now. Let them try to break you.”
Daisy slammed the book shut, but the whisper remained. Black veins crawled up her arms, shoulders, and neck—inky and unnatural. Panic mingled with something darker: was this a curse, or power meant for her? The thought split her—corruption or duty? A part of her was thrilled at the strength burning in her veins, the promise of becoming more. Her jaw locked. She tried to scream, but only a choked rattle escaped. She staggered back, hit the shelves, and sent ceramic daisies crashing to the ground like shattered teeth.
She caught sight of her own reflection in a jar—her eyes ringed with black, her lips pale as ash, the veins now webbing up to her cheekbones. The power in her blood wanted out; it wanted to root and flower in the world.
Gasping, Daisy gripped the table edge with both hands, pressed her palms to the stone, and forced herself upright as her vision swam. A new light seeped from the earth. She crawled to the tunnel’s mouth and saw above, in the clearing, daisies arrayed in a perfect circle, each pulsing with the same black-red magic as in her throat.
The Veilseekers had finished their ritual. The Emperor’s chain was calling to her, demanding she take her place.
She stumbled back up the tunnel, each step harder than the last, reaching the surface as the first shockwave hit—the cottages rattled, the great willow shuddered to its roots.
The enemy neared. Daisy felt them—a wave, not an army: Veilseekers and what Varian bred in the dark. They pressed forward to shatter the barrier, spreading corruption through every root and soul. Their purpose was not conquest, but remaking the valley in Varian’s image, binding all to the chain. A metallic howl rose—thin and piercing—ahead of the advancing dark. The earth trembled underfoot, something clawing closer. The air thickened with iron and damp stone, pressing on her chest.
She tried to call out, forcing sound past her lips, but only managed a cry—her voice coming in two registers, her own and a hollow echo ringing behind it. Oliver was waiting at the cottage, his face wild with panic. “What’s happening?” he demanded, grabbing her by the arms.
Daisy tried to smile. “They’re here. The chain’s here. And it’s in me.”
Delia stumbled from Maribel’s room, fingers pressed hard to her own chest as if willing herself to draw slow, steady breaths. “We can fight,” she said, her words broken around each exhale. “We have to.”
Xeris came last, pausing in the doorway. For the first time since she’d met him, Daisy saw fear in his eyes. Oliver stood at her side, gripping her arms tightly, his knuckles white as he stared at her, jaw clenched, clearly searching for words but unable to speak. Xeris’s hand trembled on Daisy’s back as he asked, “Can you control it?”
Daisy looked at them all—her family, her allies, the only things that still mattered. She thought of the Emperor, of the Grimoire, of the root and the flower, and the chain that would not let go.
She forced herself to stand straight.
“No,” she said. “But I can choose what it does.”
Outside, the circle of daisies glowed, each bloom a star in the darkness. The magic in the air was thick enough to taste. It stung her mouth, filled her lungs, burned in her bones.
Daisy gritted her teeth. She took the locket from her neck, snapped it open, and pressed it to her heart.