Chapter 151 Enemy of My Enemy
The caves beneath the valley weren’t made for humans. Driven by the need to save those she cared for, Daisy walked hunched, dodging agate columns and jagged stalactites. This world’s violence was a silence so deep even her pulse felt intrusive.
She left a trail—not footprints, but sizzles of black, oily soot. The chain in her arms had eclipsed her veins, inky daisies curling up to her throat. Once meant to bind the Emperor's enemies in the old wars, the chain was rumored to drink the will of anyone foolish enough to wear it. Now, its punishment smothered her from the inside, magic gnawing at her nerves and bone. Every step brought a new pain, a stuttering heat, a biting cold, sharp pulses stabbing along her body.
She’d lost track of how long she’d been underground. An hour might have passed—or perhaps three days, if the incessant pounding in her head offered any measure. Time seemed to clot and dissolve all at once, each minute slipping away indistinguishable from the last. The stale air pressed against her ears, muffling sound and blurring sensation, while the twisting tunnels repeated in endless, dizzying patterns, their walls slick and close. Daisy could not trust her sense of direction; every path felt equally alien. Disoriented, she relied on instinct alone, allowing the pain pulsing through her arms to draw her forward.
She knew the others survived. Cornelius, Delia, Xeris—Oliver. He haunted her, even in fevered flashes. Oliver braiding wildflowers in her hair, calling her brave—his trembling hands, the memory burning against the dark, stubborn proof he was worth every agony.
At a fork in the tunnel, Daisy stopped. The left path sloped down into black. The right curved upward, a faint shimmer of crystal dust glittering in the rock's seams. Daisy wiped her hand across her brow. Blood smeared her temple, and she tasted metal in her mouth.
She took the right.
The passage narrowed, then opened into a chamber lit by a weird, sourceless glow. Hundreds of crystals jutted from the walls and floor, each pulsing in time with her heartbeat. Daisy felt the chain inside her reach for them. Hungry.
She touched the nearest crystal—cold, wet with condensation. Instantly, her veins flared, pain stabbing through her like a thousand knives. Her scream echoed, magnified into a chorus.
She pressed harder. Blood welled. Her nails split as she dug in until a hairline crack appeared in the crystal.
Without warning, a vision overwhelmed her senses with stunning force:
Cornelius, battered but unbowed, led a column of refugees through a ravine so narrow that even sound had to squeeze through. The people behind him were just silhouettes—children, old men, a pair of twins with eyes the color of stagnant water. Cornelius pushed them faster than they could manage, scanning the walls for movement.
Above, a dozen Ironclaw scouts crawled like spiders along the upper ledges, blades out, eyes all for Cornelius. He knew it; Daisy saw the resignation in his face. The chain in her blood vibrated in sympathy.
One of the refugees slipped, falling into Cornelius’s arms. He caught the child—no, not a child; just a woman so thin her bones made her seem ten years younger. Cornelius set her on her feet, whispered something Daisy couldn’t hear, then shoved her ahead.
He waited until they were all through, then squared his shoulders and turned to face the enemy.
Abruptly, the vision snapped, yanking her away:
Delia hunched over Xeris in a black-walled grotto, the air thick with vapor. Delia’s hands glowed faintly, the last of her poultices leaking blue sap onto Xeris’s skin. The dragon’s arm was shredded, the scales a wet, ugly gray.
Xeris’s eyes were half-lidded, his breathing ragged. Daisy heard Delia’s voice—no, felt it in her own bones: “You’re not allowed to die, do you hear me?” Delia wiped sweat from her brow, then pressed a shaking hand to Xeris’s chest. “You made me a promise.”
Xeris grunted. “I never keep promises.”
Delia smacked him, gentle as a mother would.
Her arm spiked with pain—something sweet, cloying. The second vision crumbled and snapped away.
Then another vision gripped her: Oliver. Daisy’s chest seized.
He hung in a silver cage, arms stretched above his head, the skin of his torso a ruin of shallow cuts. The pattern of the wounds was deliberate—partial daisies, some petals incomplete, some twisted in a spiral. Each drop of blood fell into a bowl below, where a hand—long-fingered, black-nailed—collected it.
The hand belonged to Vex Mordain, the Emperor’s Shadow. Vex was a name mothers whispered to warn their children, a figure who hunted down traitors not for loyalty but for satisfaction in the breaking. Daisy had heard stories of his mercilessness, how he turned loyalty into a weapon and believed anyone could be shattered if squeezed hard enough. What did he want with Oliver? Even chained and bleeding, Vex was never just the Emperor’s instrument. There had to be more.
Vex held the bowl to the light, swirling it as if tasting a fine wine. “He said you’d come for him,” Vex whispered, voice echoing across the stones. “He said you’d never let the chain go.”
Vex dipped a finger in the blood, then smeared it across Oliver’s lips. “You’re just bait now, little thief.”
Oliver tried to laugh, but his mouth barely worked. “She’ll break you,” he croaked.
Vex smiled. “I hope so.”
The vision splintered as the chain in Daisy’s arms convulsed, sending a violent shudder through her entire body. Pain erupted as her veins bulged at her neck, each pulse threatening to tear her apart from the inside. Desperation and terror mingled with outrage at Oliver’s suffering, leaving Daisy gasping. Vision dissolving at the edges, she clung to what little resolve she had left, even as her senses broke down and all she saw was a spiral of white petals and a torrent of black.
She tore her hand from the crystal. The world snapped back. Her palm was ruined—quartz shards embedded, blood seeping. Dazed, she wiped it on her shirt.
She didn’t notice Mira Stone until the sorceress was kneeling beside her, hands gentle but urgent.
“You’re burning out,” Mira said, voice low.
Daisy blinked. Her eyes ached; she was crying blood. Drops hit the floor, each hissing.
“I saw them,” Daisy whispered. “They’re alive. Cornelius, Delia, Oliver—” Her voice failed. “They have him, Mira. He’s—”
Mira put a hand on Daisy’s cheek and turned her face so their eyes met. “The magic is eating you. You keep using it, you’ll be dead before you reach him.”
Daisy spat a laugh. “Better that than let him rot.”
Mira shook her head. “No. You’re the root, Daisy. If you die, the chain closes. The Emperor wins.”
Daisy tried to stand, but her legs gave. Mira caught her, lifted her with a strength that didn’t make sense for a woman built like twigs and wire. She set Daisy against the wall, then tore a strip from her own sleeve and pressed it to Daisy’s ruined palm.
“I know where they’ll take him,” Mira said, voice tense. “There’s an old temple at the valley’s heart—the Sanctum of the First Magi. Before the Emperor’s rise, the archmages used it to trap wandering spirits and to seal entire armies of the dead beneath the valley floor. Those wards were woven from the oldest spells, meant to outlast dynasties. No one born after the Magi has ever broken in and lived. It’s the only place left with the strength to bind what remains of your magic.”
Daisy rolled her head back. “Then what?”
“Then,” Mira whispered, “we break the chain. For real this time.”
Pain flared everywhere. Under it, she clung to Oliver’s laugh, Delia’s prayer, and Cornelius’s determined face.
She would not break. Not yet.
Mira bound her hand, then pulled Daisy’s arm over her shoulder. “Up,” she said. “We don’t have much time.”
They limped from the chamber, leaving a trail of black footprints behind.
Daisy let Mira guide her. With each step, she renewed her promise: resist, persist, hope. The Emperor craved conquest and control, but Daisy’s defiance—her refusal to yield—defined her. She would see them again or die fighting rather than surrender.