Chapter 154 The False Alliance Part 1
Morning brought little change to the charnel light. With it came the heaviness that now defined every day for Daisy. As she led the group down from the ridge at first bell, the burden of responsibility tightened across her shoulders. Every decision could mean survival or loss for her followers. The wind on top was cruel. She made herself the shield, always standing between the others and what threatened them. Her boots left no marks on the blackened grass. Where her skin was bare, a shimmer rippled like heat over a forge. The world smelled of old smoke and chemicals—a reminder of fires that scoured the fields during the Final Sundering. Bones from that night still pressed upward in the fractured earth below. She pulled her sleeves down to hide the new geometry of her veins. The anxiety and grief of being a protector in this broken world remained. It was a persistent ache she could not dispel.
Behind her, the others strung out in a broken line: Oliver kept left, his battered pack slung over one shoulder, just a step behind Daisy. Griff, the boy Daisy had taken in during the last winter, trailed two steps behind Oliver, always watching Oliver for cues. Delia, third in line, walked gingerly, her arm lashed to her chest and her eyes fixed on a point ahead, distancing herself from Griff and the rest. Daisy noted how Delia never acknowledged Griff, and some days, Daisy envied the ease with which Delia kept to herself.
Xeris lingered at the rear, drifting from shadow to shadow. His silhouette looked less solid each morning. The chain magic had burned away most of his humanity. Even his eyes faded—gold now just a coin at the center. There was a cost for wielding it. Chain magic warped bone, flesh, and hunger. No one used it long without losing something. Its origin was older than memory—a shackle turned weapon in the Sundering. In Xeris, the change was nearly complete. His loyalty held. Daisy never had to look back to know he was there.
They made it halfway to the city gates before the first sign of pursuit. A line of smoke on the far ridge—three small points, slow-moving, deliberate. Scouts, maybe Veilseekers. Daisy kept the pace steady and didn’t look back.
At the city’s threshold, they paused. Once, there would have been a guardhouse here. Market carts would have lined the avenue beyond. Now the gates were twin ribs of scorched bone, arching over a tangle of barbed wire and melted glass. Someone had painted a symbol above the lintel: a daisy, its petals rendered in white ash, the center spiraled in black. Daisy stared at it, unease prickling under her skin. For a moment, an old memory flickered—her mother’s voice whispering that daisies meant protection, or remembrance, or maybe something she could never quite hold on to. Now, twisted with ash, the petals looked more like a warning. Daisy stood frozen until she felt the others waiting for her to move.
She grunted. “Some kind of sick joke.”
Oliver frowned. “Looks more like a threat. Or they’re hunting our kind now.”
“If they are,” Xeris said, “they don’t know what you did.”
Daisy didn’t answer. She led them in.
The old market district was a mausoleum. Silence lay thick with traces of devastation. Booths lay scorched and gutted. Their charred frames jutted at odd angles from cracked pavement. The air carried the faint, acrid stench of old fire. Stone fountains once fed the bustle. Now they stood dry, their basins cluttered with broken glass, ash, and remnants of spent offerings. Against the dim light, figures lingered at the edges. Lean forms tightened behind barricades made from table legs, splintered boards, and rusted scrap iron. As they crossed the square, Daisy felt the sharpness of their scrutiny. At least a dozen gaunt, watchful eyes tracked her group, their hunger undisguised.
The kid, Griff, shrank to the shadow of Oliver’s coat, but Daisy didn’t let herself soften. She walked open, hands visible, palms empty. It worked for the first three streets.
On the fourth, a voice: “You shouldn’t be here.”
It was a woman, maybe forty, with a child perched on her hip and another clinging to her back. She looked Daisy up and down, then settled her gaze on Delia’s arm.
Daisy ground her teeth. "We didn't come to cause trouble. Just looking for a place to rest." Her gaze was steady, making it clear that keeping the group safe mattered more to her than any confrontation.
The woman spat. “There isn’t one.”
Daisy didn’t push. “Where’s the nearest water?”
The woman gestured at a building with half its windows blown out. “Well, in the basement. Don’t drink it straight.” She eyed the shimmer at Daisy’s wrist, then stepped back into the ruin.
Daisy led the group to the door. Inside, the air was stale with mildew and the smell of old bodies, but the staircase was intact. At the bottom, she heard the pump before she saw it—someone had rigged a contraption of bicycle gears to the well, and the pedals still creaked in their sockets.
Griff darted forward and started working the mechanism. The water that pooled into the tin bucket was almost clear, and the boy stared at it as if it might bite him.
Delia sank to the ground. “Let him have first pull,” she said. Her lips were blue.
Daisy looked at Oliver. “Get her some food.”
He nodded, rummaged in the pack, and came up with a heel of bread and a tin of grease. He spread fat on the bread, set it in Delia’s good hand. She ate it in three bites, then retched in the corner.
Xeris drifted to the edge of the room, examining the walls. "We're being watched." Daisy's pulse quickened at the words. She wondered if the watchers saw them as threats or prey, whether they'd come out for trade, for warning, or for something meaner. The uncertainty pressed on her nerves, prickling a new layer of unease.
Daisy cocked her head. “By who?”
Xeris’s eyes flicked to the ceiling. “Everyone.”
Daisy followed his gaze. Tiny holes had been drilled between the mortar stones, each just wide enough for a child’s eye. She walked the perimeter, counting: twenty, thirty, maybe more. Some blinked, some didn’t.
Daisy snapped, “We’re not staying. Eat fast. Move.”
Griff didn’t protest, but the look he gave her was one she’d seen before: You’re just like all the others. Daisy tried not to let it sting.
They drank, filled canteens, and exited through the back. Daisy guided them in a zigzag path through ruined alleys and over fire-fractured rooftops. She always paused to ensure their route remained safe and concealed from view. The shattered city, grey in the morning light, forced her to constantly assess their surroundings. She avoided open spaces as she led them through the devastation.