Chapter 45 Xeris
Xeris came down on the Ravensworth estate like a god denied sunlight for centuries. The sky above the noble quarter tore open, clouds splitting as his wings eclipsed the moon, making a brief and impossible midnight at the city’s heart. The dragon’s shadow rolled over battlements, gardens, and the glassy pond where noble brats learned to ice-skate. The estate guards looked up, some trying to run, most frozen, their blue livery stark against the fire that licked the dragon’s belly.
Daisy felt him first as a pressure behind her eyes, a storm surge flooding through every capillary. She braced herself, clamping down on the spiral at her wrist, but the magic prickled up her arm, onto her chest, throat, jaw, new scales blazing hot against the wind. She sprinted through the hedge maze leading to the keep, boots slick with frost and blood from the last patrol she’d evaded. Her hands shook, and not from cold.
The first scream came from a balcony. A woman in a velvet wrap pointed up, tried to cast a ward with trembling hands, and was vaporized before she finished the gesture. The fire was not orange or gold, but the blue-white of a funeral pyre, stripping flesh to ash, leaving bones clean as songbird skeletons in the winter grass. Daisy ran harder.
A shockwave hit the estate, flattening a row of topiaries and sending a rain of stained glass across the lawn. Xeris dropped through the roof of the west wing, claws folded in, jaws open wide. Daisy saw a blur of nobles in formalwear—silks, bone-white gloves, faces painted with more color than lived in the entire slums—stampeding toward the cellars. The air tasted of burnt wine, ozone, and panic.
The fire set off the city’s old alarms. Brass gongs tolled out of sync, and sigils along the walls spat blue sparks as wards tried and failed to repel the dragon’s magic. Inside, corridors filled with a kind of red dusk. Daisy ducked a falling chandelier, felt it crash behind her, glass fangs clattering over marble.
She knew where her family was. Eleanora had mapped the castle for her, every servant’s passage and hidden stair, but Daisy had never needed diagrams for cages. She could always find the place that hurt the most.
She hit the dungeon door at a dead sprint. Two guards, faces already more panicked than human, leveled rods at her, but she barreled through them, bone knife out, letting the spiral guide her cuts. One went down with a yelp, blood geysering from the thigh; the other tried to run and tripped, knocking himself out cold on the stone.
The cellblock was lit by a single flickering lamp. On the far side: her mother, Maribel, hands chained to a chair bolted into the ground. Her siblings—Mina, Rose, Sam—huddled on the floor, arms around each other, shock already freezing them from the inside out. Daisy’s pulse spiked. The scales on her forearms flexed, ready to punch through her skin.
She knelt at the lock, sliced her palm open, and let the blood pool onto the old iron. She whispered the spiral, felt the blood shudder in the lamp-glow, then watched it crawl up the lock, gears grinding as the magic chewed through centuries of rust and salt. The shackle fell away with a click.
Maribel did not flinch, even as Daisy’s face wobbled, half dragon, half daughter.
“Xeris comes,” Maribel said. Not a question.
Daisy nodded, helping her mother up. “He’s eating the roof as we speak. We’ve got minutes.”
The kids scrambled to her side, clinging tight. Sam was crying, Rose white-lipped, Mina already staring down the corridor, calculating. Daisy yanked them into a huddle, squeezing hard enough to bruise.
Above, another section of the ceiling gave way. Fire flooded the stairwell, licking at the doors. Xeris’s voice rolled down the halls, not as words but as a bone-shaking rumble: 'Bring them out. The deal was made.'
Maribel looked at Daisy, then past her, eyes unfocused. “You’ve bonded deeper than any of our line before. The Ancient One calls you kin.”
Daisy choked down the surge of pride and terror. “He’s a pain in the ass,” she muttered. “But he gets shit done.”
Mina’s voice was small. “Are we going to die?”
Daisy lied. “Not today.”
She pulled them into the corridor, racing past the unconscious guard. Smoke stung her eyes; she heard the distant wail of city-watch, but no footsteps close enough to worry her. They hit the main foyer just as Xeris’s tail whipped through a window, smashing it to splinters.
The dragon was massive here, his scales catching every light, reflecting them in a web of red and black. His eyes fixed on Daisy, then on Maribel. He hesitated, a moment’s pause that vibrated the floor.
Maribel stepped forward, her chains dragging behind her. She lifted her head, met the dragon’s gaze, and said, “You honor us, Old Blood.”
Daisy wanted to laugh or cry. She did neither.
The dragon bowed, just once. ‘It is time,’ he boomed, words echoing off the stone.
They sprinted for the exit, the family close behind. Daisy felt the burn in her lungs, the way her scales stretched, the blood-magic scraping at her veins. The world tilted, and she caught herself on the banister. Maribel steadied her, gentle as only a mother could be.
“Don’t let it eat you,” Maribel whispered, eyes sharp. “You’re still my daughter.”
Daisy nodded, teeth gritted. “I’m not done yet.”
They shot out the main doors, sending the crowd into chaos. The courtyard was alive with panicked nobles, all dignity stripped away, running for carriages or any open gate. The walls were ringed with new wards, sigils glowing white-hot, projected from the towers in a gridwork of shimmering pain. Daisy felt her skin crawl as the magic pressed in.
On the roof above, Lord Ravensworth appeared, face lit by the burning remains of his own ballroom. He raised a staff, pointed it at Xeris, and shouted a spell in the Old Tongue. A column of pure force slammed into the dragon, knocking him sideways into the upper garden. The impact rattled the windows, set the world spinning.
“Bastard!” Daisy shouted.
The family ducked behind a statue as guards converged on the scene, rods blazing. Daisy dropped to a knee, swept the bone knife along her arm, and launched a spray of blood into the air. She shaped it, almost by instinct, into blades, each one slashing the closest guard’s wrist, thigh, neck. They went down hard, blue jackets blooming crimson.
A second volley of magic hit Xeris, this one amplified by the castle’s defense array. Daisy saw the lines of power, thick, twisted, centuries old, writhing along the parapets, feeding on the city’s own wards. The dragon bellowed, flame bursting from his chest, but the wards held, at least for a breath.
Through the link, she felt Xeris’s rage. Not the cold, calculating hate she’d known before, but something wild, ancient, a hunger that wanted to end every living thing in reach. She staggered, head swimming.
‘Burn them all,’ Xeris thundered. ‘No mercy. Every noble who ate at my bones deserves death.’
Daisy clutched her head, the world blurring. The scales on her arms glowed, red-hot, burning through the dress Eleanora had forced on her. For a moment, she was sure she would lose herself, let the dragon eat the city, burn the world. But then Maribel’s hand closed on her shoulder, grounding her.
“You’re stronger than the spiral,” her mother whispered. “Make it yours.”
Daisy sucked in a breath, focused on the spiral at her wrist. She felt the dragon’s power, the hunger, and for a second, she let it burn. The magic surged, but she shaped it, bent it, forced it into the shape of herself.
She stood, blood-magic pulsing in her chest.
In the sky, Xeris coiled, his body a cyclone of shadow and fire. The wards flickered, then held. Ravensworth screamed another incantation, and the sigils on the walls shone bright enough to blind. The courtyard trembled, fountains collapsing, stones splitting under the force.
Daisy’s ears filled with the roar of two worlds tearing each other apart. She blinked, saw her siblings huddled together, Mina shielding Sam with her own body, Rose staring at Daisy with blind faith.
She had to get them out.
The main gate was an inferno, but Daisy saw a break in the wall, an old drainage tunnel, half-collapsed, but passable if you were desperate enough. She dragged the family behind her, dodging fire and shrapnel, cutting down anyone who got close.
As they reached the tunnel, Daisy looked back. Xeris was locked in midair, fire pouring from his throat, colliding with a dome of white-hot wards above the keep. Ravensworth stood at the center, hands raised, every line of his body taut with the strain.
The castle shook, stones dropping from the sky. Daisy threw her family into the tunnel, then dove after them.
The world behind her went white.
They crawled through the dark for what felt like hours, the noise of the battle fading to a dull throb. When at last they tumbled into the open, Daisy blinked in the weak moonlight, lungs full of dust and blood. She counted heads, everyone alive, everyone breathing. Relief made her arms weak.
Above, the city burned. The dragon’s fire had set half the noble quarter ablaze. Bells rang, sirens blared, but the sky was free of wards now, the sigils broken or dimmed to nothing.
Sam coughed, then smiled at her, blood streaking his nose. “You did it,” he said, awed.
Daisy wiped his face, her own hands still shaking.
Maribel cradled Rose and Mina, whispering comfort. Then she looked at Daisy, pride and terror in her eyes. “It’s not over, is it?”
Daisy shook her head. “Not by a mile.”
Above, Xeris circled, waiting for her signal.
Daisy stared at her hands. The scales had spread, her skin a map of red and gold.
She clenched her fist. For now, she was still herself.
But she didn’t know how long that would last.