Chapter 57 Uncertain Future
The sanctuary's walls shook, dust pouring from the carved runes in choking sheets. The first impact was a test, a shudder that rattled every crystal in the ceiling and sent glass vials clattering to the floor. The next was a real hit, a detonation that cracked the altar's edge and knocked Samuel clean off his feet.
Daisy woke to chaos. The group was in motion, Maribel and Delia dragging emergency supplies away from the outer wall, Oliver wedged in the doorway with a crossbow in one hand and a bloodied pipe in the other. Cornelius and his mercs were gone, out on perimeter, or maybe already dead, judging by the way the air outside the door turned blue with each new explosion.
Daisy tried to get up. The scales on her legs had fused, making it feel as if she were hauling an anchor, but the adrenaline cut through the ache. She braced against the altar, then lurched upright, clutching her father's journal to her chest.
"Status?" she barked, the word coming out with a double resonance, the usual street bite, and beneath it the hollow boom of Xeris, echoing in her skull.
Oliver ducked as a bolt of lightning vaporized the far corner of the room. "They've got the main hall surrounded. Not just local mages, either, accents are foreign, uniforms stitched with gold. Mercenary bands, top tier."
Samuel scrambled back, face flecked with blood. "Ravensworth called in the neighbors. The best in the world. We're sitting ducks."
Daisy scanned the walls, mapping every crack, every seam. "Not if we move fast."
Maribel's voice was iron. "We can't outrun the spell. Once they set the grid, every living thing in this room will be erased. Not killed, unmade."
Delia clung to Daisy's arm, desperate. "Can you do the counterspell? You said you were ready,"
Daisy shook her off, ignoring the sting. "Not alone. I need Xeris to help."
In the space behind her eyes, the dragon brooded. He wanted to burn, to break, to kill every living thing within reach, but Daisy could feel the other emotion now, fear. He'd been caged for centuries, and she was about to ask him to chain himself again, for her.
She reached through the bond. Found him in the ruins above, wings blocking out the sun, the city's violence reflected in the silver of his eyes. He waited.
You want to live? Daisy asked, not with words but with the pulse of her own heart. Then you do this with me.
He hesitated, the tension like a stretched wire.
You would bind me, Xeris answered, the words so cold they almost froze her blood.
Not a chain, Daisy thought—a partnership.
She sent him the image: not a world of blood and fire, but one where power answered to someone other than pain. She showed him the slums, the market girls with glowing hands, the children who had never known magic before. She showed him her mother, scars and all, standing against the end of the world with nothing but a daughter and a book.
Xeris reeled, confused, angry. But he felt it, too.
The room shook, a direct hit overhead. Chunks of crystal rained down, slicing open Daisy's shoulder. She didn't flinch, just pressed her claw into the wound, pulled out the blade, and used her own blood to draw the first line of the sigil on the altar.
It blazed to life, brighter than the crystals.
Samuel moved to her side, hands steady now. "I'll do the words," he said. "You just focus."
Daisy nodded, then called to the dragon. Now.
Above, Xeris spread his wings and screamed, the sound so loud that the world flickered around it. He dragged his talons across the roof, gouging lines in the stone that matched the sigil Daisy was carving below. Flame jetted from his mouth, but instead of burning, it traced lines of light in the air, weaving a cage of fire around the sanctuary.
Another impact, the east wall exploded inward, and Delia shrieked, knocked back by the blast. Oliver fired the crossbow at the advancing mages, but their shields turned it aside like a toy. He swore and dragged Delia behind the altar, shielding her with his own body.
Daisy felt the magic gathering, the old city's grid fighting back, trying to swallow their new power. She sliced deeper into her palm, letting more blood pool onto the stone. This time, when she shaped it, it wasn't a shield or a weapon; it was a spiral, open at the center, calling Xeris down.
"Do you accept?" She asked, voice shaking.
He hovered over the shattered roof, peering down at her through the fire and debris.
You would rule me, Xeris growled.
She shook her head. "No one rules me. We do this together, or not at all."
For a heartbeat, time stopped. The air was full of dust, fire, and the slow trickle of her blood onto the altar. Then Xeris folded his wings and dove, smashing through the burning timbers and landing with a force that cracked the entire floor.
He bowed his head, his jaws inches from Daisy's face. His eyes blazed.
You are worthy, little spiral.
Daisy reached out and pressed her bloody palm to his snout. The scales hissed and smoked where her blood met them, but instead of pain, Daisy felt something new, a third current in her veins, not hers and not his, but both.
Samuel shouted, reading the words from the journal. The runes in the air snapped together, forming a crown of red light above the altar.
Outside, the mages began the kill spell, blue lightning forking down into the sanctuary. Daisy felt it hit the outer barrier, watched the sigils pulse as the two magics fought. The first three bolts fizzled, but the fourth broke through, slamming into Xeris's side.
He shrieked, the pain echoing in Daisy's own body, but she held on. She drew the last lines of the sigil, then collapsed onto the dragon's muzzle, gasping.
Samuel finished the incantation.
The world went silent.
Daisy felt herself floating, her body gone, her pain gone, nothing left but the bond. She sensed Xeris, not as a monster or a master, but as a companion. He was afraid, but she was, too. She sent him the memory of her first day in the slums, the hunger, the hurt, the need to win even when the prize was just survival.
He sent her his first sunrise, his first kill, his first betrayal. And together, they circled the spiral, neither above nor below.
In the shattered sanctuary, Daisy's eyes flickered open.
The blue lightning still hammered the ward, but it couldn't breach the crown of red.
She stood, her wounds already closing, scales rearranging in intricate patterns along her arms and chest. Her claws flexed, but this time she controlled them.
Xeris rose behind her, smaller now, but denser, the gold in his scales bright as new coin.
Daisy faced the open doorway. The enemy mages prepared for another volley, their leader shouting orders in a language Daisy knew from Xeris's memories.
She smiled, then cut her own cheek with a claw, letting the blood mist into the air. With a word, she shaped it into a shield so perfect it caught the next bolt and turned it to ash.
She and Xeris were one, but still themselves.
The enemy hesitated, uncertain.
Daisy strode forward, fire at her back, blood at her call, and for the first time, she didn't feel like a monster.
She felt like a queen.