Chapter 67 Blood is Destiny
It was a throne room, but not for any king Daisy could stomach. The chamber blazed with blue-white light, the source a crystalline device that stabbed up from the flagstones, taller than three men and wide enough at its base to swallow a cart. The crystal hummed, veins of molten energy writhing through its facets, each pulse sending a tremor through the room's bones.
Daisy’s eyes went to the center of it. Floating in the grip of an invisible hand was her mother.
Maribel hung limp, curls trailing like seaweed, her nightdress soaked through with sweat and blood. She looked dead until the light caught her jaw, twitching once, then again, as if some deep current tried to surface but couldn’t break through the static. Daisy’s stomach did a flip and landed somewhere in her boots.
The room was not empty. Arrayed around the base of the device were runic circles etched into the stone, layered with salt and scraps of something blackened, bone or flesh, it was hard to say. At each corner stood a pillar, iron-banded and etched with spirals, each one sparking faintly. The whole scene stank of ozone and old terror, a perfume that hadn’t changed since the days the city had tried to eat itself.
Samuel entered behind Daisy, his robe torn, face streaked with blood, but eyes sharp as a flensing knife. He took one look at the containment grid, hissed a curse, and hunched down, tracing sigils in the air with his fingertips. Eleanora followed, blade already drawn, but she stopped dead at the sight of Maribel, breath catching in her throat.
“Mom,” Daisy said. It came out stupid, small. She tried again, louder, and the chamber swallowed the word.
Maribel’s eyes snapped open.
They were wrong, no trace of the brown Daisy knew, no softness, only a lambent blue that ate the light around it. Her mother’s lips parted, and her tongue moved with a slowness that made Daisy want to scream.
“Blood calls to blood,” said a voice. It was Maribel’s, but layered under it was a cadence cold as grave earth. “How fitting you should arrive just in time for the culmination of my work.”
Daisy felt her own pulse hammer, the spiral on her wrist tightening like a shackle. Her legs tried to backpedal, but she held ground, every muscle in her body vibrating between fight and freeze.
“Edgar,” Eleanora spat, fury making her knuckles white on the sword. “You coward. You’re hiding in a corpse.”
Maribel’s head turned, blue gaze settling on the noblewoman. The mouth smiled, wide and thin. “You know what happens to children raised without consequence, Eleanora? They become sentimental. Weak.” The head swiveled, settling on Daisy. “Or they become weapons.”
Daisy snarled, but the sound was caught behind her teeth. She reached for Xeris with her mind, found only the static of battle, his attention consumed elsewhere, fighting for his own life above the city.
Maribel’s body rotated in its field, arms flopping, then slowly rising to her sides. “You should be proud, daughter. Both of you.” The eyes flicked to Eleanora, then back to Daisy. “You are the first to survive the new process. It’s almost beautiful.”
Samuel edged along the wall, inching toward the nearest pillar. He muttered under his breath, hands weaving signs Daisy couldn’t follow, but he shot her a look: keep it talking.
Daisy gritted her teeth. “What did you do to her?”
“She was a key,” Ravensworth said, voice syrup-smooth through Maribel’s lips. “I needed a vessel with the old blood and the new. You were supposed to be the bridge, but you chose to rebel. So your mother became the fallback. One last gate for me to pass through.”
Daisy felt her hands shake, rage threatening to break every bone in her arms. “You’re a parasite,” she spat.
“Blood is the only truth,” said Ravensworth. “All other things are lies, or toys, or fuel for something greater.”
Eleanora stalked toward the containment field, sword held high. She slashed at the closest runic line, but the blade sparked off, ricocheting off her arm and almost wrenching her wrist. “Samuel, how do I kill it?”
Samuel didn’t look up. “You don’t. Not unless you want to vaporize everything in a mile radius.” He pointed with his chin. “Those pillars? They’re tuned to the field. Cut the right sequence, and maybe we can disrupt the link without blowing the core.”
Ravensworth’s smile widened. “You won’t have time, Samuel. The device is already charging. When it goes off, the blood-magic will rewrite every living thing in this city. My mark, everywhere, forever.”
Daisy ignored the chill crawling up her neck. She focused on her mother’s face, searching for a sign that Maribel was still in there.
For a heartbeat, she caught it: a flicker of brown behind the blue, a tear beading at the edge of her mother’s eye before the iris glowed over it.
“I’m going to tear you out of her,” Daisy said. “Even if it kills me.”
Ravensworth’s head tilted, amused. “That is the choice. Your mother’s life, or your city’s future.”
Samuel shouted, “Now, Daisy!” and hurled a crystal sphere at the nearest pillar. It struck, burst, and the runic lines flared: one, then two, then snuffed to black. The field around Maribel rippled; her body jerked, as if a string had been yanked hard.
Daisy charged, spiral burning, hand outstretched. Blood-magic coiled around her arm, shaping into a whip of red light that lashed at the field. The impact was instant, a thunderclap, Maribel’s body slamming back against the crystal, then rebounding. The blue glow flickered; the voice that came out next was two voices, warring for control.
“Daisy,” her mother whispered, high and clear, but then Ravensworth’s sneer overtook it. “You cannot hope to match me, child. I have centuries.”
Daisy focused on her mother’s face, ignoring the taunts. “Mom, if you’re in there, fight him.”
Maribel’s jaw worked, lips straining. The arms twitched, as if trying to move of their own accord, but then the blue light surged, and the body went slack again.
Samuel was at the second pillar, this time with a ceramic knife. He stabbed it deep, twisting, and the runes along its length bled silver. The field wobbled, flickering faster.
“Eleanora! Third!” he barked.
She didn’t hesitate. She sheathed her sword and instead hurled herself bodily at the third pillar, ramming it with all her weight. The iron rang like a bell, but the runes cracked, a hairline fissure racing up the length. The light in the chamber dimmed, and the blue energy around Maribel bled into a corona of violet.
“Last one!” Samuel screamed. “But fast, he’s going to trigger it early!”
The Ravensworth-thing in Maribel’s body howled, the sound so loud the air seemed to shake. All four limbs splayed, palms out, and lightning arced from her fingertips, connecting to each pillar at once. The runes flared, boiling white, and the crystal device at the center began to shudder, light strobing in and out like a dying star.
Daisy sprinted for the fourth pillar. Her mind went blank, the spiral on her wrist taking over. She raked the scales across the runes, shredding them, feeling her own blood splash onto the iron. The heat was unreal; her skin bubbled, but the runes shattered, one after the other.
The field vanished. Maribel dropped like a rag doll, hitting the floor with a sound that broke Daisy’s heart. The blue light hovered for a second, then condensed, reforming above the crystal as a ghostly afterimage, Ravensworth’s face, elongated, burning with malice.
“Blood is destiny,” the phantom hissed. “You can’t change what you are.”
The crystal device thrummed, then split down the center. From inside, a bloom of raw magic unfurled, blue at first, then shifting to blood-red as it began to consume the air.
Daisy crawled to her mother, pulled her upright. Maribel’s head lolled, eyelids fluttering, but Daisy caught a moment of recognition.
“Hey, Pesty,” her mother whispered.
Daisy’s throat closed. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Samuel was already at her side, hands scanning Maribel’s head, checking for a pulse, a sign, anything. “We need to get her out,” he said, voice frantic. “That thing, it’s going to go critical.”
Eleanora shouldered them both, hoisting Maribel onto her back with the strength of someone who’d carried dead weight all her life. “Move!” she yelled.
But Daisy couldn’t take her eyes off the crystal. Inside, the red light spun faster, gathering all the blue, all the energy, sucking in even the glow of the city beyond the high windows. And above it, the specter of Ravensworth hovered, mouth opening wider and wider until it split the face in half.
“Run!” Samuel screamed.
They bolted, dragging Maribel, zigzagging through the broken pillars as lightning forked from the device, eating away at the stone. The air filled with the taste of blood and burning hair.
Daisy heard the phantom’s last words, burning into her skull:
“You are my legacy.”
Then the world blew itself inside out.