Chapter 69 That isn't your Mother
The hybrid stalked forward, its feet pounding craters in the ancient flagstones. Daisy braced, forcing herself not to look away as her mother's body ballooned with borrowed power, the skin at her throat and arms stretched almost translucent by the veins running black beneath.
The first volley came without warning. The abomination flicked its hand, and a cluster of glassy needles, each one a screaming spiral of energy, shot out and detonated halfway between them. The air was shredded, every molecule twisting against the next. Daisy's scales flared, instinct flooding her with the command to duck, run, survive. Instead, she raised both arms, bled into the shape of a shield, and took the hit.
It was like standing in the center of a hurricane made of razors.
She staggered, barely catching herself against the wall. Her blood dripped down her arm in rivers, the spiral at her wrist torn open and weeping, but the wound brought clarity. She twisted the next shield into a fan, using her own blood as a conduit, and caught the next barrage, three, then six, then a dozen needles, each one more vicious than the last.
The entity laughed, a sound that warped the stone. "You always were stubborn. Wasteful."
Daisy grunted, forced her body upright. She glanced at Samuel and Eleanora, saw them scrambling through the buckled side door, dragging wounded city kids with them. Good. She could afford to fight dirty now.
Through the mental link, Xeris pressed in, urgent:
End it. That is not your mother.
Daisy forced the link silent, shoving the dragon's voice aside. "Not yet," she muttered.
The abomination raised both arms, and the air went rigid. Sigils blossomed around its wrists, blossoming out like petals. Daisy recognized the next spell, a war spell from the old stories, used to wipe out castle walls and everything behind them.
She didn't hesitate. She slashed her own palm open, let the blood fountain up, and with a raw scream, wove it into a net that caught the spell before it finished forming.
The net held for a fraction of a second, then disintegrated as the blast slammed Daisy through the wall behind her. The impact punched every ounce of air from her lungs. She slid to the floor, gasping, vision tunneling to a pinprick. The stone where she'd landed was glassed smooth, the room behind it filled with drifting red dust.
"Daisy," the hybrid called, voice almost tender. "Why do you fight for them? For these scraps, these failures?"
She tasted her own blood. Her mouth was full of it. "Because I never wanted to be you," Daisy spat, forcing herself up.
The world spun. She held onto consciousness by the thinnest thread, locking eyes with her enemy.
The entity stepped closer. Maribel's face flickered in and out, sometimes the soft lines Daisy remembered, sometimes warped by Ravensworth's arrogance, his glee at her failure.
"You were never meant to be yourself," the thing said. "You are a pattern. A vessel, like all the rest. You hate me because you see yourself in me."
Daisy grinned, lips splitting at the corner. "That's the point. You're not special. You're just the last man standing in a line of cowards."
The entity's face twisted. In that instant, Daisy saw fear, a flicker of uncertainty.
She lunged.
Instead of a shield, she shaped the blood into a spiral, open, incomplete, the signature that had marked her wrist since birth. She aimed it at the entity's chest, willing it to remember the only thing it had ever meant: a way in. A way out.
Her mother's eyes, Maribel's, not Ravensworth's, caught the movement. For an instant, Daisy saw her there, screaming behind the mask.
"Daisy, please…" her mother gasped, then the thing inside her snarled and threw another bolt.
Daisy caught it, but let the force spin her, dragging her closer to the entity. With her last ounce of strength, she reached for her mother's arm and slapped her bloody palm against Maribel's heart.
The abomination shrieked.
Their bloods mixed. For a moment, Daisy saw everything:
She saw her own childhood, hungry and bruised but unbroken, always clawing forward.
She saw Maribel, running from the Ravensworth estate, hiding her daughter in filthy apartments and back-alley cribs, always one step ahead of the men her brother sent after them.
She saw Ravensworth himself, terrified of dying, afraid of ending, building layer upon layer of magic to keep himself alive by stealing the futures of everyone he touched.
The three of them, the bloodlines, the intent, the need to never let go, were one tangle, one pulsing, ugly thing.
Daisy squeezed, pushing her blood-magic into her mother, letting it wind around the spiral and through the core of what was left of her.
Ravensworth howled, voice dissolving. "No! You are nothing! You are a mistake…"
But the mistake had her own teeth.
Daisy latched onto the thing's essence, using the spiral as a lever, and started to pull.
The abomination convulsed, arms thrashing, skin splitting and healing in the exact second. Daisy felt her own bones crack, her own blood boil, but she didn't stop. For the first time in her life, she let the spiral go all the way, let the power surge not just from her wrist, but through every cell.
She felt Xeris in her mind, shocked and then exultant.
That's it. That's what I made you for.
But Daisy shook her head. "This is for her," she whispered.
The hybrid faltered, then fell to its knees. Its head whipped back and forth, one eye blue, one brown, the mouth torn between a scream and a plea.
"You can't…" it started.
Daisy didn't wait to hear the rest. She pushed, using the net of her own life, her own magic, to wrap the thing tight. She drew the spiral closed.
The magic backlashed, knocking them both flat. The room shuddered. The air filled with a snow of red and blue sparks, each one a fleck of burning memory.
For a second, nothing moved.
Daisy's face was pressed to the stone, her nose broken, one eye swollen shut. She tried to move her arm. It responded, barely.
She looked up.
The entity was slumped on the floor, breathing in jagged bursts. The blue was gone from her eyes, but so was the brown. Just blank, glazed, almost at peace.
Daisy crawled over and held her mother's face in both hands.
"Mom?" she whispered.
Maribel's lips moved. Daisy leaned closer.
"Don't let him have you," Maribel said, voice softer than breath. "You're stronger than he is."
Daisy sobbed, wiped blood from her mother's cheek.
But Maribel was already gone.
Behind Daisy, the crystal device began to hum again, louder and louder, building to a pitch that made her teeth vibrate. She turned, saw the lines of energy coiling up its length, saw the runes on the wall burning with a fresh, mad purpose.
She realized then: Ravensworth had set a last trap.
Daisy pulled her mother's body to her chest, shielding her as the device lit up, preparing to burn the world one final time.
She closed her eyes, teeth bared, and braced for whatever came next.