Chapter 101 Empires are Built on Cheating
The old castle garden was nothing like the city’s neat displays. Once the pride of Brightwater's royalty, it had been a symbol of order and elegance before the Revolution, with its intricately designed beds and perfectly manicured paths echoing the power of its owners. The revolutionaries had let it grow wild, with tangled rose canes and stunted fruit trees, and the paths were half-covered by moss and weeds. Its untamed state served as a quiet testament to the upheaval that had reshaped the land, a place where natural growth overtook the controlled elegance of the past. Daisy preferred it this way: no symmetry, no signs, just life pushing past what was dead. She found some night-blooming jasmine near the fountain and sat on the damp stone rim, the scent heavy in the dusk. Her hands shook, not from cold, but from the magic she’d been using for hours. Each try at the blood-ward left her skin more raw, the lines on her forearms spreading like tree roots.
She had learned to hide the pain, but tonight it wouldn’t go away. The numbness she relied on was gone. Even the air felt heavy and tense, thick with the threat of rain and the knowledge that the city’s fate now depended on the kind of quick thinking Daisy usually used for tricking guards or getting bread from tight-fisted bakers. In the distance, the city's bells tolled, marking the passing hours and reminding her of her dwindling time. Each peal pulled her further into action, like clouds rolling in, dark and insistent, threatening to arrive before she was ready.
She drew a knife from her pocket, thumbed the edge. The steel was cheap, but her blood made up for it. She traced a line along her palm, felt the flare of heat, and pressed her hand to the flagstone. "Bind and ward," she whispered, voice gone hoarse. "Hold for Brightwater. Hold for one night more." The blood amplified her power, driving the incantation deeper, but the risk of exhaustion was palpable, a thin line between potency and ruin. The blood-ward was a defensive spell that protected against the dark forces threatening the city—a complex barrier that repelled curses and shielded from invasions of evil magic. Each attempt demanded more of her, as the spell's binding required an intimate connection with the element it aimed to resist.
A line of red traced the cracks in the stone, unfurling outward in a lopsided ring before flickering out. The remnants of the spell beaded up, repelled by an unseen force. Daisy clenched her teeth, holding back a scream.
“You’re trying too hard,” said a voice behind her.
She didn’t turn. “Go away, Xeris. I’m busy.”
He walked around until he stood in front of her, blocking the moonlight. Even in someone else's body, he exuded a pressure, a presence that pulled at all her senses; his shoulders slightly angled forward as though claiming the space between them. As he knelt to meet her eyes, a subtle flicker in his gaze hinted at motives hidden beneath his calm exterior, a fleeting calculation that exposed a glimpse of the dominance he held. There was something timeless in his gaze, reminiscent of an era long past, where he had once shaped realms with a mere whisper and a glint of command. His past, entwined with Daisy's in ways neither fully understood, seemed to shimmer momentarily—a tapestry of ancient pacts and unbroken loyalties.
“You do not stand at the precipice of failure,” Xeris said, his words rolling out with an archaic formality. “The city's wards remain intact. Yet, you expend yourself, feeding their endurance.”
Daisy shrugged, wiping her hand on the grass, smearing the blood until it disappeared into the earth. “If I don’t, we lose everything.”
He reached out, cupping her chin in a hand that was gentle but unyielding. “There are other ways to anchor magic. Ways that don’t empty you.”
She tried to look away, but he held her fast. “Show me,” Daisy said, letting the challenge leak into her voice.
Xeris’s lips curled. He let go, then took the knife from her palm. “Give me your hand,” he said.
She offered it, wary but unwilling to flinch.
He pricked his own finger, a single drop welling up. Instead of letting it fall, he touched his wound to hers, mingling the blood.
Daisy felt the spell hit her, first hot, then icy, then hot again. The garden faded away as she was swept into a surge of emotions that weren't hers. In an instant, she saw a thousand years of memory: burning battlefields, the taste of dragonfire, and the vast fear of freedom. She gasped and grabbed his wrist, the connection turning them into one entity—one mind, one intention, one hunger. As the memories settled, Daisy recognized how these visions from the past could alter her understanding of herself and her choices, signaling changes and challenges yet to come.
Xeris’s other hand traced a warding circle in the dirt. As he spoke, Daisy heard his words in her own voice, the spell echoing back and forth along their connection.
“Guard the heart,” he intoned. “Let no darkness pass.”
The circle lit up with silver light. Magic, once unruly at Daisy’s touch, now answered her with effortless precision, flowing in perfect synchronization with Xeris’s will. Pain gave way to harmony. A shield, alive and strong, rooted in the earth and reaching for the sky, took its place. Power surged through her. In its wake, Daisy felt a faint scorch mark sear into her wrist—a subtle but unmistakable reminder that the bond carried its own peril. The sensation pulsed in time with her heartbeat, the echo intensifying, hinting at the potential danger held within their connection.
Daisy tore her hand free, panting. “What did you do?”
Xeris sat back, watching her with a predator’s calm. “I shared the load. The bond amplifies what you can do. But it must be mutual.”
She flexed her hand, watching the skin close over the cut. “Feels like cheating,” she said, but there was awe in it.
He shrugged, then lay back on the cold grass. “Empires are built on cheating.”