Chapter 155 The False Alliance Part 2
They made it to the river by dusk. Here, the city’s bones showed more clearly. What had once been a broad avenue was now a splintered causeway. The old warehouses were sheared in half by fire. Beyond the river, Daisy could see the silhouette of the old castle. Its spires are warped and lopsided.
Delia slumped against a broken cart, her breathing shallow. “Can we rest?”
Daisy scanned the horizon. “Ten minutes. Then we have to move.”
Delia glared, but didn’t fight her.
Oliver sat next to Delia, close but not touching. He whispered something Daisy didn’t catch. The wind shifted, and Daisy smelled the city’s rot: smoke, sweat, the metallic tang of magic gone wrong.
Xeris knelt beside her. “You’re losing them,” he said.
Daisy wanted to punch him, but he wasn’t wrong. She watched Oliver, saw the line of tension in his jaw, the way his hand hovered near his knife even in rest.
Daisy’s words were flat. “Can you walk or not?”
Delia laughed. “Not if you don’t carry me.”
Daisy didn’t smile, but she did reach down and haul Delia to her feet. Delia leaned on her, and for the first time, Daisy noticed how light she felt.
Griff had wandered to the river’s edge, staring at the water.
“Get him, now,” Daisy barked. Xeris was already moving.
They crossed the bridge at sunset, the sky burning red. Daisy felt the chain in her arms flare, the scars beneath her skin lighting up for an instant, then fading. She thought of the symbol at the gate, the way the petals had seemed to beckon her in. It was not a joke or a warning. It was a dare.
She kept walking.
On the far side of the river, the world was quieter. They found a shed with three walls and a roof—its broken frame barely sheltering them from the open night. Daisy made them settle there. Exposed to the wind, every gap in the boards felt like a possible breach. The sense of fragility was amplified. Oliver set watch at the door, his back pressed against splintered wood. Xeris perched on the roof, his silhouette barely distinguishable against the darkness. Delia curled into herself on a pile of straw, and her sleep seemed wrought of exhaustion, not peace—immediate and complete.
Daisy wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at the city’s heart, the castle’s shadow stretching across half the ruined blocks.
Xeris dropped down beside her, silent as a falling leaf.
She ignored him for a while.
He spoke first. “Why do you care so much if they like you?”
She didn’t look at him. “I don’t.”
He reached over, traced the pattern of veins on her forearm. “You do.”
Daisy shrugged him off. “I’m not like you. I need them.”
Xeris tilted his head, eyes flat. “That’s your weakness.”
Daisy didn’t answer, but she didn’t push him away when he leaned in, resting his head on her shoulder.
They sat like that, two broken things propped against each other, until Oliver cleared his throat at the door.
Oliver’s voice was bland. “Interrupt?”
Xeris didn’t move. “You just did.”
Oliver pointed. “Scouts, far wall. They’re signaling.”
Daisy stood, pulling Xeris with her. She glanced at Delia—still out, but breathing—and at the boy, who had buried himself in the hay.
Oliver asked, “Plan?”
Daisy didn’t hesitate. “We leave the city. Tonight.”
Oliver nodded, his eyes never leaving hers.
Xeris grinned, but there was no heat in it.
They woke Delia and the boy. Delia swayed but stayed upright. Griff blinked in the dark, shivered, but took Daisy’s hand without protest.
They moved north as a group, passing the castle's shadow and keeping to the side streets. Daisy led, regularly checking for threats ahead, while Oliver and Xeris rotated watch positions to cover the group's flanks and rear. The torches behind them grew brighter, but Daisy maintained the group’s pace and cohesion, ensuring they didn’t lose anyone as they moved. No one gave chase.
Outside the city, the world opened: fields gone to black stubble, the wind scouring every blade. Daisy felt the emptiness, the world scrubbed clean of anything soft. She hated it, but it also made her feel safer.
They walked all night.
Dawn was a cold slap. They found an abandoned greenhouse, glass mostly intact, the inside warmer than the air outside. Daisy went in first, checked for threats, then signaled the others to follow.
Delia collapsed in a heap, hands shaking.
Oliver and Xeris took opposite sides of the door, neither speaking.
Griff curled up in the dirt near a pile of dead tomato vines.
Daisy sat by Delia. She took her sister’s arm, unwound the bandage. The flesh was worse—puffy, streaked with red, the edges blackening. Daisy knew infection when she saw it. A sick twist of guilt caught in her chest. She kept seeing Delia’s fall, the way she had shouted at her to move faster, and wondered if it was her fault Delia was now slipping away by degrees. Each time she looked at the wound, Daisy’s fear gnawed at her from the inside: fear that she could neither save her sister nor forgive herself if she failed.
“Cut it off,” Delia said, not even opening her eyes.
Daisy recoiled. “No.”
Delia smiled, teeth chattering. “You want me to die slowly? Your call.”
Daisy wanted to scream.
Oliver crouched beside her. “She’s right, Pest. It’s that, or she loses the whole arm.”
Daisy glared at him. “You volunteering to help?”
He didn’t flinch. “I’ll hold her down. You do the cutting.”
Xeris didn’t move, but Daisy saw the way his nostrils flared, the hunger in his eyes. For violence, for survival—maybe for her.
Daisy found a shard of glass, wiped it clean, and set it on a stone. She wrapped Delia’s arm above the wound, tight as she dared.
“Ready?” she whispered.
Delia nodded.
Oliver braced Delia’s shoulders. Xeris pinned her legs.
Daisy counted to three, then sliced.
Delia’s scream filled the greenhouse, shaking glass from the frame. Daisy worked fast, the glass sharper than she’d hoped, and in a minute, it was done. She pressed the wound with a fistful of dead leaves, tied it off with her own shirt.
Delia passed out.
Oliver cradled her, mouth set in a hard line. “She’ll live,” he said. “If we keep moving.”
Daisy cleaned the glass, then looked at her own hands, momentarily transfixed by the blood covering her skin—stark evidence of her actions and the burdens she had chosen to bear for others. Most of it was not hers, yet it marked her all the same, underscoring her responsibility and the profound weight of what survival demanded.
Xeris wiped her cheek. “You did well.”
Daisy almost believed him.
They rested for an hour, then left the city behind.