Chapter 23 His Arrival
The corridor ended in a world that wasn't meant for people.
Daisy squinted, eyes watering from the sudden blaze of light. The chamber yawned wider than any cathedral, the far wall lost beyond veils of mist. Stalagmites jabbed up from the floor like the bones of gods; from the ceiling, crystals hung in a thousand slow-motion daggers, each one packed with blue-white fire that stung her retinas. The air hummed with power: raw, bright, and not at all friendly.
She stepped out onto a ledge. The world below dropped off in dizzying tiers, each one coated with a frosting of quartz that shimmered under her feet. Daisy's boots crunched on the edge, and the sound ricocheted, multiplying until it sounded like a whole army was just behind her.
She scanned the vastness for movement. There, in the center: a mound of something huge, almost fused with the rock. At first, she thought it was a fossil, a relic buried a hundred ages ago and left to rot. Then it twitched. A tail, thick as an oak, slid across the ground, gouging furrows in the stone.
The beast uncoiled. Its scales were dark red, edged with black, every plate overlapping the next in a mesh tighter than armor. Its head rose, angular and elegant, jaws lined with teeth like shattered glass. Two eyes opened, first one, then the other, pupils a flat, predatory gold.
Daisy froze. Every muscle locked. The spiral birthmark on her wrist flared, the pain almost sweet compared to what stared back at her.
A voice filled her skull. Not like the rat-creature, this was bigger, vaster, with gravity and mass. It was a world unto itself.
'After centuries, the blood of my betrayers returns.'
The dragon, Xeris, shifted, sloughing a mountain's worth of dust from its shoulders. Bands of metal wrapped its body at odd angles, some fused straight into the bone. Chains anchored its arms, legs, and neck to the walls and floor. Each link glowed blue, so hot it looked like frozen lightning.
Daisy's terror was so complete it circled back to calm. She took a breath, then another, and forced herself to move. She climbed down a path etched into the rock, zigzagging toward the center of the chamber. Her wrist pulsed with every step, the spiral throwing ghost-lights onto the cave wall.
The dragon's head tracked her, eyes narrowing as she drew closer.
'You are not quite what they were,' Xeris said, amusement leaking through the telepathic chill. 'Something in your blood has changed.'
Daisy stopped ten feet from the beast. The heat of it pressed against her skin, prickling her hair. She could see her own reflection in the scales, warped and tiny and completely insignificant.
"I'm not here to finish what they started," Daisy said, her voice barely above a whisper.
'No. You have the stink of desperation, not power.' The dragon shifted again, testing the chain at its throat. It held.
Daisy looked up, squinting against the glare of the chains. "Why did they do this to you?"
Xeris's tail thumped the ground, and a tremor rolled through the cave. 'Power. Fear. They feared what I might become. They wished to bleed me for generations: medicine, magic, immortality. All that and more, until I was nothing but a story.'
Daisy glanced at her wrist. The birthmark had stopped burning, but her hand was still shaking. "And you waited?"
'Waiting is not my nature,' the dragon replied. 'But there are things even I cannot break. He cocked his head, examining her. You came through the door of blood. You bear the mark. Are you the new jailer, or just another hungry little thing, come to feed?'
Daisy felt the anger spark in her chest. "Neither. I want out. Away from the city, the menagerie, all of it."
The dragon's laughter was a vibration, a ripple through every bone. 'Such hunger. Such little hope.'
She stepped closer, close enough to feel the breath of the beast, the way the air curled and crackled around its head. "Can you break the chains?"
'Not alone.' Xeris flexed his talons, curling them into the stone. 'But the blood of my jailers was used to bind me. It may be used to set me free.'
Daisy looked at her hands. The birthmark spiraled, a shadow under the skin. "You want my help?"
'What I want is a world that remembers. But failing that, yes, I like your blood.' His eyes flashed. 'But not in the way you kind expect.'
A sound shattered the moment, a high, shrieking wail from somewhere above. Then another, and another, until the cavern filled with alarms. The ceiling flickered with blue ward-light. Voices echoed down the passage. The handlers had found her.
Xeris smiled, if such a thing was possible with a mouthful of knives. 'It seems our time is short.'
Daisy stepped to the base of the chain. She pressed her palm to the nearest link, ignoring the way the blue fire licked at her skin. "What do I do?"
'Blood calls to blood,' Xeris answered. 'The rest is instinct.'
She drew her knife, the one Delia had given her years ago. The blade shook. Daisy hesitated, then sliced her palm. The blood sizzled as it hit the metal, burning along the spiral. The chain spasmed, flickered. A crack ran through it.
'Again,' Xeris commanded.
Daisy cut again, deeper. Her vision blurred. The chain snapped, the sound a thunderclap. The dragon jerked against its bonds, muscles bunching, snapping another link at the ankle.
Up above, a squad of men spilled onto the ledge. Wands out, faces masked and white with fear. The air shimmered with magic.
Daisy's knees buckled. She pressed her hand to the final chain, leaving a streak of blood. The metal dissolved under her touch, blue light shattering in sparks.
The dragon roared. 'Free, at last,' it surged forward, ripping the remaining anchors from the wall. Xeris filled the chamber, wings unfurling, tail whipping through the air. The men on the ledge didn't even have time to scream.
Daisy collapsed, vision tunneling to black. She felt the dragon's mind wrap around her, gentler now, cradling her thoughts as her own body failed.
'You will not be forgotten,' Xeris whispered.
Then the world exploded in fire and crystal and the memory of flight.
When Daisy woke, she was outside. The night sky arched above, the menagerie in flames below. A red shadow blotted out the stars, then soared away, leaving only echoes and the stink of ash.
Daisy flexed her hand. The birthmark was changed. She was herself again.
She stood, swaying, and set off toward the horizon. There was nothing left behind but a memory and a promise, cold and bright in her blood.
She smiled, then laughed, the sound echoing in the new, clean night.