Chapter 46 Xeris Fury
Smoke ate the moon, and the world shrank to red-lit alleys choked with panic. Daisy shoved her siblings ahead, boots slapping through icy run-off and the slick of something worse. The city was at war with itself; every other block flashed with the blue of shattered wards, every gutter filled with debris and the first bodies. Somewhere above, Xeris circled the chaos, and in Daisy’s mind he was loud enough to block out her own thoughts.
‘Go back,’ he growled. ‘Burn them all. Every single one.’
Daisy didn’t answer. She reached for the spiral at her wrist, drew blood with her nails, and let it bead at her fingertips. Then, with a flick, she shaped it, four droplets splitting in the cold, hardening into a flock of crimson ravens that rose and flapped off down diverging corridors. Through their eyes, she saw what waited: patrols arming makeshift barricades, families huddled in half-collapsed shops, city enforcers pulling the old and weak from the flames just to dump them in the open where the fire would finish the job.
Her mother stumbled, nearly dropping Rose. Daisy doubled back and lifted the kid herself, felt the old weight of responsibility settle on her shoulders, heavier now with every new patch of scale. The siblings stuck close. Mina had stopped talking entirely, but her eyes were wild, always on Daisy’s face, reading every twitch, every new scale. Sam kept one hand on the spiral at his own wrist, as if that would keep him anchored.
They cut through the empty market, Daisy’s ravens flanking them, reporting every shift in the city’s pulse. Above, Xeris’s silhouette blotted out the ward-lights, a moving blackout. He hungered for violence, and every second she resisted, the ache in her bones got worse.
“Down this way,” she barked, shoving them toward the old canal. The water was mostly frozen, but not solid enough to bear weight, so they skirted the edge, following a path Daisy’s blood raven had cleared ahead.
The canal ended in a bottleneck, a crowd jammed between fire and the city wall, everyone screaming, begging for someone to open the gate. Daisy recognized some of them. Neighbors from the slums. A few faces from her old crews. All desperate, all willing to trample each other if it meant one more breath.
“Let me,” Maribel said, surprising Daisy. She stepped forward, voice somehow clear above the din. “Move aside!” She pointed at the biggest, meanest wall of flesh in the crowd, some ex-foreman with fists like bricks. “You. Clear a path.”
He did, not questioning why. Maribel had always had that effect, even before she got sick.
Daisy moved after her mother, elbows up, slicing through the mass of bodies. She felt the pressure behind her eyes again, Xeris’s presence ramping up, a tidal wave.
‘You are wasting time, he hissed. The main gates are sealed. The city’s magic is spent; no one can stop you now. Why protect them?’
She didn’t bother to explain. She just kept moving.
At the mouth of the alley, a new threat: city guards, three in blue, wands ready. Daisy tensed, prepared to throw herself at them, but the ravens did it first, four blurs of red, slicing across the guards’ faces, blinding them, sending them crashing into each other. The crowd surged, and Daisy used the chaos to slip her family through the opening, into the next block.
They hit open air. From here, the city’s entire noble quarter was visible, spires wreathed in smoke, mansions burning, wardlines flickering like the last breath of a guttering candle. And in the center, the keep: still standing, but with half the roof peeled off, fire leaking from every window.
Her blood ran hot, and the scales along her neck burned like a fever. Xeris’s voice rose, insistent, desperate. ‘They run. They hide. They think they are safe. Burn them now. It is our right.’
Daisy’s hands shook. She wanted to let him loose, to erase every last scrap of noble arrogance from the city. But she remembered the faces in the crowd, the way Maribel had moved them, the way her siblings looked at her.
She turned to Mina, voice barely her own. “Get them to the river. Find Delia, or Oliver, or anyone who’ll help. Don’t look back.”
Mina nodded, lips set hard, and took Sam and Rose by the arms.
Maribel lingered. “You’ll come?”
Daisy lied. “I’ll meet you there.”
She watched them go, then doubled back toward the keep.
She needed to see the fight, to see Xeris in action. Maybe to prove she was different.
At the edge of the burning garden, she ran into Samuel and Cornelius. They looked like survivors of a different war. Samuel’s robe was half-burned, his hair singed; Cornelius had a fresh gash across his jaw, but his hands were steady on his sword.
“You’re alive,” Samuel said, relief and fear wrestling in his voice. “We’ve been herding people out all night. There’s more at the east gate, but it’s hell there.”
Daisy felt the spiral on her wrist pulse. “Xeris is about to wipe the keep. If there’s anyone left inside, you need to get them out.”
Cornelius caught her arm, hard, fingers biting into the scales. “You can’t just unleash him,” he snapped. “That’s not a revolution. It’s slaughter.”
Daisy yanked her arm free, scales tearing his palm. “Tell that to the city. Tell that to every one of us they bled for centuries.”
He wiped his hand, eyes bright with hate, or maybe with understanding. “I was hired to kill you,” he said. “But I see now why they’re afraid.”
Samuel stepped between them. “If you don’t control it, Daisy, you become the thing they said you always were.”
She felt the words like a punch. The spiral blazed. Xeris roared in her skull, drowning her thoughts.
‘Do it. They made you a weapon. Use it.’
She wanted to say yes.
But instead, she reached for her own blood, not Xeris’s power. She cut deep, let the blood flow, then forced it into the shape of a barrier, not a weapon, but a shield. She slammed it between the keep and the city, a wall of red glass, tall and absolute.
Xeris bellowed, flames hammering the ward, but the shield held. Inside, the screams of the nobles were muffled to a whisper.
Daisy turned to Samuel, voice shredded. “Get as many out as you can. I’ll keep him busy.”
Samuel’s eyes were wet. He nodded, then vanished into the smoke.
Cornelius lingered, face a mask. “Don’t become him,” he said. Then he ran.
Daisy stood alone in the ruins, blood steaming from her arm, and screamed into the night, hoping the dragon would hear.
He did.
The sky split, and Xeris landed in the square, crushing the fountain to powder. He was beautiful and terrible, every scale lit from inside with fire. He lowered his head to Daisy’s level, and for a moment she saw herself reflected in his eye, scales, spiral, teeth. Not quite monster, not quite girl.
He opened his mouth, and instead of a roar, she heard a plea.
‘Join me. It is all we have left.’
Daisy reached out, touched his muzzle, let the scales on her hand match his.
“We’re not done,” she said. “But we do it my way now.”
He blinked, smoke curling from his nostrils.
She took a breath, then aimed him, not at the city, but at the heart of the keep. At the thing that had been built to eat her family, her friends, her world.
“Burn it down,” she said.
And he did.