Chapter 50 Are WE Ready
The room was deep, older than the rest of the castle. Daisy doubted it had ever been mapped, even by the old mages who built the rest of the labyrinth. The walls were rough and shot through with veins of pale-blue crystal that pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat, lighting everything in a chill glow. At the center: a slab table, and at its edge, Maribel, hunched and hollow-eyed, her hair gone brittle in the harsh light. She looked both ancient and newborn at once.
Daisy sat opposite, claws curled into fists, legs bouncing with energy that wouldn’t settle. The city’s unrest filtered down through the rock in little seismic tremors, like someone rolling a marble across the world every thirty seconds. A fine dust sifted from the ceiling, always in motion. In the silence between, Daisy heard her mother breathing, labored but steady, and the careful scrape of her own scales against the stone.
Maribel’s hands shook, but not from fear. She reached into her dress and pulled out a book Daisy recognized: the old journal, patched together from scraps, the one Maribel had forbidden the kids from ever reading. It was smaller than Daisy remembered, but denser, as if it had absorbed a lifetime of secrets.
Maribel placed it on the table. She looked at Daisy for a long moment, like she was trying to memorize her, and then turned to the first page. With a surgeon’s care, she pried up the binding, revealing a hidden compartment Daisy had never noticed.
Inside: more paper, folded and greasy, edges stained with something that wasn’t ink. Maribel unfolded it. The script was tighter, angrier. Symbols Daisy didn’t know but recognized, each a variation on the spiral, the same one that ran up her arm and across her cheek.
Maribel spoke in a rasp; the effort cost her. “Your father was a liar, but he was never a coward.” She ran a finger along the edge of the spiral on the page. “He belonged to a line of blood mages, not from the slums but from the old city, before they walled us in. Their job was to keep the peace between the dragons and the council.”
Daisy felt her throat clench. She wanted to say she didn’t care, that none of it mattered, but she knew the truth. This was the stuff that made people, the engine of every fucked up choice she’d ever made.
Maribel continued, voice growing stronger. “When the old city fell, the council sent out agents to kill every last dragon. They failed. Most died, but one survived, Xeris, the Crimson Devourer. And after that, they sent the same agents to kill each other. Fewer witnesses, less risk.”
She flipped to another page, more drawings, some looked like diagrams for spells, others more like recipes for pain. “Your father survived, too. He came here not to find me, but to finish his contract. Instead, he met me, and he changed sides.”
Daisy stared at her own claws, red and gold and twitching.
Maribel’s eyes were bright now, feverish. “He protected Xeris. Lied to the council, ran interference, bought time. He thought he could wait them out, raise a family, and hide in plain sight. But they never stop hunting, Daisy. They found him. They killed him.” Her voice did not break, but her body did, a little. She coughed hard, then continued.
“All I could do was keep you alive. I taught you to run, to hide, to lie better than anyone.” She pointed to the spiral on Daisy’s arm. “But it found you anyway.”
Daisy reached for the book, her claws shaking. “Why tell me now?”
Maribel’s gaze was sharp as a scalpel. “Because you’re almost gone. The blood will finish its work, and either you become a dragon or you die as a daughter. Maybe both.” She pointed to a final page, one Daisy hadn’t noticed. The spiral here was different, opened at the center, not closed. Around it, runes were written in what looked like blood, still red after all these years.
Daisy’s vision blurred for a second, then snapped back. The spiral called to her. She felt the urge to tear the page out and eat it.
Maribel spoke low. “It’s a counterspell. Not a cure, but a way to hold on. To make the bond... not just a one-way street.”
Daisy frowned. “You mean control the dragon?”
Her mother smiled, a little feral. “Not control. Convince. You have to get Xeris to surrender part of himself. Willingly. Or it won’t hold.”
Daisy barked a laugh, bitter. “He’s not exactly the type.”
“He might be.” Maribel placed a hand over Daisy’s, palm rough against scales. “He’s not what the council said. None of them ever were. But you have to give him a reason. Show him there’s something better than hunger.”
A tremor shook the chamber, dust sifting down in a fine rain. Maribel kept her hand on Daisy’s, steady even as her breath rattled.
Daisy reread the spiral. She recognized some of the words: sacrifice, memory, pact. Others were older, written in a tongue that was never meant for human mouths.
“How?” Daisy asked, voice softer than she meant.
Maribel took a sharp breath. “It has to be real. He has to want it. If you trick him, you both die.”
Daisy stared at the page, then at her own hands. They didn’t feel like hers anymore. She pressed them to the cold stone, leaving red prints that glowed in the crystal light.
Maribel reached for the jar of ink at her side, opened it, and dipped a thin brush into the blood-colored paste. She started drawing the open spiral on Daisy’s forearm, painting it over the scales, careful, deliberate. The lines tingled, burned, then faded, the runes soaking into the new skin like water into sand.
When she finished, Maribel sat back, exhausted. “Now go,” she said. “Before you forget who you are.”
Daisy stood, the weight of the transformation heavy in her muscles. She hugged her mother, scales scraping against thin bones, and for a second she was a kid again, hiding from a world that wanted her dead.
Maribel’s voice was a whisper now. “I love you, Daisy.”
Daisy didn’t say it back, but she let the words burrow into her heart.
Another tremor hit, longer this time, knocking a chunk of crystal from the ceiling. Daisy stepped between it and her mother, blood-magic pooling in her hands before she could even think. The shards bounced off a barrier, red as fire, suspended in the air for a moment before clattering to the ground.
Maribel watched, eyes wide, then nodded. “You’re ready.”
Daisy picked up the journal, tucked it into her jacket, and turned for the stairs.
Above, the city was burning all over again.