Chapter 51 To Save the City...
The hall was a meat locker, the air thick with old smoke and new fear. Daisy picked her way through the ruins of the main corridor, each footfall crunching glass and bone. Someone had tried to sweep the worst of the mess into piles, but the place still reeked of burnt silk and the sick-sweet tang of bodies recently evacuated. She recognized the red stain in the center of the floor, and the charred spiral at its edge: her work, from the night before. She half-expected it to pulse in time with her heart.
They’d set up the council in the old reception gallery, which used to be the domain of wine-soaked banquets and marriages of convenience. Now, half the tapestries hung at odd angles, and the stained glass was more hole than window. Samuel, Cornelius, and Eleanora argued in tight, angry circles around the last surviving conference table: a scarred, massive thing that had likely outlasted most of the families in the city.
Oliver was the first to spot her. He looked terrible: a gash on his cheek, one sleeve burned away, and a limp that seemed fresh. Still, he grinned like the world hadn’t gone sideways, and slid across the room to intercept her.
He took one look at her arm, at the new spread of scales on her jaw, and whistled low. “You’re even prettier up close,” he murmured, just for her.
Daisy’s lips twitched. She wanted to punch him, or maybe hold him for a second, but there wasn’t time. She gestured at the table. “What’s the word?”
Oliver’s smile fell away. “Bad. Real bad. Mercenary crews swept the slum gates—torch-and-purge tactics. They’re not even trying to round people up anymore, just burning anyone that lights up.” He shifted, eyes darting. “Rumor is, some of the new mages hit back. Hard. One crew got turned inside out, literally.”
Daisy glanced at the others. “What about the wards?”
Cornelius answered from across the table. His face looked like a fist had used it for target practice, and his hands were bandaged, but he still managed to pour himself a cup of something that smelled like paint stripper. “University’s locked up tight. High Council’s inside, and every failed apprentice they could conscript. They’re rebuilding the ward grid, but it’s patchwork. Most of the city’s magic is still out of control.”
Samuel glared at Cornelius, but spoke to Daisy. “You saw it? The beacon?”
Daisy shook her head. “No.”
Eleanora, perched at the end of the table, rolled up her sleeve. The skin was puckered, red, with spiral-shaped burns curling up her forearm. “They set it off an hour ago. University tower. Father always said if the city ever lost control, the protocol was to call in help from the neighbors.”
Samuel made a disgusted noise. “Outside mages. Mercenary legions. They’ll be here by dusk.”
Daisy considered. “Who’s left to fight them?”
Cornelius snorted. “Every bastard with a chip on their shoulder and a spell in their blood. You, for starters.”
Eleanora’s gaze cut through the room. “We need to decide. The old order is finished, but if we let the new one eat itself, we’re looking at a century of war. Maybe more.” She looked at Daisy, and for the first time, there was no calculation in her eyes, just exhaustion. “If you can guarantee my people’s safety, we’ll help stabilize the city: no more blood culls, no more purges. But we keep the property, the money. Some continuity.”
Daisy laughed sharply. “You want me to save your house?”
Eleanora shrugged. “Better a truce than a funeral pyre.”
Cornelius threw down his cup. “No deals. We tried that for a hundred years, and look where it got us.” He glared at Daisy, then at the others. “We burn the rest of them out. Clean sweep. After, we set up our own council. One that actually represents the people.”
Samuel raised a hand, calm as a teacher begging for order. “Both of you are wrong. If you destroy the old structure, you have nothing to build on. The city will collapse within a week, in a wave of famine, plague, and chaos. We need a transitional government. Something that keeps the lights on and the food coming in. Anything else is a death sentence.”
Daisy felt Xeris watching, just over her shoulder, hungry for a verdict.
His voice sliced through her thoughts: ‘Weak. They are all weak. You have the power. Take what you want, and be done.’
She blinked, struggled to ignore him. “You know what he wants,” she said, out loud, and the room went silent.
Eleanora’s eyes widened. “He’s pushing you?”
Daisy nodded. “More every hour.”
Samuel looked at her, and there was a pity in it that made her want to scream. “If you break, Daisy, this city won’t survive.”
She showed her teeth. “If I don’t, it still might not.”
The floor shuddered, a distant impact somewhere deeper in the castle. Everyone flinched. Cornelius shot to the window, peered through the cracks. “It’s started,” he said, voice flat.
Through the ragged holes in the stained glass, Daisy saw it: the beacon, a fat column of blue-white fire, punching through the university tower and into the cloudless sky. The energy arced from the tip, branching off toward the horizon. For a moment, it looked like a tree made of lightning.
Then she felt it, a roll of thunder through her blood. Not just the city’s magic, but something older, bigger, moving fast from the edge of her senses. Dozens, then hundreds, of magical signatures, each more powerful than the last, advancing from every point of the compass. Armies of mages, called in by the beacon, drawn like flies to an open wound.
Eleanora cursed, the word ripped from her throat. “That’s it. No way to turn it off. By tomorrow, we’re overrun.”
Samuel moved to the center of the table and spread out an old city map. “We’ll have to fortify the core. Block the bridges, cut the power to the wards, use the new mages as a buffer.”
Cornelius laughed, bitter. “We use them as meat shields, you mean.”
Samuel didn’t blink. “Better than letting them be slaughtered. Every life matters, but if we lose the city, the whole kingdom goes under.”
Daisy tried to speak, but Xeris’s voice was a freight train now, every thought rimmed in flame. ‘It’s our chance. They’re weak, distracted. Strike now, and they’ll never recover.’
She grabbed the edge of the table, claws digging deep. “We don’t have time for a vote,” she said, barely recognizing her own voice. “I’m going to the tower. I’ll shut it down.”
Samuel’s face went slack with fear. “That’s suicide.”
Daisy shrugged. “Better me than the rest of you.”
Oliver stepped up, close enough to touch, but didn’t. “You sure?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
Eleanora drew a dagger from her boot and slid it across the table. “Take it,” she said. “If you see my father, kill him slowly.”
Daisy took the blade, weighing it in her hand. “Gladly.”
Samuel reached out, but she was already gone, moving fast, the world narrowing to a tunnel of blood and fire.
As she passed through the ruined doors, the alarm spells wailed overhead, and the sky outside was already crawling with lightning.