Chapter 52 Break the Chain
The climb nearly killed her, not because of the stonework, she’d scaled worse as a kid, but because the body she’d woken up in this morning was no longer built for it. Daisy’s scales ached with every motion, red hot and angry, splitting the flesh beneath her old scars. Her hands grew larger as she climbed, nails lengthening, palms broadening until they barely fit the gaps between bricks. Her breath rasped in her chest, every inhale pulling in so much oxygen she felt dizzy. On the final parapet, she braced herself and let her body shift, the dragon-magic working its way down her spine in an electric buzz.
Xeris waited at the top, coiled around the broken watchtower like a king in exile. His scales glimmered with sunrise, each plate patterned in the spiral Daisy now saw everywhere. He eyed her approach, not with hunger, but with an alert, almost parental wariness, like he’d been expecting her and had already guessed how the confrontation would go.
She climbed over the lip, almost losing her balance as her feet rearranged themselves for a better grip. The world was perfect up here: a wind cut through the smog, the city spread out in all directions, and the sky, though marbled with storm, offered a clarity Daisy hadn’t seen in months. She could see the University Tower, the pulse of the beacon, and, at the horizon, a storm of gold and black: the foreign mage armies, arrayed for invasion.
Xeris’s mind pressed against hers, velvet and steel at once.
‘So, you survived the purge,’ he said, and there was no irony in it.
Daisy’s answer was to bare her teeth. “Not for you. For them.” She pointed with a claw at the city below, the chaos barely controlled, her people fighting for scraps of new magic. “You want to burn it all, but you’ll just be back in a cage by tomorrow.”
He blinked, slowly. The ripple in his scales was almost a shrug. ‘It is the cycle. Power, fear, chains, fire. They always choose it. You would do the same.’
She shook her head, hair whipping behind her. “I already did. And I hated myself for it.” She steadied her hands, flexing the claws, watching as blood-magic spiraled around her knuckles. “You said you needed me. But was it to free you, or to become you?”
A rumble, half laugh, half threat. His head lowered to her level, massive snout inhaling her scent. The smoke from his nostrils was shot through with red, the same as her own blood.
‘I needed you to survive,’ Xeris said. ‘That is always the way. But you are not what I expected.’ There was something like amusement, or maybe pride, coloring the words. ‘You hurt me, and you changed me. You are not a slave. You are kin.’
Daisy felt the truth of it, deep in her bones. She could not have stopped the changes even if she’d wanted to. But she’d be damned if she let anyone, dragon or man, own her.
“Then help me break the chain,” she said. “Or get out of my head.”
He circled her, each motion impossibly silent for his size. Their thoughts crashed together, separating and rejoining in a rhythm that left Daisy gasping.
‘I could eat the armies,’ Xeris said, eyes hungry. ‘But they would just return, with more numbers, more tricks. You want to end the cycle? Then end the lie.’
Daisy took that in. “You mean show them. No more secrets. No more blood behind walls.”
His tongue flicked. ‘The city will tear itself apart, but the survivors will be worthy.’
Daisy shook her head. “I’m not letting you cull anyone. Not again. There’s another way.”
She held up her left arm, the one painted in her mother’s runes. “You saw it in my head. You know what I’m about to do.”
He narrowed his eyes, the old predator. ‘They will never accept you. You are not theirs.’
Daisy’s smile was all teeth. “Then I’ll make them wish they were mine.”
The wind picked up. Below, alarms shrieked as the foreign armies reached the outer bridges. Magical lightning lanced from the university tower, colliding with the first waves of invaders. The sky was alive with fire.
Daisy walked out to the edge of the parapet, high above the killing ground. She watched the first ranks of enemy mages shatter the local wards, the slum kids lighting up and fighting back with wild, beautiful, suicidal spells. She saw Cornelius leading a squad through the rubble, every move precise and ruthless. She saw Delia hauling a wounded girl from a burning house. She saw her family, huddled in the shadow of the old wall, Mina’s eyes wide as she pointed at the horizon.
She looked at Xeris. “Ready?”
He flicked his tail, splitting a chunk of stone. ‘I was born ready,’ he said.
Daisy drew her knife, Eleanora’s, still crusted with yesterday’s blood, and cut deep across her palm. The blood didn’t spill; it hovered, lifting in a series of tight spirals, red as sunrise, brighter than the beacon. She reached with her mind, pulling the counterspell up from her mother’s journal, the words harsh and guttural, not meant for human throats.
The pain was enormous, a detonation from the wrist outward. Scales bloomed across her chest, her neck, her jaw, and then broke open, new skin hard as glass forming underneath. She watched as the spiral on her arm peeled away from the surface, rising into the air, a living thing.
Xeris echoed the motion. He clawed open his own chest, letting a spray of dragon blood: hot, almost blue, mix with Daisy’s crimson. The droplets met in the air, fusing, spinning, creating a double helix that shimmered with impossible colors.
Daisy felt herself dissolve, every memory in her life pulling free and flashing before her eyes: Her mother’s touch, the first time she bled for a hunt, the day she met Oliver and hated him instantly. The hunger that drove her, the terror, the way hope had always been a betrayal.
Then, new memories: Xeris’s first flight, his terror when the council caged him, the taste of fire in his throat as he burned his first enemy. The loneliness, centuries thick, heavier than any chain.
They merged in a moment outside of time. Daisy saw herself through his eyes: small, angry, but luminous with a will that made even dragons flinch. He saw himself through her: not a monster, but a survivor, desperate to outlast an indifferent world.
The counterspell finished itself. Daisy spoke the last word, and the spiral shattered, raining blood and blue fire down on the city.
The sky screamed.
For a second, everything was light: the walls, the streets, the rivers, every surface painted with a shifting pattern of red and blue. Daisy felt herself burn away, not dying but becoming something new. Her body swelled, every muscle doubled, her jaw split open and re-formed, teeth like knives. She roared, and the city shook.
When the light faded, Daisy was still herself, but not. Her skin was armor, every sense amplified, and she could feel the city like it was her own body. She looked at Xeris, who was now smaller, more defined, the arrogance softened, the old rage replaced by an almost human curiosity.
They looked at each other and laughed, the sound rolling down the hills, a challenge to every monster left in the world.
Below, the invading armies faltered. Some turned and ran. Others lifted their wands or swords in awe, unsure whether what they saw was a god or a demon.
Daisy stepped off the parapet, the wind catching her new wings, and soared above the city. Xeris followed, his laughter a thunderclap.
She landed in the main square, where the beacon still flared. The people, her people, gathered in the streets, some weeping, some screaming, all watching as the new creature approached. Daisy opened her mouth and spoke, and her voice was as big as the world.
“No more kings. No more dragons. Only those strong enough to survive.”
Then she lifted off, trailing a storm of red and blue fire, and the city, for the first time in its long, ugly history, belonged to itself.
On the horizon, the armies wavered, and the first rays of the real dawn broke over the ruins.