Vessel of Destruction (Daizlei Academy Book 4) Read online

  Vessel of Destruction

  Daizlei Academy Book Four

  Kel Carpenter

  Vessel of Destruction

  Kel Carpenter

  Published by Kel Carpenter

  Copyright © 2019, Kel Carpenter

  Edited by Analisa Denny

  Proofreader by Dominique Laura

  Cover Art by Amanda Pillar

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Previously on Daizlei

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  One year later…

  Sneak Peek

  Also by Kel Carpenter

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  To Analisa

  You’re a really good friend. Thank you for pushing me to finish. I’m sorry about the hippo.

  “Every end is a new beginning.”

  V.E. Schwab, Vengeful

  Previously on Daizlei

  Selena accidentally killed Lily, which then led to her merging with Valda—whom you may remember as Violet. Oops.

  After that, she wasn’t balanced or handling her grief well. She lost control of her emotions in the Las Vegas Black Market. During the time she was unconscious, she merged with her demon, finally accepting it and came back two months later to a different world. She earned the trust of her team again, whilst training Alexandra how to handle her own demon.

  In her search for the Crone, she learned that Valda is actually the soul of one of her ancestors who was made into a demon because of magic the Crone never should have spelled. In doing this, the cycle of balance broke. It’s on Selena to fix it, but because of the curse she can’t tell anyone why. During the final fight, Lucas was captured and Anastasia got away.

  Blair lost control of her demon and they still haven’t merged. Elizabeth delivered photos that led them to the realization Selena and Alexandra (and thus, Lily) are actually Fortescues.

  Meanwhile, Anastasia was taken prisoner by the Vampires and executed by Lily. The soul of Cirian passed to her at that time.

  Chapter 1

  The sun rose higher with every passing second, but not even it could smother the chill of something colder than winter as it settled in my bones. I tugged my jacket tighter around myself, inhaling Ash’s scent. Smoke. Fire. An inexplicable wildness that loosened this feeling in my chest.

  I’d been standing at the lake for four hours, twenty-three minutes, and sixteen seconds. Before that, I’d been laying on the couch staring at the ceiling with my muscles locked for what felt like an eternity. Lily now had Cirian’s soul. I’d failed her in every way, and there was nothing I could do to fix it. Leaving seemed like the best solution. Not for good; just for space. For fresh air and the bite of the wind. It gave me clarity. Stopped me from doing something a little . . . crazy.

  Stopped me from taking the elevator two floors down and three lefts turns, straight to the room where Lucas was being kept. It was a makeshift prison guarded by four of the finest Shifters alive. They were usually in charge of guarding the Alpha, but instead were wasting their time with him.

  I couldn’t help wondering if I made a mistake not killing him when I had the chance. If the rage and fear and desperation within my chest would not be there if I had given it an outlet. Deep down, I knew that killing him wouldn’t change this, and it wouldn’t make me feel better.

  But still . . . I wondered.

  And I waited.

  Thirteen minutes passed before I heard it. That slight rustle of leaves as a cloak dragged over the forest floor. The snapping of a single twig as an old lady made her way to me.

  “Anastasia is dead,” I whispered over the lake, but she didn’t respond. The slight patter of Livina’s heart made me angry inside. How was it that she was cursed with a thousand years—over ten lifetimes—and my sister didn’t get to keep her one?

  The unfairness of it cut deeper than anything.

  “Cirian’s soul now resides in Lily, but you probably know that already. Just like you knew that we were Fortescues, didn’t you?” My tone was accusatory because I had no doubts that the old hag knew. After seeing those pictures, I had to wonder how much of my life had she played a hand in. Was it simply the deal she struck with the ancients, or was there more?

  I laughed once to myself because that was a dumb question.

  Of course, there was more.

  There always was.

  “And my parents—did you have something to do with their deaths as well?” The words were barely a sound, let alone a whisper as I turned my back on the lake. Four hours, thirty-seven minutes, and fifty-four seconds. That was the longest I’d been able to stand in front of a body of water so massive ever since the incident with the Hydra where I’d nearly drowned. I should be proud, but instead I was being forced to acknowledge that there are some pains in this world that are worse than the darkness or dying.

  Watching my sister make the worst decision of her life was one of them, because I didn’t know how I was going to save a girl corrupted by someone worse than the devil.

  I looked at the Crone; at her multi-colored eyes and sagging skin. The weary frown of her lips and frizzy gray strands of hair. I wanted to hate her, and maybe I did.

  But I also understood her, just a little bit.

  She didn’t die like she was supposed to, and because of it she endured a thousand years of watching Cirian reap what she sowed.

  She watched the only people she cared about die.

  I understood that, and I wished that I didn’t.

  “I am sorry.” Her voice was aged. It cracked like an ancient statue, as if the lining of her throat had endured too much. She was forced to live, but that didn’t mean her body took to it.

  “For which part?”

  “All of it.”

  She walked around me. Her joints popped as she bent her weathered knees and settled back onto a large rock by the water. Using her staff, she lifted it and tapped the rock across from her, motioning for me to sit.

  “If I had the chance to do it over, I wou
ld, but—”

  “And my sister? You not telling me that we were descended from Valda, but from Cirian as well—would you do that over?” My anger was rising like a tidal wave within me, but I would not let myself snap. Killing her would earn me nothing, and that’s assuming she could die.

  “I didn’t have a choice in the matter,” she replied with a rasp and tapped the rock again. I flicked my gaze between it and her.

  Did I want to do this?

  Did I really want to sit down with this woman and find out if the truth was as bad as I thought? To risk finding out that it may be even worse.

  Did I want to put myself through this for the slim chance that something she had to say could save them?

  I took a shallow breath through clenched teeth and sat on the edge of the flat stone. The Witch smiled sadly at me, her chapped lips curling into a grimace.

  “There was a time when I had a choice, and I made the wrong one. The ancients took that from me. For the last thousand years I have existed to be their vessel and theirs alone, to ensure that the price demanded would be paid.” As she spoke, she swung the staff toward the lake with more grace than I expected for a woman a thousand years my senior. The blue orb touched the surface of the water, glowing briefly. When she lifted it away, a picture spread, growing from the ripple she’d created.

  In it was a woman with lovely brown skin and exquisite curls, holding a swaddled baby with a shock of blonde hair that turned black.

  “What is this?”

  “The first of Valda’s line,” the Crone replied. She smiled at the image on the water, but it wasn’t a happy thing. In my mind Valda brushed closer. “Atlanta.”

  That word held so much emotion. I swallowed, averting my eyes.

  “You raised her? The baby?” I asked, ignoring the pounding in my heart. Livina nodded, and the picture changed. “I raised her, and her daughter, and her daughter’s daughter—all the way down the line.”

  The beautiful blonde baby morphed and grew into a young woman. “Mom,” I breathed. My hands trembled, and my breath shook, coming out in puffs of white.

  “When your mother and Mariana were born, I had a vision of you.” She pointed a crooked finger at me. “I knew that they would finally break the mold. That the ancients had decided they had punished the earth long enough.” In the lake image, my mother and Mariana sat in a house I remembered all too well. Alexandra burned it down. “Every generation of Konigs I raised died in childbirth or were lost to the madness. They were the first that didn’t. When they were young children, I picked a human home and planted them in it, taking the human’s memories and making them think they adopted them.” The picture changed again, and this time it was Daizlei where they stood. The crisp cut lawn and stained-glass tower was something that I would never forget.

  “I moved the pieces to ensure that they were found at the right time, in the right place, by the right people—and brought to Daizlei undetected.” When that ripple across the lake changed this time, a heaviness started to settle inside of me. A suspicion I hoped was wrong. A sense of unshakable knowing that I could not deny.

  My mother, a much younger version of herself, strolled hand-in-hand down those cobblestone walkways with my father.

  “You set the scene for them to meet so that I would be born.” The words barely left my lips when the scene changed again. I saw their lives together. Their wedding. Them finding out they were pregnant. Me and my sisters being born, and growing up, and—it stopped abruptly. The images vanished.

  “You mother was a Konig and your father a Fortescue. You weren’t born by chance. You were born because the gods deemed it so.” My heart pounded so hard that I could barely hear her over the blood roaring in my ears. “Two families that caused the world more suffering than any other thing, finally came together. The result was three of the most powerful children that will ever walk the face of this planet. You may hate me, Selena, and I wouldn’t blame you. But everything I have done was to protect your family. Everything your parents did was for you. All of you.”

  I sat, staring at the lake. After last night, watching Lily kill Anastasia and take in Cirian’s soul. Listening to how our birth was written a thousand years ago. That we were destined for this. That my parents died for this . . . it killed me a little bit inside. I couldn’t stop it. I knew that. But it didn’t ease the guilt or the anger of it all.

  I took one hand out of my pocked and partially unzipped my coat. Reaching inside, I withdrew a small stack of pictures. Photographs of my life with handwriting scrawled across them. The top one was a picture of the Crone. They were the same photos that Elizabeth had given me in an envelope the last time she saw me. She said they’d change the world. She wasn’t wrong. I don’t think she realized how much they’d rock mine, though.

  I thrust my hand out toward Livina, and her strong somewhat detached demeanor slipped as she let out a heavy sigh. She knew these pictures. Good.

  Long, bony fingers reached out and curled around the crinkled edges. Delicately, she took the photos and started flipping through them.

  “My mother used to sing me a lullaby almost exactly the same as what is written on those pictures, but still just different enough that I didn’t get it until now.” I swallowed and looked away. I could give myself that. A few seconds to gather my thoughts and steady myself. “They knew about this. About you. About Valda. And I would bet my life—the ‘he’ that is referenced in those pictures is Cirian. They knew he was coming. They knew he was in Anastasia.” My chest seized as if someone had reached in and squeezed. The pressure was bearable, but the emotion wasn’t my own in this case. Heat flooded my head from panic. In the distance, I felt him—Ash. I felt his shock and surprise at me being gone. It didn’t take him long to figure out where I was, and the panic eased as a steady reassurance filtered through our bond, calming me. Even here, twenty miles from the residence and without him knowing a word we’d exchanged . . . he was my rock. My reminder to breathe, and let it go.

  “They did know. Your mother was stubborn. I wiped her and Mariana’s memories when they were children, but like you, she fought it—and even the greatest magic in the world isn’t enough to hold up under the will of a Konig.” She nodded her head, still flipping through the pictures like what she just said didn’t undo everything I knew about myself and where I came from. “She knew something wasn’t right. That the flashes she was seeing felt more real than reality at times. Like you, she came looking for answers, and then she gave up everything—her and your father both did—so that no one would find you or those same answers.”

  “My . . . memories? You took those.” My voice shook with anger. Rage. Its bite was colder than an eternal winter. Sharper than any blade. Hotter than even hellfire.

  “Your parents and I had a deal. Your mother was already dying, and your father wouldn’t have been long after her. A signasti that loses their bondmate doesn’t last long. A sickness sets in. It was a better end for them both. An easier one—”

  “Don’t,” I said harshly. I stretched and curled my fingers within my coat pockets. It was the safest place for my hands. Far from her neck. “Don’t justify what you’ve done or talk like you know what was best for them. You made a deal that killed them. How can I possibly trust that it happened that way? My parents were—”

  “—pieced together from what they wanted you to remember. They weren’t real.” Her words were like a slap to the face, and I flinched.

  “Because of you,” I spat. If she was trying to convince me to be civil toward her, that was the last thing she should have said.

  “It was the best way. The safest way, for you three. Your parents knew that.” I watched her in stunned silence for a minute, and then two. I examined the slump of her shoulders and the grimness in her face. The way her eyes held sadness, even while being every color of the rainbow.

  “They came looking. That doesn’t mean they had to die!” I snapped, jumping up from the rock where I was sitting. Thick storm clouds rol
led overhead, blotting out the sun. Lightning flashed, and the air thickened with power—but for once it wasn’t me.

  Blair.

  Goddamnit—something had to have set her off. Which meant my chat with the Crone was coming to a close, regardless of the missing pieces I had yet to find.

  “Your mother was the first to survive childbirth and the passing of Valda’s soul. The only reason she survived was because Eric was her signasti—but even a signasti bond can’t stop death.” Her words whispered up my spine, prickling like a trail of knives across bare skin. “Analysa was losing her fight to the madness when she managed to find me. She only had months. They both did. When they learned the truth about her past and the role you would play in the coming years, they made a trade. I wipe your minds and buy you five years of the closest thing to a childhood you would get—in return they paid with their lives. Magic has a price, Selena. Nothing in this world comes for free.”

  The words came in. I understood what she was saying, but they didn’t register. There was no ah-ha moment where my memories came to me. There was no door unlocking. I understood what she was saying, but I couldn’t remember it for myself.

  “Give them back,” I demanded.

  “You aren’t listening. I can’t just give and take because someone wills it, even me. Your parents knew the price so that no one would find you before you were ready. I can’t just undo magic that cost two people their lives, child. I’m sorry, I really am, but your memories are gone.” Thunder boomed in the distance as the incoming storm built faster. The winds blew with a ferocity that wasn’t natural. My hood flew back, freeing my long dark locks of hair.