Vessel of Destruction (Daizlei Academy Book 4)

by Kel Carpenter

  His eyes went hungry, and I knew the look. Before he acted on it, Victor released my wrist.

  “If the Born think sending their Made after you will stop me from punishing them, they are so very wrong,” he said darkly. Victor released me and stepped back, extending his hand. I took it, like the good mistress I was. Head up and eyes forward as he started to lead me down the ancient hallways. Winter had come. With it, ice and snow and a cold like I’d never experienced in life had settled into the fief. The cold did not bother us, as it did other, softer creatures. It did however make the days short, and the nights long.

  Our night was only beginning as we strode toward the High Council doors. They opened without a word, both Vampires lowering their heads with acknowledgement.

  Victor paid them no mind as he led me forward.

  The Born that had been speaking paused.

  “My mistress was attacked today.” Even for Vampires, the entire Council chamber stilled. They knew what that meant. They’d seen enough shows of power from me to know what was coming. It took everything I had to keep the smile off my face and the darkness complacent just a little longer.

  “With all due respect, my prince—” one of them started. A man, two rows and three to the left.

  “Lily,” Victor interrupted, cutting him off. Shirt still ripped, most of my front bared to all—I walked forward without hesitation, my head held high. When I stepped off the first ledge, the Born started to scramble back. Those around him stepped away. Cowards, they were. They had loyalty for no one.

  I stepped off the second ledge and turned. One of the Born shoved him forward and he fell to his knees before me.

  I didn’t need to look at Victor. He’d already given the command.

  I lifted my hand to his throat and wrapped my slight fingers halfway around it. The mere touch of his skin set the darkness free and I couldn’t have contained it if I’d wanted to.

  In my head a voice was laughing, and it was twisted, dark, and so very cruel. It wasn’t until the husk of a Born Vampire hit the marble floors that I realized that the voice wasn’t in my head at all.

  It was me.

  The sound reverberated off the walls of the chamber and echoed back to me, a haunting, terrible melody.

  Black swirls danced over my skin as I turned to Victor and smiled. The light in his eyes as I did so was nothing short of depraved.

  “As I said,” Victor continued. “My mistress was attacked today and some of the Born in this room ordered it.” There was murder in his eyes as he took a single sweeping look around the room. “I warned all of you what would happen if anyone touched her.”

  The room quivered under the intensity of his stare.

  All but me.

  I’d seen the madness that lurked within him, just as he saw the darkness in me. We fed each other. Fostered each other. Groomed each other—stroking the other’s worst qualities to a fever pitch.

  “No one went after the girl—” a woman dared speak.

  The beautiful part about it is that she wasn’t the liar.

  I was.

  I lured the five to where I wanted them and then slaughtered them before a word of my actions could reach the wrong ears. I had Victor and the Council all in one hand.

  Just like they’d taught me.

  Selena and Alexandra.

  My darling, dear sisters.

  They left me to rot, and rot I did.

  It seemed in death that I finally understood what they’d been trying to teach me. What all of them had tried to teach me.

  And now everyone was going to pay.

  “Lily,” Victor repeated.

  Again, I followed his command. He was never the wiser about why I gleefully did so.

  We repeated this five times. Five more dead bodies.

  Five more dead Born.

  The Council chamber was brimming with tension and hostility. All for me. All for him.

  It was only when he commanded me to kill a sixth time that someone interrupted him. Another voice spoke.

  This one old, so very old that the essence in me took notice.

  “No more,” the voice said. It came from above and below and every direction around me. Power unlike any in all of this place pervaded it.

  Power I wanted.

  Needed.

  Victor stilled as if by command. “They were given orders. We had an agreement, Father, and they defiled it. I cannot accept that disrespect.” His silver eyes dropped to me. Covered in the blood of the Made and the Born, I was a sight to behold.

  “We cannot accept more death,” that ancient voice spoke. “War is coming, and we need the numbers to be ready for it.”

  “A war that with her we will not lose,” Victor replied coldly. “The same cannot be said for the cowards that hide behind their lessers. They are less than Born or Made. They are . . . without use.”

  There is no such thing as true silence.

  If there were, I would know it. But even without heartbeats or breathing or any of those signs that point to the living, there will be something. Be it the break of air as it stirs one’s hair, the crunch of snow beneath feet, or the weight of silence as it speaks for you.

  This was the latter.

  The already too tight tensions and repeated questioning finally came to a head.

  On the floor of the chamber a man came forth.

  His hair was whiter than snow. His skin the color of bone.

  But his eyes . . . they were silver.

  Just like Victor’s.

  “You’ve overstepped, my son,” the man said. “Speak again and you will find that it is your whore who will be without use when I bleed her dry and let the Council feast upon her before I hand the scraps over to their Made to do with as they will.”

  The threat was for him, but it was aimed at me.

  On another night, his threat might have made Victor eat his words. They might have sent him running with me back to his chambers. They might have worked.

  But madness, it was not a thing that was rational. It did not make sense to those that were. Victor’s possessiveness of me combined with his explosive temper . . . it was a terrifying thing if you didn’t know how to handle it.

  And me? Well, I pushed it just enough to get what I wanted.

  “Victor,” I whispered, and the sound was loud enough for all to hear. I didn’t care. It was now or never. “They don’t respect your commands. They talk down to you. They send their dogs after your mistress. It’s no wonder they act this way when your own father will not give you the one thing you’ve asked for.”

  He tilted his head and slowly descended the steps, coming to stand before me.

  His fingers—so pale, so cold—they touched my cheek.

  “What would you have me do, flower?” he asked softly.

  I reached up with both hands and cupped his cheeks gently. I went up to my tiptoes, balancing precariously on the edge with this monster that fate tied to me.

  My lips pressed against his. Tentative, but sure.

  His were far from it as he kissed me back fiercely. The intensity of it set my blood aflame. Were I living, I wouldn’t be able to breathe for the fire inside was eating away at all oxygen. I kissed him back, matching him touch for touch.

  The intensity of it rocked me to my core.

  I’d never kissed a boy in my life, and Victor was a man. A man who spent months watching me. Grooming me. I hated him, and yet a part of me also craved him. Craved that strange cruelty inside of him, so like my own.

  I didn’t let myself think on it or analyze why I might feel that way. After spending so long in the dark, I didn’t need to justify any feelings I might have to anyone.

  He might have been born a monster.

  But I was made one.

  Perhaps that is why fate threw us together.

  I didn’t get to think on it because the next thing I knew a burning sensation spread through me as something sharp was rammed through my back.

  I faltered, pulling aw
ay. Victor took one look at my face and his eyes dropped to my chest where the gleaming end of a long dagger protruded.

  “Lily,” he whispered. Panic began to set in. The edge of my vision darkened. “Lily,” he repeated.

  I stared down at the dagger as my knees buckled and my body folded. The last thing I saw before my vision went black were two thin glowing lines connecting Victor and me.

  One was red.

  One was gold.

  “It’s time.”

  A voice jolted me back to the present. I sat up, gasping for air, panting from exertion. The sensation of blood pouring into my lungs and death closing in overwhelmed me.

  “Selena?” Ash asked cautiously. “What’s wrong—”

  “She’s dying,” I said. “They stabbed her—she’s dying, and they stabbed her and—”

  Arms wrapped around me, but I couldn’t register them. All I knew was that Lily was dying.

  Again.

  “Selena, I need you to calm down—” Johanna started. “Xellos can’t open the portal if you’re—”

  “My sister just got stabbed in the heart!” I snapped. My hair lifted on end as fury flooded me. In the center of the room Xellos was chanting and magic stirred.

  “Aaron, you’re going to have to neutralize her. The Witches will spook if he opens a portal and she’s going off.” She’d barely finished speaking before I felt his presence in my mind.

  He pulled on the bond that spanned between us, opening up himself to my rage—and me to his strength. The entire room grew still as Xellos murmured one last word and the note hung.

  Behind me Ash began breathing harshly as my own breaths settled.

  I was only just beginning to cycle down when several wisps of color snapped inward and then exploded out.

  The portal opened.

  A girl stepped out. I hadn’t seen her in months, but even in my disoriented state I was able to make out her cloudy eyes.

  Milla. The Maiden.

  “The Witch Council is ready for you.”

  I heard the words, but they didn’t register. All I wanted was for someone to knock me out so I could find out if my sister was dead or alive.

  “Selena,” Blair said. The curt drawl of my name pulled my attention to her. She came around to kneel in front of me. Her eyes still black as pitch. Her expression cold. “You made a promise to us that you would be what we need.”

  I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat, torn between what she was saying and the undead-possibly-dead sister I left behind in my nightmare.

  “I made a promise to her too,” I whispered, battling my own extreme emotions. “I told her I’d protect her and look how well that’s turned out.”

  The sharp crack of her hand as it struck my flesh shocked me more than it hurt. I tentatively reached up and touched my cheek. The tension in the room was palpable as they held their breath.

  No one wanted to engage her.

  No one wanted to engage me.

  “You slapped me,” I said, dumbfounded by the action. Blair leaned forward, stopping when we were eye level.

  “And I’ll slap you again if you go back to that,” her demon answered in a hard, unyielding tone. “You agreed to do whatever was needed to end this. You promised her.” The demon snarled that last part, and I knew she was talking about Blair. “The Witch Council will not meet with anyone else. They will only see you.”

  “My sister might have just died—”

  “Your sister is already dead,” the demon spat. It hit harder than a slap would have. I froze, having to remind myself to breathe.

  In.

  Out.

  In.

  Out.

  Her remarks were cruel, but the truth often was. Demons didn’t bother with minced words. Kinder, though, they were.

  I didn’t want to listen.

  I certainly didn’t want to agree.

  But deep down I knew she wasn’t wrong. Lily had been dead for months now—in more ways than any of them knew.

  “If it were you,” I whispered. “If it were her” —the demons eyes flashed— “would you tell me to do it? Would you push me to continue on like I hadn’t just watched her die?”

  The response I got was short, but curt, and most importantly—it was the truth.

  “Yes.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed heavily. My chest expanded and then deflated, each breath making my heart slow. Though it hurt painfully to do so.

  “Why?” I asked her.

  The demon didn’t give me an immediate answer. Instead she looked past me, staring at the wall behind my back. “There is more at stake than you or I or your sister. The Vampires are a rot that have walked this earth too long—demons too. If I had the power to wipe it all out—even at the cost of my life—so be it.”

  My chest constricted tightly, crushing my newly found heart with it. Once, I’d lived for revenge.

  It almost destroyed me.

  And now . . . it seemed that love would finish the job.

  A shiver ran up my spine and the hairs along the back of my neck rose. Lily might be dead. She might be alive. I didn’t know, but falling asleep again to find out wasn’t going to do anything but risk our best chance at an alliance—and with it—the best chance to win the war.

  I looked past Blair to the girl that stood before the swirling portal. Milla. I didn’t know her last name, or if I ever had.

  “You can see the future, can you not?” I asked her.

  The girl’s cloudless eyes watched me as if judging what she could see.

  “I can.”

  I swallowed hard and pushed forward onto the balls of my feet. Blair moved back, and Ash released his hold on me, handling the rage he stole with more control than I was capable of.

  “Do you see her?” I asked.

  She stared and not a kernel of truth revealed itself in her gaze. Milla was a child, and yet like the Crone already.

  A true vessel of the Three-faced Goddess.

  “I cannot say.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek and tasted blood, letting out a curse. “What do you mean you cannot say?” I clenched my fist and the building trembled. She didn’t bat an eyelash.

  “You’re at a crossroads, and your decision will change the course of this war. It will change everything, but no one—not I, not your friends, not your signasti, not your family, not even the ancients—can make the decision for you.” She spoke with the voice of three. Young. Middle-aged. Old. It was a voice I’d heard before, from a different set of lips. It was the voice of the Goddess speaking to me from the mouthpiece of a child.

  “I don’t understand why I can’t get an answer. If you know she’s alive, why not just tell me?” I snapped, my ire growing, the rage once again building. This time toward a Goddess and a girl. Heated fingers wrapped around my forearm as a crack ran up the clay wall and through the ceiling above me.

  “A sacrifice is not payment without choice,” Milla whispered. The words settled over me like the chill of frost in the dead of winter. They hit me with the force of a gale so strong it would shatter glass. I was once glass. Brittle. Breakable. The thing about glass is that once it’s broken, it’s sharp. Deadly.

  Six months ago, this decision would have been the end.

  Six weeks ago, I know what I would have done in a heartbeat.

  Hell, even six days ago I might have hightailed it to a magical elevator.

  But I couldn’t do that. Not here. Not now.

  I understood what the words meant, and even as dread curdled in my stomach, I walked forward on stiff legs. The anger drained away as such a deep, dwelling fear settled in its place.

  It wasn’t for me, but I didn’t say that, even as I felt Ash’s quick inhale of breath. His fingers slipped away as I went to stand next to Mila. She faced my friends. I faced her portal.

  “If sacrifice is payment, shouldn’t the person who bought it be the one to pay? Why don’t you ask your Goddess that?” Her only response was a slight smile as if
she found my answer amusing.

  “I will not forget the decision you have made today,” Milla uttered. “Remember that.”

  I had no idea what that meant, but given the girl liked to talk in riddles as much as the Crone, I wasn’t inclined to ask. Daylight was fading, and with it, my time to convince the Witch Council that this wasn’t just a Supernatural war.

  It was the war.

  The one that decided everything, if the ancients were to be believed.

  I stepped into the portal.

  Chapter 17

  The wind whipped through my hair and sand stung my eyes. A sun brighter and hotter than any other I’d experienced engulfed me. Sweat formed beneath my tight jeans and long-sleeved shirt, slicking my skin and causing my pants to cling uncomfortably. Perspiration dotted my forehead in seconds, gathering at my temple. It trickled down the side of my face, over the curve of my jaw, along the sweep of my neck, and into my cleavage.

  Voices sounded behind me as the others crossed through the portal as well. I heard them talking but didn’t process what they said as I looked out at the world before me.

  The Witches had gone into hiding over a hundred years ago. In the span of a few years they virtually disappeared off the map, and so few were seen after that. I had wondered before coming here what state I would find the highly reclusive Witch clans in.

  Seeing tents in every color was not what I expected. They were tall and wide, and while I couldn’t imagine living in this heat without air conditioning, I’d learned enough to not assume they didn’t, given the crushing presence of magic all around me. A near-invisible barrier surrounded the immense cluster of tents like a dome. My eyes traced as far as I could see in one direction to the other, and it had to be over a mile wide.

  “It’s a protective shield,” Johanna said beside me. “To keep people out.”

  There was no magical elevator in sight. No roads. No anything. I didn’t even know what country we were in.

  I glanced back at Johanna and replied, “Or perhaps, in some cases, to keep people in.”

  Her eyebrows rose at that assertion.

  Milla stepped through the portal last, and it closed behind her as Xellos waved to us, awaiting our return.

  The young Witch brushed past me, and I turned and followed her as she made her way down the line of tents. Their flaps didn’t even twitch under the harsh winds, affirming my belief that strong magic was in play—a kind of magic I knew very little about. We approached a copse of trees where a river ran. Beside it, women dressed in purple skirts and blue tops chanted in a language I didn’t understand.