“You see, Anastasia is infertile, flower, and not only is she infertile, but she kept this information from me. She led me to believe that we would have powerful children together, when indeed, she could not give me children at all. Now I came upon this information on my own, but waited for her to come to me and attempt to make amends. Do you know what she did instead?”
I swallowed once but did not delay in responding. “Did she attempt to hide it and go back on your arrangement?” He smiled, somewhat amused.
“She did. She also neglected to tell me she isn’t the only living Fortescue. That’s a punishable offense, don’t you think, flower?”
The hairs of my arms stood on end at the tone of his voice. Victor tucked a stray lock of black hair behind my ear before slowly guiding me down the levels of the amphitheater.
“Yes. Punishable indeed,” I agreed. My darkness collided in my chest, wanting free, wanting to punish the girl who gave me this life. I suspected it wouldn’t have to wait long, but I didn’t dare let it loose.
Not yet. It was still too soon.
“I’m so happy you think so. Despite all of that, it is not what brought this about. Would you like to guess at what brought this about, my dear?” He licked his bottom lip, hungry for violence that he would have me bring.
“No, sir. There are any number of deplorable things she could have done. It would take far too long to guess which one has brought about her reckoning. I would not wish to waste your time even guessing.” A sliver of unrequited rage slipped through and he chuckled in delight.
“You are the most pleasing creature I have ever owned, Lily. Leagues above all others.” He brushed his fingers around the curve of my hip, but only for a second. “My betrothed broke her vow and publicly declared war on all Vampires, including you and me. She attempted to take the life of Gregory Kamarov, and when she failed, she fled the scene. I simply cannot allow a weak being like that to stand at my side. What would it say to our people?”
We stepped off the final level and onto the flat bottom. My fingers twitched to end her, but I would not act until the command was given. Not for all the revenge in the world.
Vengeance is a virtue, and with patience, it would be mine.
“That you put a barren Supernatural coward above our people when she is without use,” I replied. He liked that phrase. Without use. It was so very standoffish. A slap to the face.
“That it would, flower, you are right again. But our kind do not believe in a breaking of contracts. She is my betrothed, but she is not worthy. What would you have me do were you in my position?”
Oh, sweet, sweet, vengeance.
It would be mine.
“I would have her executed to send both a statement to the Vampires about where your loyalties lie and the Supernaturals about what you will not tolerate.” My voice rang clear and true in the dead silence of the Council chambers. Not a single person made a sound.
“If only you weren’t Made,” he murmured. I don’t even think he realized the way he brushed his thumb across my cheek. In this world, I existed for him. No Born would question a master having relations with their Made, so long as they weren’t official.
Except perhaps, me. That was a thought for another time.
“I would like to give you a present, Lily, for pleasing me as you do,” he continued. His breath smelled of peppermint and tasted of violence. I leaned forward a fraction, waiting for those words I knew I would hear. “Anastasia is yours to do with as you wish. I only ask that she does not leave this room ever again.”
I nodded my head, concealing my smile.
“Thank you, sir,” I whispered. Victor and I had been playing this game long enough that I knew what he wanted to hear, and he pretended that he did not goad it. Or maybe he really didn’t see the way he led me hand in hand towards his blood-filled world.
He nudged me forward by the small of my back and I did not hesitate to approach the chained woman. Her ankles wore large metal cuffs that trapped her to the floor.
She didn’t stir as I advanced, perhaps already accepting of her inevitable death. I could not tell, and frankly, I did not care.
I reached out, placing my fingers under her chin to force her head up. The eyes that met me were not the blue of my nightmares, but the black of my soul.
The darkness snapped like an angry dog, breaking free from its hold in me and tunneling into Anastasia. She did not scream or cry as my victims often did.
No, she smiled as I searched through her essence, drawing it into me, feeding from it.
And in that final moment, I could have sworn I encountered a murky essence that tasted old…and her smile was of relief. Without realizing what I’d done, her energy began to fade and that ancient mass that slept inside of her turned to me, meeting my darkness like an old friend as it slipped inside my skin.
I shuddered for a moment as the invasive energy spread through me. As quickly as it had started did it settle and all that remained was a closeness with something that was not wholly me.
“Hello, Lily,” it whispered in my mind. I blinked.
“What are you?” I asked silently, not afraid, but curious. I’ve stared into the dark so long now that voices and shadows were not unwelcome.
“Someone that has waited a long time to find a soul so well matched. We are going to do beautiful and terrifying things, my dear.” His presence was cold as it clung to my own, but I did not try to force it away. I couldn’t if I tried.
I dropped my hand from the husk that remained of Anastasia. It echoed as it hit the marble floor. Bones and dust.
Anastasia Fortescue was no more.
Sunlight streamed through the window of the common room as I jerked awake. Ash’s strong arms were still wrapped around me where we had been sleeping on the couch. My body trembled and shook, quaking with such fear that it was only his exhaustion that had to have kept him from waking beside me.
Anastasia was dead. Lily had killed her. Reaping the vengeance that she so sought.
And in doing so, she damned herself to this curse.
Cirian had not died with Anastasia, but had gone to the next living Fortescue that could carry him.
And in the morning light of a new day, I wept silently for the sister whose soul died too.
To be continued…
Part IV
Vessel of Destruction
Chapter 138
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 would, 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 fl
ooded 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.
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