Harbor Absolution

Harbor Absolution

The war was over. Her siblings were lost, her allies and friends little more than bloody stains on the battlefield. The love of her life died in her arms. Such incalculable loss, and Verity herself was now a force beyond control, bringing death and destruction to all in her wake.

But something worse looms on the horizon.

In a foolish act of blind desperation, Verity’s enemy unleashed onto the world the worst evil ever known. And it plans to destroy the veil-seer and her friends. Faced with overwhelming odds, Verity discovers that sometimes the hardest part of being an adult is asking for help. But is it too late?

Gryffyn Phoenix completes the Haven trilogy with a ragtag group of survivors willing to do anything to save the world. Harbor Absolution is about friendship, family, and the sacrifices you make when all else is lost.

Other Books By Gryffyn Phoenix

Verity Series

HAVEN AWAKENING

Some things are better left unseen.

The kids at Haven have been waiting. Legend foretold the veil-seer would lead them to victory over their sworn enemy, Helm. With her arrival comes the shocking realization that she is the one thing they never expected: a mortal.

Verity didn't want the cornea transplant for her sixteenth birthday. She couldn't have imagined it would make her the veil-seer, a coveted weapon in an ancient feud. Now she's stuck trying to master her new powers, make friends, and stay alive. Having been saved by Helm too many times for comfort, Verity wonders which side she should be fighting for. The problem is something evil lurks in Haven, and the only thing it wants is for the new veil-seer to die.

Haven Awakening shows that turning sixteen isn't always sweet.

Gryffyn Phoenix takes the YA scene by storm with the first book in the Haven Awakening series—a supernatural fantasy filled with life-threatening conflicts, heartbreaking betrayal, peer pressure, and the dangers of finding true love.

Helm Abomination

Some futures are better left unseen.

After Verity freed herself from Cass and her control of the Haven kids, she thought life would be smooth sailing. When flying with Haydn, the skies she sees are anything but clear. Her new possible boyfriend neglected to tell her a few things: like the fact that he doesn't want her fighting side-by-side with the Helm guys because he's not sure they'll protect her, or that there's an ancient prophecy that says Verity will destroy Helm and kill Haydn in the process. Some feel the best way to keep Haydn alive is to make sure the veil-seer dies.

Verity barely survived her sixteenth birthday. Now she may not live to see her seventeenth.

Harbor Absolution

Copyright © 2017 Gryffyn Phoenix

Published by Avalerion Books, Inc.

Smashwords Edition

Cover design by Dracontias

Paperback ISBN 978-0-9834119-9-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017944274

All Rights Reserved

First ebook Edition May 2017

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

This ebook is for your personal device only. No part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidence.

Avalerion Books Inc., Miami, Florida

avalerionbooks.com

For Lexi

Table of Contents

Prologue

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

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Epilogue

Gryffyn Phoenix

PROLOGUE

Free. At last, he was free.

Turning back to his brothers still held by their dimensional prison, he couldn’t help throwing his head back and roaring with laughter. Life unfettered. There was no state more intoxicating.

At his feet lay his daughter, sobbing in terror. Such an insignificant creature.

She was useless to him now.

Developing plans for eons makes one a master tactician. He took his cold rage and formed his plans in a steely resolve. Ending his incarceration was never a doubt, and he spent decades deciding how he would proceed. He reviewed everything he’d done and knew he had made one mistake.

Too many of his kind were still alive.

Being outside the prison barrier gave him the power to open or close it at will. He allowed four of his kind to step through to this world.

His blade swung with a lyric perfection. The smell and taste of the blood that flew was sweeter than ambrosia. His heart pounded, and he truly felt triumph. This chattel had wasted eternity bemoaning their fate. He kept practicing his skills, sure that the taste of triumph would be one he would soon savor. They had no reason to live. Each opening of the dimensional veil sent a new wave to their death.

As the bodies piled up around him, he increased his taunting gloats.

He welcomed the burn in his muscular arms.

Enmity, the name of his weapon, was covered with the same viscous fluid that once coursed through their veins. I’ll clean you soon, old friend.

He continued his work, until all but the final three remained. A wave of his clawed hand and he was flanked by the creatures who would serve him with their undying loyalty.

Otherwise, they would join the newly made mountain of corpses.

Turning, he faced his daughter, grinning in malicious triumph.

Please, she whimpered, let me see her.

Why?

I swore I would hold her once more.

Shrugging, he flicked his fingers to reveal the one thing this feeble female child desired most of all. Perhaps you should join her.

Cassandra's horrified scream echoed through the ages, tearing holes in the fabric of space and time. Dropping her into the cell was the only thing that cut off her reverberating cries.

He didn’t know whom it had awakened.

* * *

She heard Cassandra’s cry, even in her faraway home. The old woman reclined on her cot as her body registered its outrage at the events that continued to unfold. Agony. Pain. Torture. This was not supposed to happen. She had possessed such high hopes that all of this could be avoided. Now it was all falling apart.

The veil-seer was dancing into the arms of death. Willingly. Of her volition. And was getting closer than ever to her termination.

She could not stop it.

With the release of the evil that now walked the grounds of Haven, she could not help her blood at all.

It was with the vain hope that all she did to ensure against this day would still be of use. The seeds of her plans would take root, she promised herself. There was no one better at planting such things.

The youngest of her brood were in equal danger …

Just not from their choices.

Separated, the twins’ powers were a quarter of what they should be. Jewel was far from her reach. Jake was still being held by the enemy, his life force fueling their terrifying rise of darkness.

As the shadows grew, the old woman knew there was only one thing left that could save them.

Light.

Truth is the greatest light of all.

So much had to be hidden from these children, who carried the weight of the world on their young shoulders. At first, it was due to their parents’ will. She had disagreed on the path of normalcy that they embraced, but there was little she would do against them. Fate stepped in and redirected the misguided course of her clan. There was so much more that she had wanted to tell her oldest, but was restricted by the lack of time.

A deficiency she feared could upturn the entire scheme.

One secret Verity didn’t know was what she most wished she could tell her.

The true watcher still lived. She was just waiting for the right time to be revealed.

Diary of Verity Lilly Felicity Chambers

Volume Three

1

I didn’t know how much time passed. It meant nothing to me. Pain was all I knew. Inside my head, I was able to hide, far from the shocked, empty faces of my friends. My mental and emotional vacation reminded me of the dreams I cherished from before the operation. Once, I was physically blind; now I embrace blindness in everything else. I wished I could hide forever inside the darkness.

There was no escape from the truth

Haydn died because of me.

I was to blame for the countless deaths of my friends.

Even the blood of the people that called me family was on my hands.

No court was harsh enough for me now.

Eric came into the farmhouse with a hesitant step. Verity, he swallowed hard, we need you to come outside.

Ignoring him seemed like the wisest choice.

Help us. Please?

I am not the ruler of Helm.

You are all we have.

Sucks to be you, huh?

Verity, crouching beside me I watched from a disinterested space as he laid his hand on my arm. I couldn’t feel him. I couldn’t feel anything. Verity, there’s a situation outside, girl. A bad one. We need you to lead us.

The last time I tried to lead, I got half of you killed.

No, girl, his sigh made my hair move. I still felt … nothing. The war is Cass’s fault. Not yours. No one blames you.

I blame myself.

We still need you, honey. Please come outside.

Last time I went outside the slate tile where I stood dissolved into my bare feet and slowly moved up my legs. Looking down, I was not surprised to see that I was covered with a striped pattern, marking the places where I absorbed stone. The universe will always provide when you know how to ask. My problem was that I had asked not to feel any pain anymore. Not to feel anything at all.

So its solution was to turn me to stone.

I secretly hoped that someone would put me in the garden when there was nothing left of me but a pretty Verity statue, dressed in a miniskirt and baby doll tank.

And a great pair of heels.

Girl priorities. Get used to it.

He pulled my body from the chair where I sat staring into my Grandma's empty hearth locked in the pain of the past. I had no family anymore. Parents were gone. Grandma disappeared. Sister close to death last time I saw her, probably dead by now. Brother had been gone so long I was sure he was toast as well. Isn’t there some famous quote about being a destroyer? Oh yeah. J. Robert Oppenheimer said it at the trinity test in New Mexico. Of course, he stole it from the Bhagavad Gita. I guess I get to do some theft on him. Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

That. Was. Me.

Outside, I froze for a moment. The summer scents of dewy foliage and blooming life were drowned out by the press of too many bodies in not enough space. The fields that made up my Grandma’s farm were filled with tents and yurts housing the refugees of Haven and Helm. Cass wanted to rule Haven. She had it; she just didn’t have anyone to rule. I barely managed to bring its denizens here to live free from her tyranny. A refugee camp of teenagers. Where plants should have been waiting to be harvested for the winter months were kids, searching for a new home.

Now all they had was Grandma’s.

And me.

God help them.

There are so many, I whispered.

And they are here, alive, Eric stressed, because of you.

I realized that Wren, Talon, and Lightning were waiting for us at the bottom of the steps. Once I’d called them Haydn’s boy band of death.

Now they were the sons of sorrow.

What do you need?

Then I saw him. Sprawled at their feet, tied by many different kinds of ropes was Kaydn. Murderer. Of my innocence. Youth. Dreams. And his own brother.

The boy I loved.

Nausea churned in my gut. Anger blistered what was left of my soul, as my hands trembled, longing to draw my sword. I tried licking my parched lips, but all I got was a mouthful of dust. Why are you here?

It was with only mild interest that I recognized Kaydn was gagged. Based on the blue tint to his lips, and the faint wet noises coming from his throat, I guessed he was choking on the cloth. Release him.

No, Lightning growled.

Sighing, I looked straight at my former trainer. We need to understand what purpose this visit serves.

He killed my brother.

 Lightning, he turned his tortured gaze to me, and I could see how the loss of his twin affected him. He still bore the wounds and bruises from his run-in with Cass’s evil army. His skin was now only half gold. The other side was the mottled black of a foggy sky. In losing his twin, Lightning had lost half of his looks. Why wouldn’t he? Who needs looks when you no longer have a soul? I understand you're in pain. You know we need Kaydn alive. He might be able to tell us how to fight Cass. What her plan is. We need to find a way to get everyone home.

Thunder’s death means I have no home. None of us do. Lightning stormed off.

Once the warrior left, Eric and Wren knelt beside Kaydn, cutting his bindings.

Kaydn leapt from the ground and placed his palm against the abada ruby buried in my chest. The last time he did this it shot him across a clearing. This time it did nothing. So I did. My back-handed slap taught him the wisdom of not touching me.

An abada is a unicorn. Yes, I said unicorn. No, I don’t do drugs. Its gift, the stone, seemed to be a protection of sorts, the unicorn had ensured that the only way to end me is to cut off my head.

Which is both comforting and terrifying at the same time. Welcome to my life.

So where did you find him?

No one answered.

The boy in question did nothing but stare up at me from the ground with turbulent eyes. I couldn’t tell if that storm was hatred or something that boded even worse for me. Like a crush.

Last time he had a crush on me I ended up with a compound fracture of the tibia.

Tell me where he was, I roared.

Eric was the only one brave enough to explain. He stumbled into the camp. Lightning saw him first. Then we questioned him …

Again with the sounds of silence.

The squirming going on seemed to mean what he really meant was torture.

Why are these boys acting like such wussies?

Where are the bad asses of Helm hiding out? I could use them now, please.

A deep breath and Eric found his balls. Hallelujah. When they started interviewing him, Kaydn mentioned he needed to talk to doll face. Shuddering, I staggered away from them and stumbled over another one of those slate shards. I felt it shoot into my leg and a corresponding wave of energy coursed through me.

One thing about turning into a statue. It’s crazy hard to accessorize, but at least you always feel like you’re filled with get up and go. I’m just a rolling stone, and I’m ready to roll over the bastard who has no shame.

Doll face was the special nickname that Haydn used to call me.

The Haydn that Kaydn had murdered in our last battle.

Kill him, I ordered, as I turned to walk away.

Did I forget to mention that exactly seventeen years ago today I was born?

Yeah. Happy Birthday to me.

2

They didn’t do it.

Stop complaining.

I meant the order when I gave it to them. The problem is that Kaydn and Haydn were twins. Not identical. Kaydn is golden and browns where Haydn is dark hair, blue-eyed deliciousness. Well, was dark hair blue-eyed deliciousness. Ouch. When will this pain stop?

Can’t blame the boys for balking. Hard to execute someone who has the face of the friend he killed. Hard not to, under the circumstances, either. Talk about an ethical dilemma.

Does that give you as big a headache as it does me?

Life with the half-breeds of the Shade and the Motes is always complicated.

Not that life as a teenager is a roller coaster anywhere else.

Don’t think I’m judging. I was normal for my first sixteen birthdays.

Eric found me later. Some genius decided to lock Kaydn up in Grandma’s former root cellar, the one not attached to the rest of the house. At this point, imprisonment was probably the best of the choices that were available to him. I could think of a list as long as my arm of dead people that I could lay at Kaydn’s feet. The uncomfortable fact is that I felt I bore an equal amount of responsibility for those dearly departed.

 You should talk to him, Eric said.

Has anyone found Maddox yet?

Heavy sigh. This is the only conversation we’ve