Page 1 of Lies That Blemish (The Ember War #3)

Valor

Two months had passed since my sister, Aisling, the empress, declared war on Imbria. Now I stood at the mouth of the Wilds, staring at the smoke in the distance. The smoke of Imbria. Our country was burning. Theirs was, too. For every bomb they sent, we sent three more.

The only saving grace was that the war with Luska seemed to have turned cold now that Aisling had killed Prime Leader Vlek. But I knew that wouldn’t last. My sister might be next, and as the heir, I had to bond a powerful creature today, or I was dead. And Virtue and Victory were right behind me.

A lump formed in my throat, but I swallowed it down. Everharts didn’t cry.

Elaine swam into view, all hard lines on her face, but her eyes told the true story. She was worried for me. As she should be. Aisling trained her whole life to enter the Wilds, and to a certain degree, so did my sisters and I, but not as hard as she did, nor as ruthlessly. Elaine had been softer on us. She probably assumed we’d have time for a childhood. An assumption dashed the night Kohen Badshah killed our father. He was a cold and unforgiving man, yes, but the only parent we had—except for the woman standing before me.

“Green flares every hour to tell us you are alive. Red flare for evacuation.” Elaine’s voice shook as she reminded me of the rules the admirals had set forth. Bonding a creature at fourteen was unheard of, and they didn’t want me getting any help from my sister or some security detail. If I did, then no one would follow me one day if I became empress. I had to prove I was strong enough on my own.

“Except when I’m sleeping?—”

“You’re not sleeping.” Aisling stepped up and shoved a small satchel at me. If Elaine looked scared, Aisling appeared terrified. She cast frantic glances at our family car as if imagining sneaking me to safety.

“Not for the first forty-eight hours, obviously,” I said, reciting her advice back to her, “but if I go into day three?—”

“Stars, don’t let her go into day three.” My eldest sister looked up at the fire sky as if begging the stars to have mercy on me.

I’d overheard her talking to Elaine a few weeks ago. They said at first they’d wanted me to bond in order to keep me safe, but now they thought it was a good idea because there was a very real chance Aisling would die before I turned nineteen, the age of the Lottery, and being bonded would make me look fit to rule. I’d overheard conversations in the last two months that had aged me ten years. Aisling died two months ago when Kohen killed her and was able to be reborn because of her creature’s powers, but she and Elaine weren’t sure she would come back again.

“…if I go into day three, I take a small nap to make sure that my fighting accuracy is still good,” I finished reciting and then held the satchel up to my nose and inhaled.

Coffee.

Yuck .

I wasn’t allowed coffee normally. I tasted Father’s one time and spit it out onto the table. Elaine had made me clean it up myself, even though our maid was standing right there. My sisters had laughed the entire time.

I felt empty without Victory and Virtue beside me. I’d never slept a single night away from them in my entire fourteen years. We’d left my little sisters at home. They’d both been crying messes, and it would have broken me to have them here to say goodbye. This was bad enough… but better.

“She’s going to be fine!” Tetra snapped, walking over to where I stood as she leaned on her cane for support. Her stunning wolf creature, Ariyel, strode alongside her. “Remember when you thought the Wilds would eat me alive?” she asked my sister.

Aisling didn’t look like that comment made her feel any better, but it made me grin. Tetra pulled me into a hug, and I squeezed her back. She was like a second older sister to me. I had no memories without her in my life.

Tetra pressed her lips against my ear. “Don’t go for anything crazy. A fox or wolf is good enough. Get in, get out, get home alive,” she told me and then backed away.

I nodded to her. It was solid advice, but also… was it enough? It used to be. But now Aisling had a Talanagi. Would my people now expect that of all empresses and emperors to come?

It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like finding a Talanagi was easy.

“I’m ready,” I declared, my hand resting on the custom serrated blade Aisling had given me. I felt like I was going to throw up, but I kept my chin held high.

“No,” Aisling said suddenly, and then looked at Elaine. “We didn’t train her long enough. I was busy with the Imbrian war. Let’s wait.”

Aisling reached out and grasped my shoulders, looking me dead in the eyes. “I’m calling this off.”

I growled in her face, an animalistic sound. “Don’t you dare!” I snapped.

Tetra and Elaine walked away to where two Fleet guards were standing near the entrance, giving us privacy. “This is the only thing giving me peace, Aisling,” I told her. “You’re never around anymore. Gwen is great, but what if something happens? What if Vic or Virtue is taken? I can protect them with a creature.”

She had no idea the nightmares that tormented me since that freak Maxim had mailed our hair ribbons to her. I heard Elaine say he was probably stalking us. No way was I leaving without a creature!

Aisling released a shaky breath and met my gaze. I didn’t remember anything about my mother, but I’d seen pictures, and staring at my sister now, I could see my mother’s face in Aisling. She was beautiful and sad.

“If you die, I’ll die,” she croaked.

I’d never seen Aisling as emotional as I had in the last few months. Growing up, she was always stiff as steel, like Father and Elaine. Then something happened, and now she was soft. She said I love you to us every time she saw us and looked on the verge of tears right now, which I’d never seen before in my life.

“Ash, it’s me. The most feral of all your sisters. I got this.” That got a grin out of her.

“What if you don’t bond? What if you get hurt?” she said.

“What if I bond a ruthless bear creature and don’t get a scratch on me?”

Aisling gave me a half smile. “You got my cockiness, and that is not a good thing.”

“I’m going to be okay,” I told her, my voice cracking a little. “I need this.”

I swallowed hard as the vision of my dead father in the morgue rose in my mind. One day, he was strong, mean, normal, and the next… gone.

Aisling seemed to be having a mental battle of her own. I could see it in her eyes. She didn’t want to let me go. She’d spent the past week in the countryside, flying in on Liana’s back early evenings and sparring with me, trying to train me while flying back to base to tend to the war.

I peered over at the flaming hills of Imbria.

“Did you love him?” I asked her, and she bristled, eyes going wide.

“I overheard you and Elaine,” I said.

Kohen, Father’s killer, and Aisling were once an item. He’d wormed his way into her heart in order to get closer to Father. But the way she’d been acting the past two months, I wondered if it had been more than a fling.

“I thought I did,” she said finally, but her voice was dead, devoid of emotion. She was shutting down, the Aisling I was used to.

“He or Maxim might get you next,” I said.

She chewed on her lip, flicking her gaze my way. “You’ve been eavesdropping?”

I winced. “You talk loud.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can rebirth.”

“Not forever,” I countered. “Ash, you gotta let me do this.” I pulled her into a bone-crushing hug.

I didn’t really know what love was. I’d once looked it up in the dictionary. An intense feeling of deep affection, a strong emotional bond . I had that with my sisters, with Aisling, with Elaine. I just didn’t verbalize it. Father told us not to, that it was a weakness. Now I wondered…

“I love you…” I tried the words out, surprised at how easily they came.

Aisling pulled back, shocked, grinning. “I love you too, little sis.”

I shook myself. “Okay, gross, that was way mushy.”

Aisling laughed. “You’re right. The little sis part went too far.”

I shot her a smile, loving this banter and how normal we were right now. I missed this part of my older sister. We used to go back and forth like this all the time. Now, she was never around, and when she was, she was so serious.

The two guards came to escort me to the entrance, and Aisling stiffened.

“I got this,” I winked at her, ignoring the terror ripping through me at the thought of spending two, possibly three, nights in the Wilds alone.

She just nodded as Tetra and Elaine flanked her, and their creatures stood behind them. Liana was behind Aisling and nodded once to me. I nodded back. My sister’s creature and I had grown close the past few weeks. She let me pet her neck and ask questions about the Wilds to her through Aisling. I think she liked me.

I took one last look over my shoulder, then sucked up every ounce of fear I had and shoved it deep inside of myself to a place I refused to deal with for the next three days.

It was time to bond a creature, by any means possible.