Page 11 of Lies That Blemish (The Ember War #3)

Aisling

I asked Elaine to tell Commander Ledger that we were entering into a one-week ceasefire with Imbria and to draft up an agreement and send it to Kohen to sign. Then I told her to get some sleep, as I was about to do. After about five hours of rack time, I showered quickly and met the admirals in the war room at Sky Reach for a meeting. The second I entered, the shouting began.

“What is with the ceasefire with Imbria!?” Commander Ledger demanded.

“We almost have them by the balls!” Admiral Caruso agreed.

Then, they all began shouting at once. I already had a headache.

“Quiet!” Elaine yelled, and everyone stopped speaking.

I sighed, knowing I couldn’t very well tell him I wanted to investigate reports of my own father trying to harm me. “I would like the people of Amersea to enjoy this reprieve, take some time to relish in the news of my engagement, and?—”

“Horseshit!” Commander Ledger shot. “You’ve wanted Badshah dead since day one of this war. Now it’s two months in, and I’m about to serve you his head on a silver platter. If you?—”

I reached out and grasped the sides of his jaw. “What did you just say to me?” I asked him.

His eyes widened so big I thought they might fall out of his head. He’d been disobedient and mocking for weeks now, and I was sick of it.

“Your job is to take my orders. You are temporarily relieved of duty, Commander. Go home for a week and enjoy your family.”

I released his face, and he staggered backward, stunned.

“Admiral Caruso will be acting commander until Commander Ledger returns in one week,” I told her and everyone else in the room.

She looked dumbfounded, but nodded.

Ledger went from shock to fury as he stormed from the room and slammed the door, his creature trailing behind him.

“Does anyone else have a problem following orders?” I asked.

“No, Empress,” came the resolute reply.

I left the room, unhappy with how I’d handled things. I didn’t want to be the leader who required blind loyalty, but too often, over the past two months, Ledger thought he controlled me and my decisions. He needed a slap on the hand.

Elaine stepped out of the war room, and I prepared myself for a lecture.

“Messenger got back a few hours ago while you were sleeping. Kohen signed the peace treaty. You have a week.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“You were too busy putting Commander Ledger on forced leave,” she said with a smirk.

I sighed. “I’m going to head to Riverine. Check on the girls.” I lowered my voice. “Did you have that stuff sent to the house from the storage unit?”

She nodded. “It should be there by the time you get there.”

“Want to come?” I asked her, gesturing to Liana.

She shook her head. “I have a few more things to deal with here. I’ll come check on you and the girls tomorrow?”

“Alright.” I slung my leg over Liana and took to the skies. By the time we made it to the house in Riverine, I was starving. I’d forgotten to eat breakfast after having slept in.

“Aisling!” Victory rushed out onto the lawn when she saw Liana land. I grinned, waving to the guard posted at the door as Victory leaped into my arms. Liana walked over to the forest behind the house, where I saw Valor’s new creature lying in the sun.

“Can you believe Val bonded a Talanagi? When can Virtue and I go? We want a dragon too!” Victory pouted.

I smiled at her. “When you’re nineteen, like everyone else.”

“No fair!” Virtue spat from the doorway. “Why should Valor get special treatment?”

Ugh , I didn’t want to come home to a fight.

Victory seemed to sense that and spoke for me: “Because she’s older, and Father is dead. Come on, let’s show Ash the cupcakes we made with Tetra.”

“Tetra’s here!” I brightened, letting Vic lead me inside as I tried to forget how easily Victory had just stated that our father was dead.

When I stepped inside, I was hit with the earthy aroma of cinnamon, nutmeg, and… “Carrot cake!” I practically ran to the kitchen and plucked up a cupcake teeming with frosting.

“Hey.” Tetra hobbled over and pulled me into a side hug while I shoved the muffin into my mouth.

“Hefy,” I managed around the cupcake. Sweet goodness exploded on my tongue, and I glanced at Valor, who was staring intently at Tetra’s crooked foot. Tetra wasn’t wearing socks; her cane was leaning against the far kitchen wall. Her foot was an angry red, and she seemed to be having a bad pain day. I cleared my throat, and Valor peered up at me guiltily.

It wasn’t like her to stare at Tetra’s foot. They’d grown up seeing it, so there was nothing “abnormal” about it. She must just be tired, caught in a stare.

“Is Gwen here?” I asked.

“I gave her a couple of hours off to see her family in town,” Tetra said, and I nodded.

“Did you sleep at all?” I asked Valor.

She nodded. “Barely.” She’d showered and cleaned up, and I noticed she seemed more… sure of herself. She was confident, and that made me happy.

“I meant to ask your creature’s name last night,” I told her.

“Zara,” Valor said, peering out the window at Zara and Liana through the backyard.

“It’s weird at first, but you two will figure each other out. Likes and dislikes,” I told her. “I tried to put Liana in the barn like a horse our first night.”

Tetra and the triplets all burst into laughter. “Did she breathe fire on you?” Victory asked, grinning.

“No, she was gracious.” But the moment I said it, I was reminded of that night when Liana asked me if I loved my father and told me she wouldn’t tell me what she thought of him. It pulled at my mind now. I had forgotten.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Have your powers shown up?” I casually asked Valor. Her gaze flicked to Tetra’s foot for a split second, but she shook her head. “Maybe I should go to boot camp like you, and it will come out.”

I laughed, and Tetra joined in.

“Nice try.” Tetra ruffled her hair, and Valor batted her hand away.

“Why not?” Valor pouted.

“There is no cohort to train with, first of all,” I told her. “And you’re?—”

She dared me to say “too young” with her glare.

“Too valuable . I’ll have private trainers come.”

“Fine,” she growled. “There’s a bunch of crap in your office. Elaine had some men move boxes in all morning, which is why I couldn’t sleep.”

“Sorry,” I told her and then flicked my gaze to Tetra. “Want to meet me in my office?” I asked her, grabbing a second cupcake.

She nodded. “See you later, girls. Thanks for baking with me.”

They gave her a hug, and she grabbed her cane, walking behind me as she dragged her foot. I glanced back at Valor to see her eyes trained on Tetra’s bad foot. Something about it piqued my curiosity, but I had enough to worry about right now. I’d have to ask her about it later.

Once Tetra and I got into my office, Tetra whistled low at the boxes leaning high in the corner. There must have been about twenty-five of them. Way more than I thought.

“Hey, is your foot okay?” I asked her now that we were alone.

She waved me off. “Just a bad day. What’s up with all this?” She gestured to the stack of boxes taking up half my office.

I sighed. “You’re going to want to sit down,” I told her.

She did, looking at me warily.

“After you left last night, Valor stopped sending green flares. I called Alek over, and Iniki went looking for her.”

Tetra didn’t seem too concerned by my story, especially since she’d just seen Valor alive and well in the kitchen.

“She was with Kohen’s little brothers,” I told her. I’d ordered Valor not to tell anyone she’d been with the Badshah brothers for now.

“What!” she screeched, sitting up straighter.

I then launched into everything, telling her about Kohen’s note before my engagement party, which explained I could be happy with Alek, and then about what Onyx had said when Liana contacted him, and then again what his brothers had said as I saw them off in the Wilds.

When I was finished, Tetra squirmed in her seat as she peered at the boxes. “So all this is from your father’s office?”

I nodded.

“And we need to find something to either incriminate your father, whom you loved, or Kohen, whom you loved.”

I swallowed hard at her assessment, not realizing until now that either way this went, someone I loved had betrayed me.

“Yes.” My voice shook.

Tetra stood, leaning on her cane as she stepped before me. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

I released a shaky breath. “I want the truth,” I told her.

She frowned, as if that made her sad.

“I thought this was what you wanted? For me to investigate Kohen and Anika’s claims about my father…”

“I do, Aisling. But I’m afraid they will be right, and I’m not sure I want to see the moment my best friend finds out her father tried to murder her.” The room was heavy with her words like a thick fog had settled in.

On the one hand, it would kill me to find out that my entire life he’d trained me to be his successor, only to attempt to kill me because I grew stronger than him. But the alternative was worse: not knowing, continuing to punish Imbria and banish Kohen when he might really have been trying to protect me. The truth was, I wanted those kisses to be real, those I love yous and… all of it. I wanted what Kohen and I had to be real. And if it wasn’t, if Kohen had been messing with me this whole time and implanted all of this in my head as some long game so he could get his country back, then stars help him, I’d burn the whole thing down.

“I need this,” I told her.

Tetra nodded. Without saying another word, she walked over to a box, ripped the lid off, and grabbed a hunk of papers. “I’ll start with this box. You start with that.” She nudged a box closer to me, and I sat down and got to work.

There was probably top-secret security clearance stuff in here, and I didn’t trust just anyone to go through it. Only Elaine and Tetra and myself would be in this office over the next several days.

We skimmed papers for what seemed like forever, and didn’t really find anything crazy. My father was hoarding some alcohol and high-value items for himself and wrote them off as being used for the Fleet, but other than that, he was squeaky clean. I was starting to get depressed that Kohen had been playing a game with me all along.

There was a knock at the door. “Dinner!” Victory yelled.

We emerged from the office and out into the dining room, where Gwen was back and just setting out a plate full of chicken drumsticks and honeyed cornbread.

“Yum. I’m starved,” I said, and Gwen went stiff, saluting me.

“Empress.”

I rolled my eyes. “Gwen, we talked about this. At home, we are at ease. You’re not a sergeant, and I’m not an empress.”

She looked confused.

“Okay, well, we still are those things, but just be at ease,” I told her, and she relaxed her posture.

“Yes, Empress.”

Good enough. I liked Gwen. She was strict with the girls but still loving. She was no Elaine, but as close as you could get. We’d let most of the staff go on paid leave for now, trying to limit knowledge of where my sisters lived. Gwen cooked, cleaned, did laundry, everything a mother would do, and I was grateful to her.

Tetra leaned her cane against the wall and hobbled over as my gaze flicked to Valor. She was starting at Tetra’s foot again!

I kicked her under the table, and her head snapped up to me. Guilt marred her features, and she reached for a chicken drumstick.

What was going on with her?

“Look at Ariyel with the girls,” Tetra said as she passed the window. We all peeked out to see her wolf lying in the grass with Zara and Liana. Even Gwen’s owl creature was flying circles above them.

“I want a creature early, too!” Virtue argued. “It’s not fair that only Valor gets one.”

I sighed, tearing into a chicken drumstick. I was already sick of this argument. I was willing to bet it was going to repeat every week until they were nineteen. They would probably wear me down by their sixteenth birthday and I’d let them go early just to shut them up.

Parenting was exhausting.

I opened my mouth to tell Virtue to give it a rest when the sirens rang out. The war sirens, the new ones I had installed in case there was a repeat of what happened the night my father died.

An attack on Riverine.

I burst up from the table so fast my chair knocked over. Tetra limped to her cane, wincing with each pressure she put on her foot.

“What’s happening?” Victory whimpered.

“Keep them safe,” I told Gwen, who was already pulling a hidden katana out of a kitchen cupboard.

I was halfway out the door with Tetra on my heels when Valor ran up beside me. “I’m going too.”

“No, you’re not!” Gwen, Tetra, and I all said at once.

“I have a Talanagi!” she growled.

“With no battle training and no gift yet. Get inside and stay alive!” I barked, physically pushing her back into Gwen, who pinned her to her chest.

I let the door slam behind me, ignoring Valor’s screams, and ran for Liana.

‘Is Kohen attacking after our truce? I’ll kill him,’ I told her.

‘I just asked Onyx. He said it’s not them,’ she told me, already bent down so that I could leap on her back and into my saddle.

I stopped when Zara stood, and I met my sister’s creature’s gaze head-on. “Your job is to keep Valor safe. Until she’s eighteen, you both live under my rules. You cannot join the fight today,” I told her sternly.

Zara’s voice in my mind was a surprise. ‘I would never take her into battle so soon.’

‘Part of her magic,’ Liana told me.

“Okay, well, thank you,” I told her, not wasting any more time on that. When I spun to tell Tetra I’d fly over the city to try to see where the fighting was coming from, my heart sank. She was way behind me, whimpering in pain as she limped across the grass on her cane. Ariyel pounced across the space to meet her.

It was a bad pain day. I didn’t want to force her, but her power had the incredible ability to save lives.

“If you can’t—” I shouted to her, climbing on Liana’s back.

“Go! I’ll follow you,” she told me, chucking her cane like it was cursed, and leaped on Ariyel’s back, sitting up with confidence as Ariyel dashed across the yard and out front.

Whoa .

I tried not to think about the fact that Tetra was riding her wolf into a battle just like Kohen predicted.

Fine, he could see the future, that much I would admit, but it didn’t mean everything he said he saw about the future was true. He could have lied. Liana flew up, and I didn’t have time to even dwell on Kohen because the second we hit the sky, a scream tore from my lungs.

Emberlane Park was on fire, and over a dozen flying Talanagi creatures with Luskin riders hovered high above it. Rage boiled inside of me as I watched our Fleet soldiers trying to fight them from the ground. But they shot projectiles into the air, and the Talanagi riders flew out of the way, dodging them. We’d been taken by surprise. Again. Because we didn’t have enough flying creatures.

‘Kohen is coming with Onyx to help,’ Liana told me as she flew closer to the fire, and I pulled my arrow.

‘What? No! Why did you keep the bond open? I don’t want his help.’

‘I opened it briefly to ask if they were attacking and then forgot to close it. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine, but tell Onyx if Kohen comes, I’ll kill him.’ I knew the threat was empty the second I said it. I was so confused where Kohen was concerned.

He killed my father , I reminded myself.

‘Can we take all of them?’ I asked Liana, surveying the dozen or so flying Talanagi.

‘Without you exposing your hidden power? We can try,’ she said. ‘They will know you can explode into fire from the last battle, so I’m guessing they will try to evade us and spread out.’

What was their endgame? Burn all of Riverine? Send a message? There was only one way to find out.

Liana flew fast and hard towards the blaze and the enemy hovering above it. Out of my periphery, I spotted a blur of blue. My head whipped in that direction to see Colt barreling towards me.

“I was on leave in town. How can I help?” he shouted over the wind and now roaring fire below. We were only a couple hundred feet from the enemy.

Colt’s power with his new creature was control over water. It was like the stars had sent him at the perfect time.

“Can you make it rain before they burn our entire capital down?” I asked him.

He nodded. “You got it.” He reared back and out of harm’s way. He was still working on his power and had to concentrate to focus it.

It was just me then.

As I approached, ten of the dozen flyers branched off and retreated, heading towards the cove to our west, causing confusion to rise up inside of me.

The two left were the red rider and a male on a green griffin with blue ember marks. They waited for me as if they wanted to talk or something.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked Liana. The enemies who had retreated were still going, not just getting distance because they might have known about my ability to control minds. They were leaving. One of our men was able to shoot a harpoon and bring the rider of a fleeing creature down, but the rest got away.

“What the hell do you want!?” I shouted at the red rider female. The smoke and heat from the fire billowed behind me.

She grinned as if pleased with herself. “My brother wanted to send you a little message.” She gestured to the burning park behind us.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” I asked.

“The Talanagi are ours!” she spat. “If you come on our land again and steal one, we will steal one of your sisters.”

Threatening my sisters to my face was about the last thing any person should ever do. I couldn’t let her live after that. My silence seemed to have sent her a message because I watched the moment fear crossed over her face, and she attempted to pull her dragon back.

‘End her,’ Liana agreed.

I’d been practicing with my power. Little things on Elaine, with her permission. I think I was ready to try now.

‘Jump.’ I pushed my power out to her mentally, like I would to Liana, without having to speak out loud. The silver cord flew from my lips and wrapped around her mind, and then I pushed a thought to her dragon.

‘Freeze.’ And a second cord flew from me and into the dragon.

Her eyes widened.

“No!” she screamed as she stood on her dragon, legs shaking.

“What are you doing!?” the man on the griffin beside her yelled.

‘Jump!’ I pushed. I could feel her fighting it. Then she just walked off the edge of her dragon and leaped to her death. I watched her fall, the sickening thud of her body reaching me from all the way up here. Her dragon was rooted to the spot, unable to chase after her to save her, and the man with her was now screaming in shock. He looked at me wide-eyed.

“You’re evil!” he spat, backing up as his griffin flew away from me.

“Tell Maxim if he threatens one of my sisters again, I’ll kill him!” I roared.

I’d forgotten what happened when a bonded died outside the Wilds. The red rider’s dragon gasped for air, plummeting to the ground, where her body lay at an odd angle just outside the burning park. Then it began to rain.

Something dark moved inside of me, like a beast asking to be fed, and I knew it was my power, the power to control others.

‘Did I go too far?’ I asked Liana, my voice of reason. She threatened my little sister! I had to stop that. But making her jump, forcing her against her will, it made me sick.

You’re evil , that man had said. Was he right?

‘I’m the wrong person to ask,’ Liana said. ‘My grandmother once made a male firebird drown himself because he tried to force his way on one of my daughters. Seemed perfectly reasonable to me.’

I could feel the smile in her voice as she recounted the memory. I was shocked she spoke of the past. She rarely did, and it took my attention away from my own guilt.

‘You had daughters before the Great Fall?’ I asked her. I had assumed all of her children were bred here with her mate and then perished.

‘I do,’ she said.

Do? Shock ripped through me. Do . Not did . If she had daughters, that meant they were immortal. That meant…

Sorrow bloomed to life in my chest as I thought of what it must be like to have been parted from your own children. I didn’t know what the great fall was or much about her family, but I felt bad now that she was stuck here with me and away from them.

‘You don’t think I went too far?’ I asked her again.

‘Let me ask you something: if you could have pulled a knife across her throat to kill her that way, would you have?’

‘Yes,’ I answered immediately, as the rain fell harder and the fire smoked and sizzled below.

‘You don’t regret killing her, only how you did it.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

She nodded. ‘My grandmother also had these feelings. And when the Fall happened, she was about to step down as Tsarina over it.’

That was surprising. ‘Because of her power?’ I asked.

‘Sort of,’ Liana said vaguely.

‘Well, who would have ruled in her place? What power did they have?’ I assumed it was her mother.

‘Me. I think we should get out of this rain now,’ she told me, and I recognized that this conversation was over.

For the first time since Liana had told me about this “Great Fall,” I began to wonder more about what had happened, but I kept my mouth shut.

We flew to the ground, where Tetra and over fifty Fleet soldiers had amassed. They watched the burning park with apprehension. I didn’t think anyone saw what I’d done to the red rider as she was on the other side of the blaze, out of view.

“They were just sending a message!” I barked out, scanning the faces of the men and women for people I knew. I spotted Charlene, happy to see her wearing a Fleet uniform. Commander Ledger pulled up in his car along the main road as the soldiers broke into questions.

“What message?”

“Are we going to send a message back?”

I weighed a lot of things in my head then. Being a leader, you had to make quick decisions, and that’s what I was going to do.

“The Talanagi are all on the Luskin side of the wall!” I bellowed, and shocked gasps rang out through the soldiers and crowd present. Some people who lived at the edge of the park were walking over now that the fire was being put out by the rain.

“That’s where I bonded Liana, and that’s where my sister bonded her dragon yesterday,” I admitted.

More shocked gasps, and I could tell by the look on Commander Ledger’s face he didn’t like what I was saying, but he kept quiet, especially since he was technically on leave from his duties.

“They think they own the Talanagi!” I bellowed. “So let’s prove them wrong.”

Roars of excitement ripped through the amassed Fleet soldiers.

“I’m calling for the east side of the Wall within the Wilds to be torn down! Then, we will have an emergency Lottery. All men and women ages eighteen to twenty-five can enter. Even if you have entered before and weren’t chosen.” I met Charlene’s gaze.

The cheers and roars were deafening. People jumped up and down and hugged each other. Clearly, many here had not been chosen to bond in the past and were excited to do so now.

Commander Ledger walked over and met my gaze. “I think it’s the best plan you’ve had since you took over,” he admitted.

I grinned. “Are you only saying that so I’ll end your leave early?”

He gave me a lopsided smile. “Only a little. But seriously, if the Wall is keeping the Talanagi, the most powerful creatures, from entering our territory of the Wilds, we should rip it down.”

I nodded. “It will also make us more vulnerable to invasion through that area.”

“We can handle that,” he said confidently. “Especially with more soldiers bonded to Talanagi.”

I really hoped this idea worked and didn’t just send a bunch of Lottery winners out to die. They were all going to want to bond the best and most powerful, but not all would. It was a risk.

“Alright, head back to Sky Reach and rip down that wall. I’ll oversee the early Lottery,” I told him.

He saluted me, and I felt a genuineness from him that he wanted to follow my lead, and trusted me.

Before he left, I hooked him by the arm and pulled his ear close to me. “I killed Maxim’s sister. She’s on the other side of the park. Have two men bury her in an unmarked grave and expect retaliation.”

He peered at me with surprise.

If Elaine were here, she would tell me to send her head back to Maxim with a threatening note, but I didn’t want to stoke the fires anymore. Truth was, Maxim’s unpredictability scared me. He said I would have three months, and he’d attacked in two. If I wanted to beat him, I’d have to be just as unpredictable. Once he heard I killed his sister, I had no doubt he would retaliate.

“Everyone, back to base! Leave is over,” Commander Ledger barked. “Be on alert for a follow-up attack!”

People scattered then as the rain fell even harder around us. I peered up to see Colt on his griffin. The fire was nearly completely out.

Tetra rode Ariyel as she walked up beside me. “How can I help?” she asked.

I sighed, peering over at my bestie. “I’m calling an emergency Lottery. It’s going to be chaos. People won’t be fully ready. Help me manage it all, while still taking nights to go through my father’s office?”

I hoped it wasn’t too much to ask.

She nodded. “You got it.”

I glanced down at her foot. “How is it?”

She sighed, and I saw the vulnerability in her gaze. “Days like today, I want to cut it off.”

She’d said that before, but only once. A doctor she’d consulted with once had told her the painful flares would be gone with amputation, that a clean cut was better than what she was dealing with, but it would greatly impact her mobility. A wheelchair was an option. Or our scientists were just coming out with decent prosthetics. But there was no guarantee she would ever walk again.

I put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s a bad day. It will pass.”

She nodded, and the rain fell down her cheeks so hard I couldn’t tell if she was crying or not.

‘Kohen and Onyx are here,’ Liana said, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose sharply.

‘What? Where?’ I spun in a circle, scanning the crowd.

‘They are a ten-minute flight from here, in a small park. Do you want to see him?’

Tetra was looking at me like I’d grown two heads, probably because I’d just stopped talking and was now wide-eyed.

‘Yes.’ I wanted to cleave his head from his shoulders!

“I gotta go. Sleep at the house with the girls?” I asked her.

She nodded, frowning. “You okay?”

I looked over at the people still lingering, talking about entering the emergency Lottery, and nodded. “Tell you later.”

When I walked over to Liana and slid my leg over her, she took to the skies.

‘Your powers don’t work on Kohen,’ she reminded me.

He was impervious to fire and now could apparently block my thrall powers.

‘Do you think he will try to hurt me?’

‘No,’ came her immediate answer.

‘He killed me the last time I saw him,’ I reminded her.

‘I don’t think he will ever do that again, and he only did it because he saw you surviving in a vision.’

I hated that she was on his side.

‘I’m on your side, young one. But I can tell you, when I look at Kohen and you together and I see his energy… he loves you. Truly.’

That tore a hole right into my bandaged heart . ‘He thinks he does. Killing my father isn’t love.’

Unless it was to save my life, but even then, it was messed up.

‘He thinks he does,’ she agreed.

‘Do you forgive Onyx for what he did?’ When I was attacked in the Wilds, Onyx attacked Liana and killed her.

‘A mother always forgives her children, even if they are misguided and make mistakes.’

Well, Kohen wasn’t my child, and there was no forgiveness in me for him yet. Not without proof of his outrageous claims.

‘Why is he here? I told him not to come.’

‘Onyx said he had a new vision.’

‘I don’t care,’ I snapped at Liana, though I wasn’t mad at her. ‘I can’t believe anything he says.’

‘Maybe just hear him out? ’ Liana offered.

‘He can tell me through Onyx.’

‘He is saying he wants to tell you in person.’

Of course he did. So he could manipulate me—and I was falling right into that trap, flying to see him with no backup. He could kill me again, and this time, maybe I wouldn’t come back.

‘Your power won’t work on him, but I can still rip his throat out,’ she assured me, causing me to smile.

We lowered ourselves into the thick vein of forest that ran along one of the more rural neighborhoods. I pulled my blade, feeling the anger I’d been carrying for Kohen rising in my chest.

As Liana broke through the trees and into the open meadow, I saw them. My heart stopped at the sight of Kohen peering up at me, Onyx off to the side.

I slipped off of Liana and jumped down, landing right behind Kohen. Lurching forward, I yanked him by the hair and pulled his back flush to my chest, holding my blade across his throat.

“Give me one reason,” I growled, panting against his ear as adrenaline and rage coursed through me. But I knew it was a mistake to get this close to him the second I smelled him.

Ginger, cardamom… home.

“Maybe you should,” he said, his voice filled with agony. “It would end my misery.”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t get to wallow in any kind of pity, Kohen. You killed my father and me. You disgust me.”

He nodded. “Not as much as I disgust myself.”

I released my blade and shoved him away from me. He spun, letting me really see him for the first time. What I saw shocked me.

He’d lost a little weight, there were dark circles under his eyes like he hadn’t slept, and his arms were all bandaged.

“What happened to your arms?” I asked.

He sighed. “Pulled a mother and child from a burning building two nights ago. Still healing.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to detect his lies.

“You’re impervious to fire,” I stated, calling his BS.

He looked at me blankly and then unwrapped one of his arms. I hissed when I saw four deep gashes. “But not to glass,” he stated.

If he was insinuating that the mother and child had been in a fire that we started, well, I wasn’t about to feel bad. That was war. He should have thought about that before he killed my father.

But I did feel bad. Deeply.

“Are the mother and child okay?” I asked.

He nodded.

I was falling for his crap again. He probably made that whole story up, even cut his own arms to get me to feel sorry for him.

“Why did you call me here?” I asked quickly, wanting to leave, wanting to look away from those deep blue eyes I had once lost myself in.

Kohen peered away from me like he couldn’t meet my gaze, and my stomach sank.

“My gift has… matured. I see multiple timelines now. A dozen variations based on certain decision points. Not just the most likely one like I used to.”

I snapped my fingers. I was not here to have a full-on conversation with him. “Okay, what was your vision? I have a country to run, and our ceasefire is ending soon.”

He looked hurt at how cold I was being, but I didn’t care.

“Don’t freak out. We can still change it?—”

“We!” I laughed. “Kohen, there will never be a we again.”

He looked like I’d stabbed him in the chest. “Don’t say that. Please.”

“You’re delusional if you think you can just kill my father, kill me, and I’d ever kiss you again—you are literally insane.”

His bottom lip shook, and I honestly thought he was going to cry for a second until a mask of anger washed over him so hard and fast I wasn’t prepared for it.

“Maybe I should have left him alive,” Kohen said, stepping closer to me. “Maybe I should have let your father kill you. Then, at least you would have died loving me and knowing the truth.”

“I hate you!” I screamed into his face as tears filled my eyes. “I hate that I can’t trust anything you say.”

“And I love you!” he yelled back. “I hate that you are so brainwashed you actually think my father was a bad man, and yours was good.”

His words hurt, but at this point, I was numb inside.

“Just tell me what you saw so that I can go home, Kohen.” I wanted to get the hell out of here. This hadn’t gone as I’d planned. I was emotional and no longer had the upper hand.

He tried to step closer, and I stepped back. He nodded as if he should have expected that.

“In one vision, I saw Valor and her new bonded dead.”

I gasped, bile rising in my throat. Of all the things I thought he would say, I never expected that.

“In another, I saw Victory taken hostage to Luska instead of Valor killed,” he stated as if that would be a better option.

My heart rattled my ribcage like a drum. “Please tell me there was a third option,” I whimpered.

His face went slack, and his eyes lost their brightness. “There is a scenario where I see all of your sisters living until they have gray hair and children of their own.”

“Oh, thank the stars!” I breathed. “How do I get that version of events to come true?” I begged him.

There was agony written across his face then. “You marry Maxim Vlek.” His voice was void of emotion.

His words were shocking, and I let them linger for a moment.

‘There has to be another way. Ask him,’ Liana growled into my mind. I knew how she felt about Maxim, that he was evil. In no way did I want to marry him, ever.

“Liana wants to know if there is any other way,” I asked Kohen.

He looked up at me with a fire in his eyes. “I’ll make a way.”

I scoffed. That wasn’t realistic.

I saw Kohen’s gaze linger on the gold band on my finger. He swallowed hard.

“Did you read my letters?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Some of them.”

Why was I still here? I should leave. He’d told me what I needed to know. I should fly home and lock all three of my sisters in the underground base at Sky Reach.

“Are you at least looking for the truth about your father?” Kohen asked, “Or have you just given up on me, on us?”

I didn’t know why that question affected me so deeply. A sob formed in my throat, and I had to choke it down.

“Kohen,” I said through my emotion, “I gave up on us the night I found out that you killed my father in cold blood and then held me while I cried about it. If you love someone, you don’t cause them that kind of pain. It’s selfish.”

Kohen closed his eyes, dropping to his knees and hanging his head as if deep in prayer, as if the weight of my words had just physically struck him.

‘I want to go now,’ I told Liana. She moved behind me, where she’d been talking to Onyx. I slid my leg over her, and Kohen glanced up at me. What I saw in his eyes scared me. He looked dead inside.

“I hope you find out the truth about your father. A truth even I can’t tell you, or you would never believe me. A truth so dark it would make you want to have killed him yourself.”

I rolled my eyes, and Liana kicked off the ground, heading for my sister’s house. He was such a good liar, so good with the dramatics.

‘What truth is he talking about?’ I asked Liana.

‘I don’t know, but his energy looks like he’s on death’s door,’ she admitted.

I shouldn’t feel bad for him, but I did.

I had too many things to worry about right now, and Kohen Badshah was the least of them.