Page 13 of Lies That Blemish (The Ember War #3)
Aisling
The first night of the Lottery candidates being in the Wilds, Tetra and I found nothing incriminating on my father. Into night two with no promising evidence, my anger for Kohen was brewing hotter and hotter with each passing minute.
He lied. I knew he lied .
I tore open the lid of a box of old notes and telephone messages and started to angrily rifle through them. But when I saw his handwriting on one note, I stilled. It was a copy of a message that he left with the operator to give to someone at the training center. There were coffee stains on it, but it clearly read.
Just get the job done.
My heart picked up speed in my chest.
“This could mean anything,” I said out loud.
Tetra hobbled over to where I was and picked up the note in my hand, her eyebrows rising as she read.
“What do you think?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It could mean, ‘get the job of killing my daughter done’. It could also mean, ‘get the job of training those new recruits done’.”
I sighed in relief, actually laughing that I’d been paranoid for a minute.
“Totally. That’s what I thought.”
Tetra frowned at me. “Do you really think your dad will have evidence lying around his office that he tried to kill his own daughter? Isn’t that something he would plan in person?”
She was right. We had an operator phone system, and every phone call was monitored. I flashed to the day he drove me to boot camp. I’d been so proud he wanted to see me off, but then he’d almost left without saying goodbye. He was talking to some of the drill instructors.
“Kohen probably knows that. That’s why he sent me on this wild goose chase when I should be at the training center or the Wilds ready to welcome our new recruits.”
A few had already come out bonded—none to a Talanagi yet, but it was night two. This was when things really started happening in the Wilds.
Tetra grasped my hands. “Let’s take a break. We can keep going tomorrow after we hopefully have good news of how many cadets made it out.”
I nodded, setting the note on my desk.
A single note after multiple nights of searching over a dozen boxes.
Kohen lied. The bastard lied!
As I was leaving the office, the phone rang.
I picked it up.
“Hello, this is Empress Aisling.”
“Empress, I have Admiral Steele on the line for you.”
Elaine? My heart sped up. Was everything with my sisters okay?
“Put her through,” I told her.
There was a click, and then Elaine was on the line.
“Everything is fine,” she started, and I relaxed.
“Except for the fact that we are dying of boredom!” Victory shrieked in the background, and I grinned.
“And I haven’t even learned to properly fly on Zara because we are separated! It’s torture!” Valor growled.
“I left my purple nail polish at home!” Virtue whined.
“They want to come home just for a night,” Elaine told me, and I could tell by the fatigue in her voice that she was tired of their complaining.
“No letter from Maxim? No retaliation?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
I killed his sister. It was eerie he wasn’t responding.
“Have Verik drive them in a caravan of four cars. You and Vespa stay with them the entire time. They can come in the morning and stay one night. Then we all go back to Sky Reach and move in together. I’ll be done wrapping up the Lottery here by then.”
Three excited teenager shrieks filled the line, and I smiled.
“We will see you tomorrow. I’ll have Gwen hang back here. She’s having fun with her old boot buddies,” Elaine told me, and we both hung up.
I opened my mouth to tell Tetra, and she waved me off. “I heard everything. They are so loud. Remind me to only have quiet children.”
I barked out in laughter at that. “Oh, T, I don’t think it works that way.”
We got washed up for bed and went to our respective rooms. I was exhausted, but my mind was chewing on that note.
Just get the job done.
Just get the job done.
Just get the job done .
That night, I dreamed of Kohen, of swollen kisses and whispered promises. It all felt so real that when I woke up, I was breathless and feeling empty inside.
If loving Kohen didn’t kill me, his lies would.
Tetra and I woke up, made some breakfast, and looked through some boxes in the office for a couple of hours by the time the girls arrived. We only had three boxes left, and I was really starting to fear the end of this journey with no solid evidence.
“My purple nail polish! Bless the stars!” Virtue came out of her room clutching the tiny bottle like it was ember.
I snort-laughed. My gaze swept the room and landed on Valor, who was staring at Tetra’s foot with a horror-stricken look on her face.
What the…?
Movement at the back door caused my gaze to peer out the back window to see Zara staring intently in the window at us.
“What’s going on, Valor?” I asked my sister. She didn’t look okay, and her creature normally stayed deeper in the yard with Liana.
Valor shook her head. “Nothing.” She tore her gaze away from Tetra’s foot and chewed on her lip.
Now even Tetra had seemed to notice. “Does my mangled foot bother you now, Val? I can put a sock over the ugly thing,” she joked.
Valor looked pained. “No. It isn’t that.”
‘Zara says Valor’s gift is emerging, and she’s fighting it,’ Liana told me.
Oh, that made more sense.
“Val, can I speak to you in your room for a moment?” I asked.
She nodded, looking on the verge of tears, which was very off-brand for my stoic sister. She was the one made of steel, the one most like me.
Tetra caught my gaze as I passed, and I gave her a small smile.
‘Did she say what the power might be? ’ I asked as we walked to Valor’s room.
‘No,’ Liana said.
If Valor was about to display some firepower, I would want her outside.
The second we got into Valor’s room, I shut the door, and she spun to face me. “It hurts,” she whimpered, tears streaming down her face.
I gasped at the sudden change in her. “What hurts? Where?” I peered over her body, looking for injuries.
She lifted her right socked foot and began to massage it.
I frowned. “Did you get injured?”
Valor’s chest heaved up and down as she fought to keep control of her emotions. She shook her head.
“Then how does it—?” My eyes widened.
That was the same foot as Tetra’s.
“Valor, do you think you can pick up on people’s pain? Take it away?” Those healers were extremely rare, but completely removing pain was such a valuable asset to the Fleet.
“I think I can do more than that.” Her voice cracked. “I think I can heal it.”
Oh .
I reached out and grasped her shoulders. “That’s so very sweet, Val, but Tetra has seen a healer. They said she was born with it, and it couldn’t be healed. It’s a birth deformity, not an injury.”
Valor’s lip quivered. “But I think I can heal it,” she said again.
‘Something is happening out here,’ Liana said, and my eyes widened.
I tore open the door and ran back out to the living room. Everyone stood in awe as they stared at the back glass patio door. Zara was standing there, but there were arcs of gold light splashing off of her. Ariyel was outside with Liana, watching from a ways off.
I spun, peering at Tetra.
Elaine was very quiet, Victory and Virtue speechless beside her.
“Valor thinks she can heal your foot,” I blurted out to my bestie.
Tetra’s mouth popped open. “It’s not possible. I was told that as a child.”
Valor stepped into the room, staring at her hands. There were the same golden arcs of light coming off of her palms.
I gasped.
“Let Zara inside now!” Valor snapped at me.
Something was happening. And even though I was empress, and she was my little sister, I did as she commanded. Because if there was even a small chance that my best friend could be freed of years of crippling pain, I was taking it.
I yanked the back door open and started shoving chairs out of the way to make room for the small dragon to come inside.
Tetra swallowed hard, staring at Valor in shock.
“It might do nothing. It might just take your pain away. Or she might be misreading the power,” I told Tetra as both Zara and Valor approached her.
Valor shook her head as if to argue with me. “No,” was all she said.
No . Just that.
“But—”
“Shhh,” Elaine scolded me, and I fell silent.
Stars, let Valor be right. Let Tetra be healed.