Page 26 of Lies That Blemish (The Ember War #3)

Valor

I had a new motto. What would Aisling do? It was how I was handling everything so fast. I’d convinced the admirals to allow my plan to detonate a bomb over the Luskin army base off their west coast. We’d spent all day and night evacuating our people. They took trains and cars and crossed into the Wilds on foot, into the barren, burned-out lands of Imbria—all evidence of the destruction we’d caused.

When they questioned why in the world they would go into enemy territory, I decided to steer from the What Would Aisling Do? territory and did what Valor would do. I told them the truth about Father—that we’d recently found out he was behind the attack that caused the Great Blackout and that the Imbrians were, in fact, our allies; Luska had a bomb that could level Riverine, and we needed to get out now and ask questions later. I told them that my sisters and I were different from our father; we would never turn on our own people, and deciding to tell the truth was evidence that we wanted things to run differently this time.

Some hesitated at my confession, but most people packed up and left with a simple three-day pack because we all knew that if Luska did have something that could take out Riverine, they would. My head was still firmly attached to my shoulders, so I was counting that as a win.

Some chose to stay at their own peril. People asked where my sister was, and again, I was honest in telling them Victory had been kidnapped and I was interim empress until Aisling returned with her on a rescue mission. It was a glorified truth, one I hoped was real and would end with both of my sisters alive and back home.

The good thing about gossip was that when you wanted something to spread like wildfire, it did. By the time I reached Evergreen, people were already on the move to Imbria and had heard the worst of the news. I overheard one family saying they always knew Father was a rotten liar and suspected him of dark deeds but thought Aisling and my sisters would turn the empire around. That was a relief. The risk of outing what my father did was a great danger to my sisters and me. But I wasn’t sure how to get them to trust Kohen and Imbria otherwise, and to be honest, I couldn’t sleep another day with the injustice of Ravi Badshah going down for something Father did. If the empire fell because of it, then so be it.

It was four in the morning by the time I made it back to the willow tree house I once shared with my sisters. Kohen was with me; half a dozen Fleet members patrolled outside. I had to meet Charlene and the other Talanagi bonded in about four hours in Emberlane Park to go over the plan and decide exactly how we would pull it off. Meanwhile, the admirals were having a bomb made with as many explosives as we had on hand in Riverine. Tetra had taken some time to get her mom to safety and was meeting me at the park in the morning. Liana had helped all night to ferry over people in need and promised to also meet in the park in the morning.

“You can sleep in my sister’s room,” I told Kohen and pointed to the door. He peered at the closed door with apprehension. “I’ll just take the couch,” he said.

I frowned. “Aisling won’t care. And trust me, her bed is much better than that couch.” If they were married, why was he being shy about sleeping in her bed?

Kohen swallowed hard. “Valor, if I smell her on that pillow, I’ll never sleep.”

My heart broke then. For the first time in my young life, I couldn’t wait to one day fall in love—to have a man love me so much that they might be so affected by my smell.

“Got it,” I said. My sister was super private, so she hadn’t really told us about Kohen. When he’d said they married in secret earlier, my heart nearly stopped! But seeing him today, flying around with me and doing whatever needed to be done for the people of Amersea, I could see that his affection for my sister was genuine.

“Any more visions with the new plan?” I asked him hopefully.

He frowned. “No. Nothing.”

I nodded. “Good.”

He chuckled. “Good?”

“Yeah. It means you haven’t had a vision saying we would fail. I’ll take those odds. We’re getting my sisters back,” I declared.

He grinned, and it made him look so much hotter than his normal, grumpy, stoic face. I could see what my sister saw in him, and it made me think of Arjun. They looked so much alike.

“You’re just like Aisling.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I told him.

He nodded seriously. “You should. Goodnight, Valor.” He plopped onto the couch and sighed.

“Good night, Kohen.” I walked back to my room and face-planted on the bed, passing out in seconds with my boots on. My last thought was that this must really be what it feels like to be empress: complete and total exhaustion.