Page 8 of Lies That Blemish (The Ember War #3)

Aisling

“What!” I shrieked as the sun poked over the horizon. Alek stood before me, having been woken from his bed, and rushed down here at my request after Valor missed her third flare. We agreed Liana was too big and would be spotted by guards—word would get back to the admirals that I’d given Valor help. But Iniki was small and could maybe spot Valor and see what was going on.

Alek stood before me, hair ruffled from sleep, eyes closed as he concentrated on seeing through Iniki’s eyes. “She’s with two Imbrians,” he said again.

I panicked. “Who? How old are they? Is it Kohen? Anika? Do they have her tied up?”

Alek shook his head. “They’re kids. Both boys. One is maybe fifteen-sixteen, the other a few years older. They seem friendly. She’s saying they are together. Going to find creatures together. As a group.”

I swayed on my feet so much that Elaine had to reach out and steady me.

Two boys. That age…

Kohen’s brothers? What the hell? Like, what in the actual hell was going on?

“They are far north, near the Luskin border,” Alek said, and I shared a look with Elaine.

“No,” I whimpered. They wouldn’t. Kohen wouldn’t.

If he told my sister where to find Talanagi, I would rip his head from his body. I began to pace the gravel road. “That bastard!” Just when I thought Kohen might be right, and I had possibly made a mistake in my assessment of him, he did this.

“He’s putting her in danger. To get her killed. It will look like an accident,” I told Elaine.

She was frozen in thought as Vespa walked in circles around us.

‘Come here,’ Liana called to me, snapping me out of my tirade.

I walked over to her, distraught with worry, as I grasped her face and nuzzled into her neck feathers. It had been so long since I’d hugged her like this. Over the past two months, I’d grown further away from her. Something I deeply regretted at this moment.

‘Do you want me to open my bond to Onyx?’ she asked. She’d closed down her bond when they both betrayed us that night in the Wilds two months ago. We’d agreed it would stay closed.

‘I don’t want to hear Kohen’s lies secondhand,’ I told her.

She nodded, moving her head against me. ‘But if he has a plan… if he’s sending his brothers with Valor into Luska, we need to know.’

My gut twisted at the thought of Valor in Luska.

‘He wouldn’t,’ I whimpered, praying it wasn’t true.

‘He might if he had a vision and saw them successful. He might.’

If Kohen saw a vision about my sister, then I wanted to know what it was. But how could I believe anything that came from his mouth after he watched me grieve my own father and look for the killer for weeks, knowing he’d done it?

‘I don’t know. I feel frozen, incapable of making a decision,’ I told her.

Liana nodded. ‘Then let me decide for you. I will open my bond to Onyx, ask a few quick questions, and then close it. We can decide whether or not the information is false once we have it and what we want to do with it.’

‘Fine,’ I croaked, pulling away from her and peering over to see Alek and Elaine speaking in hushed tones off to the side, where we had erected our tent.

No more than a minute passed, and I felt Liana bristle. ‘Onyx confirms those are Kohen’s brothers. He claims to have sent them to protect Valor. That she will bond a Talanagi. They are headed to Luska now.’

‘No. It’s a trap,’ I told her, feeling a surge of panic as I envisioned my little sister taken and tortured by Maxim.

‘Kohen claims both of his brothers and Valor will all bond Talanagi if they work together.’

‘I don’t want her to bond a Talanagi!’ I snapped. ‘ I want her to stay in our territory!’

She nodded. ‘Before I closed the bond again, Onyx said that if you interfere and keep Valor from this, she will bond a lesser creature, and Amersea will not accept it. That it will be the end of the empire.’

I let those words settle into me and wondered how I would feel if my great-great-grandfather’s legacy were to end with me. I’d always been a bit uncomfortable with the fact that I was given an entire country simply because of birthright. But I’d seen what greed could do, what crooked politicians in high places could do. I would never be like that. Valor wouldn’t either. We would keep Amersea safe. Prosperous.

I hated that right now I was being asked to trust the last person I wanted to. I should have killed him when I had the chance because now I was falling under Kohen’s spell again. Inch by inch, he’d wormed his way into my heart, and now I was just confused.

‘Tell Onyx that if my little sister dies or is gravely injured going after a Talanagi on Kohen’s advice, I will fly into Imbria this very night and kill him.’ I wasn’t playing around anymore. I’d been protecting Arjun and Tej from the war by not hitting the city of Sorak, but if they allowed Valor to perish, all bets were off.

Liana was silent a moment. ‘He said if Valor sustains a mortal injury, he will submit himself to you, surrendering to your justice immediately.’

I scoffed. What a perfect thing to say. I guessed now all we could do was wait.

And pray . I decided right then and there to start taking prayer more seriously.

May the stars watch over my little sister now.