Lies That Bleed (The Ember War Book 1), page 13
I found a place at the end of the line, placed my bag at my feet, and stood tall next to Anika of all people. Liana wandered to the field behind us and stood with the other creatures. The drill instructors knew better than to try to train the creatures. That was something we would each do ourselves. They might guide us but they wouldn’t be screaming in the faces of a wolf or lion. They weren’t stupid. We had to submit to the instructor so that our creatures would submit to them through our bond.
The hawk lieutenant stepped up to the front line with her hands behind her back. “If you think you are special because you survived The Wilds and bonded, THINK AGAIN!” She roared the last two words in Tetra’s face and my bestie squeaked.
“I am Lieutenant Ashendell, your lead lieutenant. It is my job to make sure you can survive in a war and I take my job VERY SERIOUSLY!” She screamed into Anika’s face but the Imbrian didn’t move.
She then walked right up to me and stared me up and down. “If ANY OF YOU think you are special because of how much money you have, or who you parents are, YOU ARE WRONG and I WILL PROVE YOU WRONG,” she shouted in my face, so close that I felt spittle fly onto my cheeks.
I didn’t move a muscle, just stared ahead as if nothing had happened.
Lieutenant Ashendell walked up to Kohen. “And if you have a weakness, and the creatures chose wrong.” She stared Kohen up and down. “I will pull that weakness out of you and display it for all to see.”
She paused, just glaring at him. I peered at him without moving my head since he was right next to me. He appeared to be glaring her down, not looking at the space in front of him like he should be.
Oh stars. He was an idiot.
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?” she shouted suddenly, making half the cadets jump, and probably hoping to jostle Kohen, but he didn’t move.
“Yes, ma’am!” Kohen replied with the rest of us.
I had a feeling this was going to be an interesting month.
Over the next twenty minutes, we stood there as they tore open our bags, displaying our stuff for all to see. They took heavily padded bras, makeup, curling irons, and threw them all in the trash. One of the male cadets had brought cookies and letters from his mother pre-written for each week he was here. She read a few out loud, got everyone laughing, and tossed the rest.
“WEAK!” one of the lieutenants said.
They took my banana bread but that was it. Elaine was no fool. She didn’t pack anything that would have been confiscated. When Lieutenant Ashendell’s gaze fell to my necklace, my stomach dropped.
How could I be so stupid? No jewelry. She could see the panic in my gaze as I was unable to contain my fear that she would destroy the locket.
“Give it.” She held out her hand.
My heart pounded in my chest, and simultaneously another lieutenant took Tetra’s cane.
“I need that to walk, you asshat,” she snapped.
Oh crap.
Lieutenant Ashendell tore away from me and ran up to Tetra. “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?”
Suddenly there were fingers on my neck and I froze, peering over at Kohen in shock when he pulled my necklace off and popped it into his mouth!
What the hell?
Lieutenant Ashendell made Tetra do one hundred push-ups and then came back over to me. Her gaze fell on my neck and her eyes narrowed.
“Turn out your pockets,” she ordered.
I did without question.
“Open your mouth,” she said next.
I did.
“Where is it?” she growled.
“Where is what, ma’am?” I said in the rhythmic answering tone they preferred.
She reached out and grasped the sides of my cheeks, hard.
I felt movement behind me but I dared not turn around to look, and Lieutenant Ashendell’s hand fell away from me almost as soon as she’d touched me. I was about to wonder why when I felt her. Liana.
My creature walked out from her line where she had been standing with the others and strode over to Lieutenant Ashendell, pausing a mere six feet from her.
The lieutenant narrowed her gaze at me. “You will not get special treatment.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, staring straight ahead and ignoring the fact that my creature was threatening her.
‘Go back in line,’ I told Liana.
Liana reached her head forward and sniffed Lieutenant Ashendell’s leg, causing the lieutenant’s eyebrows to raise.
“Control her,” she said to me through a clenched jaw, but I could hear a slight shake to her voice.
‘She won’t hurt you. She was bluffing. I like her,’ Liana decided, and then strode back over to the line with the others.
Bless the stars! This firebird was going to give me a heart attack.
“Sorry, ma’am,” I said, and Ashendell rolled her eyes, stomping off to make fun of the fact that Tetra could only do twenty push-ups.
I wanted to tell Tetra that they would give her a Fleet-issued cane. It wouldn’t be cute like the crystal one she had now; it would be rubber and safe for her and others. But I couldn’t say a word. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how Kohen had my special locket inside his mouth.
Chapter
Fourteen
An hour later we were waltzed into the building as some older soldiers grinned and tossed immature comments our way. The training facility housed boot camp cadets, and then also higher-level soldiers doing advanced officer training.
When we turned a corner we had to bunch together and I felt Kohen’s hand slip in mine, depositing the locket into my fist. I slipped it into my pocket before anyone could see and flicked my gaze to his, but he faced forward, ignoring me.
Why did he do that? Risked getting his butt chewed out for a stupid necklace. There was only one answer I could come up with.
Psychological warfare. From day one, he’d moved out of the way so that Tetra could take his place; he had his team of Imbrians protect her in The Wilds; he helped me save Liana—he did these nice things so that I would grow soft towards him and then he would betray me.
I was not going to let that happen.
“Choose a bunkmate of the same sex!” one of the drill instructors screamed, and I scrambled to get next to Tetra. We formed an orderly line of two by two and the instructor pointed down the hallway of open rooms. “Find a room. This is a co-ed dorm, not a brothel. You are here to learn. We are not your parents, you are grown-ass adults, so we expect you to behave like it. Remember that,” she said, and then all the instructors flattened their backs against the wall as we walked briskly to the first open room we could find. My stomach sank when Kohen and Dev slipped into the room directly next to mine, but I shook it off.
We were given ten minutes to unpack and make our beds. Perfectly folded sheets were set at the end of each bunk. I instinctively started making the top bunk bed up because I knew with Tetra’s foot she wouldn’t be able to get up here. When I was done folding the corners exactly like Elaine had taught me, I slipped my locket under the mattress between the boards and then jumped down to look at Tetra’s bed.
It was awful.
“Tuck them tightly,” I whispered, yanking the sheet and bedspread down and showing her how. She nodded, doing the next one.
“Tighter, crease it with your hand,” I told her.
She did, and struggled without her cane, falling over a few times.
“They will give you a Fleet-issued cane made of rubber,” I whispered. “I forgot to tell you that.”
She looked relived at that.
“Inspection!” an instructor screamed, and I stood, creasing the last part and then standing at attention, back ramrod straight, hands clasped behind me and chin up.
Tetra mimicked my position and I worried less about her. She was smart and a quick learner—she would catch on. Boots sounded down the hall and then I heard the sound of sheets being torn off a bed.
“This is the Imperial Fleet! Not your mother’s basement!” an instructor bellowed down the hall.
“Yes, sir!” a female yelled back.
In the next room the same thing happened.
And then it was our turn. Instructor Ashendell stood in the doorway of our room and peered at me.
“If the emperor’s own daughter doesn’t know how to make a bed, you all have to run a mile,” she said from the doorway, and there was a collective groan down the hallway.
My heart burst to life inside my chest as her gaze ran over my top bed with a critical eye. She even stepped up on the first rung of the attached ladder to get a closer look. When she jumped down, she held my gaze.
“Congratulations, Miss Everhart, you are the new official cadet bed-making instructor.”
“Yes, ma’am!” I said.
It was a compliment. I would need to train anyone who had their bed torn up and it would fall on me to be punished if they couldn’t learn. Elaine told me things like this happened. It was a test of my leadership skills.
The instructors fanned out and tore apart nearly all of the bedrooms.
“Pathetic!” the older instructor my father had spoken to outside screamed. “You have twenty minutes to remake them or you all have to run a mile. You may ask Miss Everhart for a tutorial.”
Great.
My room was suddenly flooded with worried-looking cadets. My ex-boyfriend Jace was among them. Tetra stepped to the side and I tore her lower bunk apart for the tutorial. My nervousness ramped up a notch when I noticed Kohen in the crowd, and then went even higher when I saw that three of the instructors were watching me.
I separated the blanket and sheet and then shook the sheet flat, draping it over the bed.
“The trick is constant creasing with your hands, every step of the way.” I tucked the sides, lifting up the mattress and creasing as I went. “Think of your hand as an iron, and crease tight. If you think it’s tight enough, it’s not,” I said.
“Got it,” a girl with long brown hair said and spun to leave the room. I recognized her from the academy; we went to school together. She dated Alek in eleventh grade and was super stuck-up. Her name was Summer and she was a know-it-all. I’d seen her come in with a beautiful male lion creature. We didn’t run in the same social circles, so I normally did my best to ignore her.
“I’m not done!” I snapped at her back, and Kohen stepped out from where he’d been and barred her way.
Why did he keep doing that stuff?
The girl turned to me with a narrowed gaze. “An idiot can make a bed. I’ve learned enough. I’d rather have more time to work on it.”
I saw the instructors’ eyebrows raise but they said nothing, as if they were watching me to see how I would deal with this confrontation.
I nodded. “Then when everyone else passes and you fail, you will know that your pride and impatience are the reason we will likely have to run a mile.”
She rolled her eyes, spun and bumped Kohen out of the way.
A nearly all-consuming rage washed over me as she left. I wanted to tear after her and drag her back here to finish the tutorial, but I’d learned from my father that some people only learned from their mistakes. I was betting she was one of those.
I faced my fellow cadets: “The corners must be folded at a forty-five-degree angle.” I demonstrated. “And even if you crease and tuck everything tightly, where you will fail inspection is not folding the sheet over the blanket and then folding both down together.” I showed what I meant, pinning my knee onto the blanket and sheet to keep it taut. When I stood, there was a knee imprint on the bed so I reached out and creased that. “Try to pull the blanket up with two fingers,” I asked Tetra.
She stepped forward and pinched the blanket with two fingers and lifted up. It snapped from her fingers, unable to be pulled up because it was so tight.
“Good luck,” I told everyone with a smile.
I was their future empress, and the odds were that my fellow peers in this very room would one day guard me. I wanted loyalty that I’d earned, not ordered.
Everyone burst from the room and scattered down the hallways, running to fix their beds.
Instructor Ashendell stepped inside and pointed to Tetra. “You are needed in medical.”
Her eyes widened and she looked frightened for a second.
“For your cane,” I whispered, and she relaxed.
Instructor Ashendell shot me a glare as if she didn’t appreciate my chatter. Well, I didn’t appreciate her freaking my friend out.
Sure enough, fifteen minutes later, just as they were inspecting the newly made beds, Tetra waltzed in with a new black rubber cane. It was ugly compared to her crystal one, but functional, and I was just grateful they’d given her one at all.
“Pass,” one instructor said, and then moved down the hall. Pass, pass, pass, pass.
With each passing bed inspection I felt pride swell in my chest. This meant I was a good leader, or at the very least that I gave a mean tutorial on how to be a good bed maker.
“FAIL!” I heard a scream. “Get out in the hall and lead your cadets in their one mile run punishment.”
I shook my head. I knew who it was going to be before I saw Summer step to the front of the hall and pass my room with her head down. Hopefully, she learned from this. We all stepped out into the hallway and I saw the panic in Tetra’s gaze.
She couldn’t run, not for long. It was more of a frantic hop, and only when being chased by a feral dog or something.
“I can’t run,” Tetra said in a low voice to Instructor Ashendell.
“WHAT IS THAT, CADET? I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” she shouted on purpose.
“I CAN’T RUN!” Tetra screamed in anger.
I wanted to come to her aid and defend her, but I knew that would only make things worse.
Instructor Ashendell glared at Tetra. “How can you expect to protect this great country if you can’t even run?”
Tetra matched her glare. “Oh I don’t know. Maybe with my badass wolf creature?”
Over a dozen snickers burst from the lips of the cadets present, and I wanted to smack Tetra in the back of the head.
Was her comment funny? Hell yes. But was it also stupid? Yes again.
A shadow crossed Instructor Ashendell’s face. “Because of your fellow cadet’s attitude, you all now have to run two miles while she sits on a blanket and paints her nails like a princess.”
I could see the retort building in Tetra’s throat, so I stepped forward.
“Yes, ma’am, let’s move out!” I nudged two people in front of me and we began to march.
As far as first days went, this could have gone worse.
By the next morning at breakfast, everyone was over the two-mile run. Everyone but Tetra.
“She’s awful. I hate her,” Tetra growled, shoving potatoes into her mouth angrily.
I chuckled, half asleep still as Jace pulled into the seat next to me.
“Hey,” he said shyly.
“Nope.” Tetra pointed her fork at him. “Not happening.”
I had to hide my grin as I glanced at him.
Jace looked offended. “Tetra, Aisling and I talked. We’re cool now. Friends. Right, Ash?”
I hated that he still used his pet name for me.
I remembered him telling me at Club Sleuth about his parents’ divorce, and I pitied him.
Turning fully to him, I met his gaze, a gaze I had once gotten lost in for hours. “We are cool, but I need time before we just sit next to each other and act like nothing happened.”
Because he still cheated on me. I wouldn’t soon forget that, if ever.
His face fell and he nodded, getting up and moving to another table.
“Don’t worry. I still have a revenge plot in place,” Tetra said.
A new tray plopped next to mine and I looked up to see Alek and smiled genuinely. He was followed by Roc, Anika, Dev, and Meera. The Wilds alliance was all at one table.
“How are you feeling after that two-mile run, Tetra? My legs are sore,” Anika asked my bestie sarcastically, but there was a smile on her lips.
Tetra hadn’t run at all. She’d sat in the middle on a blanket with a bottle of Instructor Ashendell’s nail polish, painting her nails as ordered.
“Mine too.” Tetra matched Anika’s sarcasm.
I felt at ease with this group. Maybe it was because we’d bonded during our time in The Wilds. Meera was the quiet introspective and smart one. Anika was clearly one of the leaders, with a chip on her shoulder. Nikhil was the ladies’ man, who even now was flirting with Tetra and asking to touch her new cane. Dev was more like Kohen, quiet and always calculating. A man of few words.
Speaking of Kohen… the Avasan gang leader had arrived. If it weren’t for Roc and Alek sitting next to me, I might have had to switch tables for fear of people thinking I was aligning with him or something. I couldn’t let that kind of word get back to my father.
“Aisling.” Kohen said my name so delicately it made heat bloom in my core.
I looked up at him. He was holding his tray and eyeing the empty seat at the end of the table, farthest from me.
“Do you mind if I sit with you guys?”
Why in the stars was he asking? And so politely? Had he gotten hit over the head?
“Sure, dude.” I tried to be casual. “Why would I care?”
He plopped down next to Dev and across from Meera and peered at me. “I know you have to be careful about your reputation. I don’t want to cause you trouble.”
My gut clenched at the thoughtful statement, and for some reason I was getting really pissed off by his hospitality. Was this his plan? Lure me in, chew me up, then spit me out?
I turned to Alek, giving Kohen my back. I couldn’t deal with this right now. He was playing games. I knew it. My father murdered his. There was no way his kind gestures were authentic.
“Do you think we will get put into wing training soon?” I asked Alek. “I bet Instructor Ashendell will be our trainer.” He was hawk bonded, like her. All those who bonded with a beast of the air had special “wing training.” Just as those who bonded with a water animal had water training.
He nodded. “That’s exactly what I think,” he agreed and popped a piece of bacon in his mouth. We all chatted casually for the next ten minutes until the lights went off in the room, plunging us into darkness.
