Lies That Bleed (The Ember War Book 1), page 18
My father had insisted on a full checkup and I was checked up. Time to get the hell out of here and find Kohen. Why had I stayed silent and protected him?
Because if my father had seen him, he’d have killed him on the spot without question.
I was going to handle this my way.
After getting dressed, I tossed the medical gown on the bed and flung the door wide. I threw it so hard that it hit the back wall. Every single admiral turned and faced me, all wearing stony expressions.
I saluted them and then passed them down the hallway as Liana struggled to make it through the doorframe. She stopped to glare at the admirals and they all took a few steps back to give her a wide berth. Outside, I hopped on her back. “Take me to Kohen. I know you can find Onyx.”
She didn’t argue, she just kicked off and took to the skies. I was fuming mad by the time we saw the black dragon in the sky flying over the park near my house. How dare he! With my sisters home. Would he have hurt them?
‘Tell Onyx to land,’ I told Liana.
I knew she had a mental connection with the dragon, and seconds after I’d made my request both Onyx and Kohen looked up to see us looming over them.
Onyx lowered immediately into a dark and deserted portion of the park. The second Onyx landed, I didn’t wait for Liana to get me to the ground. I pulled my dagger from my boot and leapt off of her. I crashed into Kohen’s back, forcing him to sprawl out on his stomach before I shoved my knee in his back and pulled the blade to his throat.
“What the hell were you doing in my father’s study? With my sisters home. If you hurt them—”
“I would never hurt your sisters!” he said, aghast, turning his head to look up at me in shock.
His shock made regret flush through me.
You’re mine, Aisling. I’ve made love to you under a bed of stars.
His previous words were so far from the current place we found ourselves I couldn’t help but shake my head. He was a liar. He was playing me!
“Answer me or I’ll bleed you right here,” I growled.
Onyx chuffed behind me as if he wouldn’t allow that to happen, but Liana stepped in front of him, blocking his view and clearly telling him to back off.
Good. I’d wondered what she would do if it was ever us against them. Now I knew. My creature was loyal to me alone, as promised.
“Left pocket,” Kohen said sadly.
I frowned, pulling one of my knees off of his back, and reached into his left pocket, fully ready to slice him if this was some trick. When my fingers wrapped around a cold, flat, metal disk, I pulled it out.
Bringing the item up to my face, I frowned.
“A pocket watch?” I stepped off of Kohen and allowed him to stand.
The watch was heavy, solid gold, and it had a beautiful etched tiger on the front. I clicked the button to open the face and peered at the inside.
The inscription engraved under the lid had my throat closing with emotion.
To my beloved son, Kohen. Rule with justice and compassion in equal measure.
“My father had it made for me when I was born. Your father stole it from him the night he killed him. I was just getting it back. It’s mine.”
My heart sank into my stomach like a stone. I reached out to hand him the watch, which he took gingerly from my outstretched palm. Here was the man who helped me keep my locket the first day of boot camp, and all he was doing was getting back a similar object from my father.
I felt like a jerk.
“You could have just asked me. I would have gotten it for you,” I told him, though the thought of sneaking into my father’s office terrified me.
He frowned. “Would you have? I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything anymore.”
Then he walked past me, got on Onyx, and flew away.
‘He should not have broken into your home where your sisters sleep. You were right to confront him,’ Liana told me.
I nodded. ‘I know.’
But then why did I feel like such crap?
The next morning at breakfast, there were two drill instructors standing ten paces behind me as I ate, seemingly guarding me. Kohen sat at a table in the corner and Anika and the rest of his crew moved with him. It was painfully apparent that there was a separation there, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d screwed up.
“He broke into my freaking home!” I whispered-screamed to Tetra. “And I’m the jerk for calling him out on it?”
Everyone had heard about the attack on my life and the fact that two drill instructors were now dead over it, so all my fellow candidates stared at me as they passed.
“I mean, did you call him out on it or did you hold a knife to his throat and almost kill him over it?” Tetra asked seriously.
Damn. She had the tongue of a viper when she wanted to.
“The triplets were home. He could have—”
Tetra rolled her eyes. “He could have tried to kill you plenty of times but he hasn’t. In fact, he seems to have the hots for you. He flipped out over Jace taking a fry off your plate. That’s not normal.”
I wanted to tell her what he said about me being his at karaoke night so badly that I had to physically squeeze my lips to keep quiet. Doing that would reveal his gift, and although I was pissed at him, I wasn’t that pissed. I trusted Tetra, but even knowing this could put her in danger.
“So you’re saying if he broke into your mom’s house you would be cool with it?” I asked her.
She gave me a look, a look that I had grown to know meant she was about to say something I didn’t like.
Alek and Roc were just checking out at the lunch counter; they would be here any second. For now we were alone.
Tetra leaned into me and lowered her voice. “Have you stopped even once to ask yourself why your father would steal a sentimental pocket watch off of a dead man and keep it in his office all these years?”
I gasped. When she said it like that, it made my father sound like a lunatic hell-bent on revenge.
I met her gaze. “Ravi Badshah was a terrorist who killed over—”
“I know.” She held out her hands to stop me, and then flicked her gaze to where Anika was sitting next to Kohen, chatting happily. “Unless… we don’t have the whole story there.”
I frowned, and she swallowed hard.
“I’m just saying… what if we don’t know everything?”
So Anika had been talking to her too. I opened my mouth to argue when Alek dropped next to me, concern etched all over his face. “I heard about the attack. Are you okay?” His gaze frantically ran over my body as if looking for injuries and I nodded, giving him a tight smile.
“My father has enemies even in his own backyard it seems. Luckily, the perpetrators have been taken care of and all is well now.” The coined answer Lucinda Lark, my father’s personal secretary, had written me this morning, informing me that I was supposed to tell anyone that asked.
Alek frowned. “But the instructors—”
“All is well now,” I assured him, placing a hand on his and giving him a look that said Let it go.
“Damn, I regret not getting tater tots,” Roc said, peering at his plate. “I would take one of yours, Aisling, but I’m afraid Kohen will rip my ear off for it.”
Everyone at the table burst out laughing, everyone except me.
I peered across the room at the same time Kohen did and our gazes caught. Even from here I could see those piercing blue eyes locked with mine. It was like he was peeling back my protective layers one by one and trying to stare straight into my soul.
I had so many questions. Why did I see heartbreak in his eyes? Who broke it? Me?
He finally looked away and it felt like I was suddenly all alone. Confused and alone.
Chapter
Nineteen
“Aisling and Kohen finally have powers to show us!” Lieutenant Ashendell told our squad. I’d gone to her and told her that the night I was attacked I had acquired the ability to conjure fire. Though it was really smoke, Liana had assured me I could conjure fire when needed.
Everyone cheered and I swallowed hard. Hopefully, Kohen had something else to display, because everyone finding out he could see the future would sign his death warrant.
“Kohen, will you please do the honors of going first? I think we’ve waited in anticipation long enough.” Ashendell looked bored, and I perked up as I watched the former Imbrian prince walk across the field and stand in the middle.
He looked so calm. Like he’d been practicing, or just wasn’t scared. I envied that. I was terrified as hell to turn into a fireball for the first time, and in front of my peers.
Onyx and Liana stood off to the side with the other creatures and watched.
“Lieutenant Ashendell, would you please direct your attention to that bush over there?” Kohen pointed to a shrub that stood at the edge of the tree line over forty feet away.
The lieutenant’s brows pinched together in confusion but she did as he asked. We all did. I turned to face the plant, my gaze flicking back to Kohen and then the bush, and back to Kohen. Kohen looked to be in deep concentration, arms at his side as he stared at the shrub and then…
We all gave a collective gasp as the bush burst into flames.
Wow, to be able to direct flames to something from so far away… without shooting the flames across the lawn. It was pretty incredible.
My fellow cadets burst into applause, myself included, and Kohen gave a slight grin of pride.
“Wow, okay, that’s very impressive, Mr. Badshah.” Ashendell had her clipboard with her and marked something in it.
Then she turned to me. “Miss Everhart?”
‘I’m going to vomit,’ I told Liana.
‘Well, then vomit and get it over with, because they expect great things from you, and that’s what you need to give them right now,’ Liana said.
Oh great. That was not helping with the pressure.
I stepped forward, sweat beading my brow as I stood in the center of the practice field with my fellow cadets all around me. A few higher-level soldiers who were here for officer training stopped what they were doing and walked over to watch me.
I was Aisling Everhart, future empress. If I couldn’t handle pressure now, I couldn’t run this country.
‘How do I make the fire come?’ I asked Liana.
‘Tell everyone to step back,’ Liana advised.
I raised one eyebrow at my creature. “Take a step back!” I told everyone.
They exchanged curious glances but took a giant step back.
‘More,’ Liana said.
Oh stars, this was embarrassing.
“Farther,” I told the surrounding crowd, and they stepped three paces back.
I took a deep breath.
‘Now crouch down, make yourself like a ball.’
If this didn’t work I was going to look like such an idiot.
I did as she asked and lowered my head to my knees, tucking myself into a ball.
‘Now go inside your mind. Remember the fire beast? Remember what it felt like to fight her? That all-consuming heat, the way she grew when you cut her down and didn’t let up…’
‘Yes,’ I said, because I did remember. I would not soon forget that experience. Even more now that Liana had told me the fire beast was a part of her.
‘Reach for her, and let her out,’ she coached.
I was keenly aware of the fact that I likely looked like an idiot curled into a ball on the practice field while I had a conversation in my head with my creature and everyone stared at me. But I didn’t focus on that. I focused instead on the heat in my core, the fire beast who was wild and terrifying and glorious and impossible to control. She was there, inside of me, like a second creature almost, Liana’s alter ego, this one slightly terrifying. I reached out and touched that power and then opened the invisible cage she’d been resting in all this time.
One second I was just sitting on the ground concentrating on this power, and the next there was a flash of heat and dozens of screams. A blast exploded from my skin and I looked up just in time to see a wall of fire rushing outward from me towards my fellow candidates. People ran farther back, screaming, including Instructor Ashendell, and then the fire dissipated as its pressure was released.
My skin, hair, and clothing were untouched, though I was sweating and felt slightly warmer than usual. With a hard swallow, I stood and surveyed the giant circle of scorched grass I was standing in the center of.
Ashendell just stared at me for a full thirty seconds before marking something on her clipboard and then smiling. “Our future empress is a human bomb.”
The class erupted into cheers and I smiled, rubbing my sweaty palms on my pants. I’d finally given them something to be excited over without revealing my dark hidden power—the power I’d already put in my little black box and would never think about again. I hoped word got back to Admiral Blade about this, because if Sahiri had forced such a power, it would have burned her and whoever stood nearest me alive. This would explain my behavior that day, and the admirals would trust me again. Most of all, my father would be pleased.
After Kohen’s and my power display, we had sword practice with our fellow cadets. We were just finishing up when I got in line behind Kohen to turn my practice blade back in to the instructor. Kohen turned to Anika and asked for her practice blade, and when their hands touched, he sucked in a breath.
She cocked her head to the side. “You okay?”
He just stared at her for a second as if lost in a trance, then he seemed to snap out of it. His hand shook, but he slipped it into his pocket to cover it. Did he just see the future? Even now he still had a far-off look in his eyes.
“I’m fine. I’m gonna go for a walk, clear my head,” Kohen said to Anika after setting the practice blades at the instructor’s feet, and then stormed off into the woods. The guilt that had slowly been rising up inside of me reached a level I could no longer tolerate. Kohen should not have broken into my house, but I couldn’t let him go through this alone.
I didn’t hate him. I should but I couldn’t.
I turned in my blade and then went after him, stepping into the thick woods to find that Kohen was… running. His legs pumped fast as he bolted full-speed through the trees, leaping over fallen logs and dry brush. I didn’t think, I just acted. I ran after him, pumping my legs hard as I streaked across the dense forest.
“Kohen!” I screamed, and he slowed.
His back heaved as he fought for breath, and when I reached him he fell to the ground on all fours, hands splayed out, breath coming out in rapid gasps.
He was having a panic attack.
Victory had had one once when she shot her first deer with a bow. It had looked like this.
“Hey, deep breaths.” I rubbed small circles on his back, like I had for Victory, and he stilled, calming.
He looked up at me for the first time since I’d gotten here and I was shocked to see the anguish in his eyes.
“So much death,” he whimpered.
Chills broke out onto my arms and I staggered backward a little, falling onto my butt.
“What? What did you see?”
He reached up and ran his fingers through his hair before slipping into the Imbrian language, a string of incoherent rambling that was both beautiful and terrifying because I couldn’t understand any of it.
“Kohen, what did you see?”
He quieted, looking at his hands as if there were something on them. He brushed them on his pants and then shook his head. “I don’t think I can live like this,” he said, and my heart tore in half. It was such a vulnerable thing to say, and to say it to someone who’d held a knife to your throat just a short time ago probably made it so much worse.
“Yes you can,” I told him.
He shook his head. “I see an attack. Here. On this very campus. I see my friends near death… I don’t know if they make it. And the worst of it all is that I’m falling in love with someone who hates me.” He held my gaze, staring at my lips in a reverent way and my mouth popped open in shock.
Me. He was talking about me.
That was a lot to process, but strangely the L word scared me less than the attack he spoke of.
“Attack? Here? We need to tell my father.” I stood, ignoring the falling in love with me part.
He glared at me. “And how do we tell him that without getting me killed? My stars, Aisling, you’re my best friend and you don’t even know it yet. I can’t do this.”
Best friends. Lovers. My heart yearned for that with him and I knew it shouldn’t. I hated that he told me these things. It made me wonder if I would desire him on my own or only because he planted the thoughts in my head. It didn’t matter either way. He was a Badshah.
He stood and started to walk away, leaving me to sit there in shock.
“Hey!” I snapped, storming after him. “That’s not fair!” I reached him and yanked his shoulder so that he spun to face me.
Best friend. Love. This is insane!
“How do you know your visions or whatever are even real?” I hated to ask but I did.
He didn’t look hurt, he just sighed. “The night you were attacked by the drill instructors, I saw it in a vision. That’s how I got there so quickly. Then I had a vision of your father coming to chew out the admirals, and a flash of his office desk drawer with my father’s pocket watch inside.”
My mouth popped open again. I had wondered how he’d been the one to find me and so fast. I’d assumed Liana told Onyx, who in turn told him, but there wouldn’t have been that much time. I’d have been dead without his help. So that’s why he fought to get my father there, so that he could sneak into his office and get the pocket watch back just like he’d seen in his vision. I still wasn’t convinced that his visions and seeing the future were real. He was a Badshah—cunning and ruthless—this could all be an elaborate ruse.
“I also know that if you don’t braid your hair before bed, you wake up with it all tangled.” He reached out and fingered the strands hanging over my shoulder. My breath caught as he then trailed his fingers down my neck. Red hot need pulsed throughout my body but I fought it. This was too much. What he was saying was crazy. But I also wanted it to be true, all of it. I leaned into him, licking my lips to wet them, warring with my own desire. “I know that under this shirt you have a group of freckles that look like a constellation.” He pulled his hand back and sadness filled his gaze. “And I know that no matter how much I want to kiss you right now, this isn’t where we have our first kiss because you freak out and—”
