Page 59 of Lies That Bleed
“Nothing,” he snapped, and I decided to leave him alone. He’d probably gotten a head injury and needed some space.
We were quiet for a while, then the door on theback wall opened. Kohen returned to the bench and took a seat as Admiral Caruso strode towards us, her tawny wolf right at her side. Caruso had brown skin, brown hair, and brown eyes. Her face was perfectly carved, plump lips, sharp nose, high eyebrow arch. She could have been a model in another life, a life without war. She was in her early forties; her hands were littered with little battle scars that told me she’d earned her title. My father counted her as one of his closest advisors.
She walked right up to me and pinned me with a blank look. “Elaine told me to keep an eye on you, and here you are attacking an admiral’s creature to save a Badshah.” She flicked a disgusted gaze in Kohen’s direction.
I sighed in relief at the mention of Elaine. If she was friends with Elaine, she was an ally.
“I didn’t plan on doing that, ma’am.” I stood and walked closer to her so that she could use her truth telling power to know that I was not lying. “I woke up this morning with every intention of going through the power revealing process like everyone else.”
She raised one eyebrow and nodded, apparently pleased with my answer. “Then why stick up for him?” She jerked her head in Kohen’s direction.
My heart beat frantically in my chest. I had just reacted without thinking, but I couldn’t say that. And I couldn’t lie.
“My creature is a mother figure tohis. They are bonded in a way and… I just reacted, doing what I knew my creature would want.”
Truth.
I didn’t look over at Kohen but I could feel his eyes burning into me.
Caruso stepped closer to me. “And why did your creature want to hide whatever your powers are?”
Crap.
Be smart, Aisling.
“What I want to know,” Kohen interrupted, giving me some time to think of an answer, “is why an admiral nearly broke the jaw of the future empress.”
Caruso snapped her head in Kohen’s direction. “You will speak only when spoken to, Cadet. Do you understand?”
Kohen swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am,” he growled.
His outburst had bought me time I needed to gather my thoughts.
Caruso peered back at me. “The entire admiralty cabinet is telling me to march you both back in there and reveal your powers. Give meonereason not to.”
“They will be revealed in due time,” I told her. Because if they weren’t, we weren’t getting good postings. “But right now it’s a matter of national security that both of our powers stay hidden.”
She frowned, concern pulling at her features. “National security?”
She must have sensed the truth. I was the heir, the next empress, my father’s successor, and if I died itwould be a matter of national security, as keeping the line of succession alive was of utmost importance. And right now there was a current plot on my life, as I had heard yesterday morning outside the mess hall. Liana said that revealing my powers right now would get me killed and I believed her.
“That’s all I can say for now, ma’am. That to force me or Kohen to reveal our powers would put my life in danger.”
Her frown deepened. “Why him?” She jerked her head towards the cell next to mine.
Why him?I’d been asking myself that since the day I laid eyes on him.
“I don’t know.”
Truth.
My fate was intertwined with Kohen’s in some way. That was something I just felt deeply in my soul, and it filled me with equal amounts of excitement and fear.
“You are one unit!When one of you fails, you all fail!” Instructor Ashendell shouted into my face as I ran past her for the seventeenth lap. Rain pelted down on me as sleep pulled at my limbs. It was 3 a.m. and we’d just been woken for punishment for Kohen’s and my outburst. On the lawn in front of us, sitting under some floodlights and an umbrella, was Admiral Blade.He grinned as our entire unit jogged in the rain around him. Sahiri stood next to him, soaking wet and tracking me with her gaze like a predator.
Tetra had been doing sit-ups this entire time. I flicked a gaze her way to see that she had just vomited from overexertion.
Everyone was going to hate us come morning, but we’d gotten away without having to show our powers. Kohen ran well ahead of me. We were trying to keep distance from each other. The last thing I needed was for word to get back to my father that we were some item or alliance or something.
