Page 62 of Lies That Bleed
What the hell? I hadn’t even discovered my power yet, assuming I had one beyond rapid healing and seemingly escaping death, and Kohen’s was apparently messing with him so much he was punching out admirals and Jace?
‘Okay.’I was quiet the whole rest of our flight, lost in my thoughts. When we landed, Kohen, Alek, and Ashendell were in the field, waiting. Dev was walking through the trees with his giant vulture creature on his shoulder. Tetra told me his power had been revealed to be so intense that the admirals didn’t know what to dowith him. Sahiri revealed that one day he would kill with a single touch.
“Getting a head start, cadet?” Instructor Ashendell asked me.
My gaze flicked to Kohen, but he was staring straight ahead, ignoring me.
Great.
“Just a light flying practice, ma’am,” I told her, dismounting.
She nodded and then pointed to Kohen. “The fact that you can both fly on your creatures is an incredible asset to the Fleet.”
Onyx craned his black scaly head in Ashendell’s hawk’s direction and sniffed him. They both froze.
Kohen grinned. I was guessing Onyx said something funny in his head.
“What’s he doing?” Ashendell asked Kohen as her hawk flew from the ground to her shoulder. She was a badass, but she definitely seemed terrified, and had been avoiding looking at our creatures the entire time.
Kohen straightened his back and stood erect. “Nothing, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”
Ashendell brushed it off, but Liana used one of her long tailfeathers to smack Onyx in the side of the head. I wondered how old he was, because he behaved like a cocky teenager. Kohen and Onyx were perfect for each other in that way.
“Today we will be practicing using our powerswith our creatures. This will prepare us for the mock attack we will have at the end of the week,” she said.
My powers. I didn’t know what they were yet. Other than possibly being immortal, which made me want to vomit just thinking about it, and healing.
Ashendell peered at Alek. “Since we don’t yet know what these two can do…” She cast a glare at Kohen and I. “We will start with Alek.”
She pulled some throwing knives from behind her back and handed them to him.
“Cool.” He picked one up.
Ashendell whistled and her hawk took flight. She closed her eyes, concentrating, and I realized she had the power to see what he saw, a very cool if somewhat common power. He could fly ten miles away and she would see through his eyes.
“Send out your hawk,” she told Alek, keeping her eyes closed.
Alek’s hawk, who I’d learned was named Iniki, burst from his shoulders and took off to the skies.
Alek closed his eyes and mimicked what Lieutenant Ashendell was doing.
I gasped. “You have two powers?”
Alek grinned, making himself look even more handsome than usual. “I do.”
For some reason I felt like Kohen was watching me. I glanced his way to find him glaring. I rolled my eyes and focused on Alek again. He was seeing through hishawk’s sight, which I imagined was such an amazing experience second to flying.
“Now throw the knife, but use your metal-moving power to guide the sword through the woods using Iniki’s sight,” Ashendell ordered.
He winced. “That sounds hard. I can barely move a quarter across the room.”
Ashendell nodded, her eyes still closed. “It will take a lot of practice, but eventually you could kill an enemy from a mile away—slitting their throat in their sleep.”
Badass. But she was right. His power was amazing when you thought about it like that. We stood there for twenty minutes while Alek tried to move the thin blade through the woods using his hawk’s sight, but it fell about ten feet from him.
“Alright, good try. Take a break,” she told him, opening her eyes and calling her creature back.
Then she peered at me. “Are you going to tell us what your power is yet? Otherwise I don’t know how to train you.”
