Page 10 of Lies That Bleed
“I want Anika, Nikhil, Meera, Dev, and Kian to be safe. They’re like family to me.” His timbre had changed from the cold tones he was using earlier, and with each name he listed of his friends, the emotion built in his voice.
Against my better judgment, I dropped to sit beside him and almost regretted it immediately. His scent washed over me, along with the heat of his body and my thighs clenched in response. “You seem perfectly capable of protecting them,” I told him, eyeing his gigantic muscles which pulled at the fabric of his shirt.
He nodded. “Normally yes.” He met my gaze then and I nearly lost myself in his ice-blue eyes. “But I know your father will have plans to assassinate me in there, and when I’m gone they will need a strongleader to get them out alive. Someone like you. Someone trained for this.”
I couldn’t help the sharp intake of breath that pulled through my lips. “I?—”
“Don’t bother denying it. It’s what I would do,” he said, facing forward this time, staring at the leather seatback in front of him as if it held some important information.
He knew my father’s plan was to kill him… and he was trying to look out for his friends?
“You won’t stand a chance without an alliance,” I informed him.
He nodded. “I’ll make one with the weaker candidates. It will buy me time to maybe bond with a creature, but if the emperor wants me dead, I will only be a danger to my friends.”
He was right. If my father wanted him dead, he’d have his spies in The Wilds take out his entire alliance.
“And why do you think I would do you a favor?” I asked, sizing him up. He just said he would do the same as my father, meaning he would take out his competition and keep them from getting stronger. And how the hell was I even entertaining this conversation? It felt borderline treasonous.
He looked at me again. “Because of how you reacted when they called your friend’s name. You would do anything to protect her, right?”
My heart was in my throat. I simply nodded.
“I need someone like that looking out for myfamily, and in return they will make sure not asinglehair on your friend’s head is touched.”
I had to control my breathing. It felt like he was staring into my soul. He saw me, likereallysaw me for who I was, and I wasn’t sure what he thought.
“Okay,” I blurted out before I could lose my nerve. “For Tetra. But if I join the team I want to be in charge. It’s the only way I can ensure things will run smoothly and we get out alive.”
He dipped his head. “Done. I have heard that Amerseans are a people of their word. That to go back on your word would drive you to a shame so deep you would kill yourself.”
It was true. Our custom was that we gave our word, and shook on it, and the deal was done. No need for contracts or signatures.
I nodded. “That’s right. You have my word. I will protect your family to the best of my ability.” I used the wordfamilybecause he had.
Reaching out, he extended his hand in the Amersean way. I took his warm fingers in mine, ignoring the way his touch made my heart beat a mile a minute. We shook, and then I left the seat before rumors could start.
“Get up,” I told Tetra, and jerked my head to the front of the bus. “We’re joining an alliance.”
As we made our way to the front, Kohen started to speak to the stragglers in the middle, grouping them up into a large alliance of over twenty people.
I met his gaze from across the bus and he subtly nodded. All emotion gone from his face; he was back to looking like a ruthless warrior. Did I just play into a trap?
What the stars did I just do?
Chapter
Four
We reached the outer edge of the city that led to The Wilds just before sunset. The long stretch of road suddenly went from sparse trees to lush forest. The Wilds were like a vein running right through the center of Amersea and Imbria on either side of the river. It had been there since the dawn of time, and the creatures inside could not leave it unless they were bound to one of us. If they tried, they died at the border, gasping for air as if suddenly deprived of oxygen. They needed their bond to us to be free and move around the world, and we needed them to become more powerful in the war. It was a win-win. Some old tales said that The Wilds didn’t exist until one day a giant star fell from the sky and cracked into the earth. They said it split the sky open, which was what caused the ember to rain down,only over The Wilds, and then the star brought the creatures down to the earth. But the story was told in so many different fantastical ways I never knew what to believe. All I knew was the bond was what allowed the creatures to live outside The Wilds and we needed them in the war.
One thing that always amazed me when I came to this part of the country that held The Wilds was the ember. I peered out the window up at the fire sky as we approached. Everywhere else in the country the sky was blue, but here, over The Wilds, it was an angry orange and yellow. The ember rained from the fire sky in varying sizes, from small glowing flakes to huge chunks the size of marbles—to the biggest one we ever found, the size of a melon. That melon-sized ember still powered our steel factory today, and it was found over a hundred years ago. Though now it was more like the size of a walnut, slowly shrinking each year with energy expenditure. It burned clean and wasn’t combustible if struck, so there was no danger in that. You could heat your entire house for a whole winter with one ember flake the size of a sunflower seed. I’d put a chunk into my motorbike the year I got it and it still hadn’t run out.
Ember was what fueled our society, more precious than all gold and silver, and The Wilds was teeming with it. A large portion of our Imperial Fleet went to guarding The Wilds from ember thieves. The soldiersstood every ten yards along the perimeter on both the Imbrian and Amersean sides. It was a well-known practice among candidates to take one piece of ember you found on your trip in The Wilds. My father allowed it for all candidates, but it was otherwise strictly prohibited unless you were an embersmith. The embersmith’s were checked before and after their ember collection shift and all ember found was given to the emperor for sorting, assuming they made it out alive. My father divvied out portions to keep the city running, but it was a big responsibility. But for the candidates, willing to risk their lives to keep fighting in the war, he allowed them to take the biggest piece they could find. It was a little nest egg you could share with your family when you got it—if you made it out.
Though finding ember was at the back of our minds. First and foremost, we needed to be tracking creatures and staying alive. The bus approached the border of The Wilds and I instinctively held my breath as we drove through the almost clear barrier that created a bubble of sorts, like walls from the ground to the fire sky, all the way around The Wilds. To the trained eye it was obvious and I’d been here with my father plenty of times but my fellow Lottery winners didn’t seem to notice that we had just officially entered The Wilds. Our scientist thought it was what kept the habitat safe for the creatures, but it didn’t harm us. We could breathe just fine inside the almost invisible wall.
As if my very thinking had brought it up, I stared at the small flakes of ember, no larger than a winter snowflake, as they fell to the ground outside the bus. It glowed its magnificent orange hue, like it contained living fire.
