Page 1 of Lies That Bind
Chapter
One
Istared down at my father’s corpse with a lump in my throat. He was pale, with sickly blue veins scattered across his face. His lips were tinged purple. Despite coroner Davis’ efforts to make him look presentable with makeup, he looked… dead.
Because he was.
My father is dead. The emperor is dead.
“We are waiting for the blood results, but we think it was some kind of poison, as no other wounds were found on his body but those claw marks.”
I knew the marks he spoke of, the ones on my father’s arms that were currently hidden under the sheet. I’d seen them on him the night he was killed. Last night. How had it only been last night? It felt like years and only seconds at the same time.
“Poisoned claws? Talons?” I asked, dragging my gaze away from my father’s face for the first time.
“We think so,” Davis said. “There was no evidence of a toxin in his stomach, so he didn’t drink it. The test results will show more.”
I nodded. That was good. Drinking the poison meant it would have been one of our own who had close contact with him. I didn’t even want to go there. But there had been foam on his lips—did Davis see that? It was gone now. Did it matter? My mind was racing and sluggish at the same time as I tried to process too much at once.
Admiral Caruso, who stood next to me, turned to face me. “Are you ready, Empress?”
I was sworn in late last night, a mere six minutes after my father was found dead. The city was now secured, so I sent for Elaine and my sisters to be escorted back to Riverine with a personal guard of over a dozen imperial soldiers. They would be here any moment. I was about to fly across the country with the morning sun and parade myself to my people as a strong and capable woman. As their empress.
I tipped my chin high, pushing down every emotion I wanted to feel right now, closing it off, and forcing myself to be numb to the wild mixture of pain and rage that was threatening to drown me.
I nodded. “Yes, Admiral.”
I then looked at Davis. “The second you have any lead on what type of poison this was, I want a full report. I don’t care about the hour of the night.”
He saluted me. “Yes, Empress.”
I would find the person who killed my father and cleave their head from their shoulders with his sword that now hung on my hip.
I hadn’t slept. I hadn’t eaten. Everything was happening so quickly, but I had to push through. I had to stay strong. It’s what my father would have expected, what my people demanded of me.
When we stepped out of the morgue, I stopped in my tracks, the ball in my throat growing tighter. The Riverine flag that hung over Emberlane Park was half-mast.
I would be the first to admit that my father wasn’t a warm person. He didn’t kiss our boo-boos when younger or bounceus on his knee. But he loved us in other ways,better ways,some might say. He taught me battle strategy over breakfast at fourteen.
‘Sometimes you have to make your opponent think you are weak so that you can draw them closer.’I remembered all of his advice—I’d cataloged it for the day I would lead. A day I thought would be decades in the future.‘Then you go for their throat.’
My father’s love was shown in the way he’d hired Elaine to train me and my sisters. He’d bought us weapons and taught us how to use them. He kept us safe. He…
I turned off the thoughts as a line of admirals and their creatures stepped out of the waiting caravan of black cars. Liana descended from the sky to take me on my tour of the countryside.
Admiral Caruso faced me with her tawny wolf creature at her side and pulled a stiff salute to her forehead. “The empire is looking to you now, Empress Aisling,” she counseled. “To lead without fear. To get retribution for this travesty. Show them how strong the Everhart name is.”
I nodded.
A shadow passed overhead. Liana landed beside me, and the admiral took a wary step back, eyeing her with apprehension.
Liana peered over at me.‘Elaine and your sisters are down the street. Do you want to wait for them or see them after the parade?’
I’d sent a messenger with a protection team early this morning to deliver the news of our father’s death to them. I wasn’t sure I could face my sisters and Elaine now and still fly around the empire and remain strong.
‘Let’s go. I’ll see them later,’I said, and adjusted my black leather armor before hopping onto her back, careful with the yellow cast I still wore on my wrist.
Without questioning, she took to the skies, and my anxiety eased once we were among the clouds. I was exhausted, hungry, sad, confused, enraged. So many emotions ran through me, but when Liana came up over Emberlane Park and thousands of Riverine citizens erupted into applause, I pushed all of my desires down and focused on the needs of my people.
