Page 11 of Lies That Bind
When the scene came into view, my throat tightened. The rooftop was packed with people of all ages,allImbrian. They held glowing candles and clanged pots and pans as they saw me near. There were about fifty people in all, a small town with a tiny population, but it looked like nearly everyone was in attendance on this rooftop.
As I flew lower, I could hear them screaming.
“It’s the empress!” a little Imbrian girl in a bright pink silk wrap dress shouted as her father hoisted her up onto his shoulders.
The people cheered wildly as Liana flew circles above them, and I waved stupidly, in shock that it was past midnight and they’d waited up for me. Tears threatened to run down my cheeks, but I sucked them back. I’d been emotional enough for one day. It gutted me that they’d been waiting this entire time, and I hadn’t intended to show. Would they have slept up here? Waited all night?
‘Give them a show,’I told Liana.
She tipped her head to the side, and a stream of fire flew from her lips. The pots and pans clanged even louder as the children screamed joyously into the night.
They didn’t seem like they hated me…
Were more towns in Imbria like this? Or was it only because they were on the border and we had the most interaction with them?
Liana’s voice of reason cut through my thoughts:‘I cannot advise that we go deeper into Imbrian territory without a large Imperial Fleet escort.’
I nodded, dashing any plans of an all-night flyover.
‘But we can stop here if you’d like to meet these people?’ she suggested.‘Word will spread that you came, that you cared.’
I did care. I didn’t know how much until this moment. The Imbrian people were my people. I’d been stupid to think of them as separate. For the first time since my father died, I questioned some of the things he’d told me about them.
‘Okay, lower us down.’Elaine would kill me if she knew I was in Imbria about to speak to fifty civilians without a security detail.
Well, I had Liana.AndI could control minds. And Kohen was somewhere in the darkness watching. I knew it. I could sense him. So I wasn’t totally defenseless.
‘I can protect you among this many people,’Liana informed me.
When the Imbrians saw me step out onto the ground, the people of the small village came downstairs to greet me. They wore huge smiles and fancy clothes of colorful silk. Their faces were adorned with some ceremonial face paint, and the women’s long hair was braided with white fragrant flowers tied to the end. It appeared that they had dressed up as if this were a treasured holiday. I was so touched I had a hard time keeping the emotion out of my voice.
“Thank you for staying up,” I told them. “I am Empress Aisling.” I clasped my hands together in a prayer pose, the way I knew they did in a traditional greeting. They mimicked the motion but also bowed deeply to me.
A female elderly woman stepped forward, and I noticed the little girl in the pink dress clinging to her side. “We didn’t think you would come, but we heard there would be a flyover, so we thought we’d stay up and see,” she told me.
“I knew you’d come!” the little girl interrupted, and I smiled down at her.
Crouching down to her level, I met the little girl’s gaze. “Can you tell me something?” I asked her.
She nodded, looking very serious.
“Is it true that Imbria makes the best spiced tea inallthe world?”
The little girl’s eyes lit up, and she nodded. “My nani does!” She yanked the old lady’s hand, and the woman smiled down at the youngster.
“Empress Aisling, would you like to come in for some tea?” the woman asked me, and the others nodded expectantly.
I swallowed hard. Such a simple offer, and yet it came with so many repercussions. The tea could be poisoned, and if I drank it and died, that would leave Amersea with a fourteen-year-old untrained empress in the form of one of my very immature sisters. But if I said no, it showed these people that I didn’t trust them, and I didn’t want that to be their first impression of me. Like Liana said, rumor would spread that I came to see them. I wanted to have tea with them, Ireallydid, but I couldn’t leave my family or my country without a leader.
“I—”
“She’d love to.” Kohen’s deep voice came from behind me, and I bristled.
The villagers looked up at him, and their eyes went wide. They clasped their hands and bowed to him, the same as they had to me.
“Prince Badshah,” the elder woman said.
Interesting.They still called him “prince” and honored him in the same high regard they did me. It didn’t bother me at all, but my father would have killed Kohen for it.
