Page 23 of Lies That Bind
Which was such a Tetra thing to say. It made me love my bestie all the more.
The car made its next stop, and I went to peer out the window to see where we were when Elaine gently grasped my face and averted my gaze.
Her eyes bore into mine. “I saved the worst news for last.”
My heart hammered in my chest. What news could this be? How much more could I take in my first few days as empress?
“The lab your father’s blood results were sent to was burned down late last night. Someone is trying to cover up the murder.”
I gasped, and she released my face. I tore away from her to see that the brick building that held our top medical lab filled with scientists and expensive equipment was a hollowed-out shell.
“Why? Why would Luska do this?” I asked as I felt an uneasiness churn in my stomach.
“Luska wouldn’t,” Elaine said. “They wouldn’t care if we knew it was them.”
No. It felt like the ground had opened up and swallowed me whole. The car spun as I tried to grapple with what this meant. If Luska didn’t kill my father… it meant someone in the Imperial Fleet did.
Something in the blood results would point to them. My heart stopped when I realized that my father was scheduled to be cremated today. “Can we get more blood?” I asked Elaine quickly.
She nodded. “I’ve already ordered that his body be protected under constant guard and not cremated until you give word. We will get to the bottom of this.”
Anger roiled through me. One of our own? Someone within these walls thought they could take my father out and live with it?
“I’ll burn whoever did this to the ground,” I growled and was surprised to see smoke rising off of my skin for a split second before vanishing out the open window.
Elaine placed a hand over mine, a rare show of affection from my mentor and now senior advisor.
“We have to prepare for the fact that you could be next,” she said. “I want every single person you come into close contact with interrogated by Admiral Caruso. Everyone. Including me and Tetra.”
I recoiled at that. “No way. The day I can’t trust my own best friend and you is the day I don’t want to live.”
Elaine shook her head. “I want you to know for sure. This kind of thing can mess with you mentally. I want you to know Tetra and I are people you can trust because that list is going to grow very small, Aisling.”
Her certainty scared me.
“I do know that I can trust you,” I told her. Admiral Caruso was a human lie detector. It was her power and would be very valuable if someone in the Fleet killed my father, but I couldn’t fathom Tetra or Elaine doing such a thing. My gaze went to Vespa, who sat next to Elaine. He did have poison fangs—no, I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t suspect family!
“Will you know that in two weeks’ time when someone else is assassinated? Or there are a string of murders around you? We don’t know how far this will go. This could be a coup to take the empire down.”
Chills rose on my arms. I thought of last night when I’d gone to Imbria, and that man had told Kohen that the people wanted to be free again and have him lead them.
Could Imbria have done this somehow? My mind raced with different possibilities.
It would take Caruso months to sweep through the entire Imperial Fleet. Maybe even the better part of a year.
“Okay,” I conceded. Elaine was smart; she would make a good advisor. I hadn’t thought of using Caruso. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
“And I’ll interrogate Caruso myself,” Elaine added.
My eyebrows rose at that. “Interrogating an admiral? Is that smart?”
“Can you afford to spend time with someone on a daily basis that we aren’t sure about? If you mandate the interrogation, I’m well within my right to do it.” Her face betrayed something then like maybe it made her a little sick to do such a thing because she was close to Caruso.
I nodded. “But we will have someone else do it. I know you two are close.”
“Interrogating” an admiral to ferret out the truth, involved some mild torture, I was quite sure. But who made sure that the person who could smell a lie wasn’t telling lies themselves? For all we knew, Caruso wanted my father dead, then me, and she’d rule Amersea herself. I had to detach from the emotional aspect of all of this and just carry out the plans, even if it was hard.
Elaine shook her head. “I don’t trust anyone else not to lie to me about the results, Aisling.Youare my priority now.”
