Page 58 of Lies That Blemish
I couldn’t lose it. Not here in front of them, but tears were clouding my vision, so I blinked them back. “We don’t know how your gift works yet, Val. You need time and training. You did great. Can you go take Virtue to the creek over there, wash your hands, and bring me some water? There is a canteen in Liana’s saddlebag.”
Part of my training included shock. Getting the person to focus on a task away from the trauma was best.
Valor nodded, gently moving Elaine’s head as she stood.
“I don’t want to leave her,” Virtue whined.
“We’re just going to wash our hands and get water,” Valor said. She sounded more alert and calm. Giving her the task was a good idea. They were both covered in blood. I had no doubt they’d witnessed a gruesome scene. Elaine had killed five Luskin soldiers, protecting them. I couldn’t imagine how many they sent to overwhelm her, Vespa, and Verik. A dozen? I didn’t want to ask; my sisters had finally started to focus on something else.
‘They tried to take all three girls and leave a message with Elaine,’Zara told me.‘A dozen in total. Four had flying Talanagi with baskets to drop the rest. I helped Elaine as much as I could with the flying ones, but… there were just so many.’
‘You did great,’I assured her as I plugged hole after hole in the body of the woman who’d raised me.
Leaning forward, I whispered in her ear. “Don’t you die on me. I need you.” I had to get her stable enough that she would survive a flight to Sky Reach, where we had a surgeon. One jerky move, and she could bleed out.
Liana cocked her head to the side.‘Kohen is meeting resistance with the Fleet. They’ve spotted him.’
My eyes widened. If they shot him down, this would really be the worst day of my life.‘Can you go up there and settle things down? I can’t leave Elaine.’
She nodded.
‘I will go, too, and speak to their minds,’Zara said.
That was a big help.
‘Thank you,’I told them.
I’d barely had time to tell the admirals to draft up a peace treaty with Luska. If my Fleet saw Kohen flying here, they would shoot him down.
I couldn’t worry about that right now. There was so much blood, and even with my aggressively packing holes in Elaine, which had to hurt, she wasn’t even flinching.
Stars, don’t take her from me, I begged.
“We got the water.” Valor handed it out to me. I hadn’t even heard her approach.
I took it, taking a swig, even though I didn’t need it, and peered at my sisters. They were wet but mostly clean of blood on their skin. Their clothes were another matter.
“Remember the story Elaine used to tell you when you were really little? The one with the bunny and the horse?” I asked the girls. “Tell it to me. I need something else to focus on,” I said while I watched the plugs I’d created in Elaine’s body for any leaks. Like she was a car leaking oil and not precious lifeblood.
Valor seemed to know what I was doing. Trying to keep things calm, she told the story.
It was a silly story about a friendship between a bunny and a horse, and how the bunny and horse fought over carrots on the farm they lived at until they teamed up and stole all of the carrots and made the farmer mad. It was a cute story that took about ten minutes to tell.
When she finished, I heard the thumping of feet behind me, and I craned my neck to see Kohen, his two brothers, anda stranger I didn’t know. He was a tall Imbrian man with a small fox creature that reminded me of Vespa. Liana, Zara, and the other two dragons, who belonged to Arjun and Tej, walked through the forest behind them.
I had no words for Kohen. I didn’t even know what to say. My hands were encrusted with drying blood from Elaine, and one of my sisters was gone. There was a hole in my heart the size of Amersea.
“Please save her,” Kohen asked the Imbrian man in his forties with the fox creature.
“Yes, my king.” The man nodded, walking over to kneel at my feet.
“Are you a surgeon? If she can travel, we have supplies at the army base,” I asked him.
“No, Empress, I’m not a surgeon. I’m a healer. I need you to step away so your energy doesn’t influence the situation,” he said kindly but firmly.
I stood, hands shaking, as I stepped away from Elaine.
‘His energy is pure and kind-hearted, but he is sad. He’s seen a lot of death,’Liana told me.
