Page 77 of Lies That Blemish
He paled at that statement. “Okay. What do you have in mind?”
Aisling was going to kill me when she got home, but if she got home to yell at me, it was worth it.
“We draw their forces west,” I told him.
“West?” Kohen balked. “How are you going to get there? By boat? They’ll sink you before you can even pass the Wall. Amersea has never attacked from the west for that reason.”
I nodded. “But now we have over two dozen flying Talanagi. We draw them west while you sneak in from the east and save Aisling and Victory.”
Kohen’s mouth popped open. “No offense, Valor, but you and a bunch of untrained, barely bonded, not-even-sworn-into-the-Fleet-yetkidsare going to lure the entire Luskin army west? It’s suicide.”
‘We could drop a bomb like you and Aisling did on the Red Palace in Luska,’Zara said.‘But on their west army base. It will draw all the attention.’
I relayed Zara’s idea to Kohen, and he reached up and rubbed his temples.
“It’s too dangerous.”
Another idea popped into my head. “What if I flew with Tetra? She could create a shield around our small group and protect us…”
I could see that he was warming to the idea.
“Kohen, are you really going to let Aisling marry that psycho?” I asked him.
He looked anguished. “Stars, I hope not. Okay. We’ll do it. But we have to convince the admirals. And we have to evacuate Amersea first because there will be retaliation.”
I peered at the admirals and nodded. “Leave them to me.” I might not be as powerful as Aisling, but I’d spent years learning the art of getting my way, and I planned to do that now. My eldest sister sacrificed a lot for us. I wasn’t about to let her marry the prime leader of Luska against her will.
Chapter 25
Aisling
When the steelball dropped into the trees, based on what Kohen said, I’d expected an explosion in the distance and a crater, but I hadn’t been prepared for the carnage that followed.
The force of the blast instantly blew the steel doors open, and everyone standing in front of them was knocked backward. Including me.
My elbow hit the ground first, a sharp pain shooting up my arm, and I cried out. Maxim half fell on top of me, worsening the force put on my arm. My ears rang as the blast reached us; the force of its power was like I’d been slapped in the face.
That far off? How? Nothing I’d seen in my life was that powerful. Not even the explosive we dropped on the Red Palace. I peered around the room in a daze, and my gaze landed on Whitney. She was staring out at the massive crater that had formed in the woods, the size of a city. Broken trees formed concentric circles around it all the way to the building we were in. A huge mushroom cloud of dust rose up from where the weapon had been dropped.
Tears fell down her face. Her words came back to haunt me now.
Having a weapon of this level of destruction is contrary to the ongoing survival of humanity.
Whitney was right. One of these bombs could wipe out hundreds of thousands in a highly populated city. Ofmycity.Riverine. My gaze then flicked to Maxim, who was staring out at the carnage with pure joy, and my stomach dropped. He looked like a proud father watching his child take their first few steps.
Bile rose in my throat; my elbow pinged with fresh pain. Some of the soldiers began clapping and whooping, and Maxim stood. He faced each one, chin high and proud as I struggled to sit up. Something was wrong with my elbow, and my ears were still ringing.
Maxim finally realized I hadn’t gotten up and peered down at me. “Are you injured, little pet?” he called down to me in a demeaning tone.
I glared up at him, holding my probably broken elbow to my chest. “I’m fine,” I growled, standing and swaying on my feet a little.
“She’s in pain,” Ricov said, and I glared at the giant oaf.
“Medic!” Maxim snapped his fingers, and someone ran to my side. Then Maxim and Ricov went over to speak to the professor who’d levitated the ball.
A female medic came over to me and set a bag down. “Can you straighten your arm?”
There was still chaos everywhere, people getting up and trying to lift fallen furniture. Ricov stood beside Maxim and the professor and Whitney… I noticed Whitney was scribbling feverishly on a piece of paper and glancing at Ricov and Maxim. With one hand, she wrote, and with the other, she dug into a cut that had opened on her arm.
