Page 28 of Lies That Blemish
I sighed. “You’re going to want to sit down,” I told her.
She did, looking at me warily.
“After you left last night, Valor stopped sending green flares. I called Alek over, and Iniki went looking for her.”
Tetra didn’t seem too concerned by my story, especially since she’d just seen Valor alive and well in the kitchen.
“She was with Kohen’s little brothers,” I told her. I’d ordered Valor not to tell anyone she’d been with the Badshah brothers for now.
“What!” she screeched, sitting up straighter.
I then launched into everything, telling her about Kohen’s note before my engagement party, which explained I could be happy with Alek, and then about what Onyx had said when Liana contacted him, and then again what his brothers had said as I saw them off in the Wilds.
When I was finished, Tetra squirmed in her seat as she peered at the boxes. “So all this is from your father’s office?”
I nodded.
“And we need to find something to either incriminate your father, whom you loved, or Kohen, whom you loved.”
I swallowed hard at her assessment, not realizing until now that either way this went, someone I loved had betrayed me.
“Yes.” My voice shook.
Tetra stood, leaning on her cane as she stepped before me. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
I released a shaky breath. “I want the truth,” I told her.
She frowned, as if that made her sad.
“I thought this was what you wanted? For me to investigate Kohen and Anika’s claims about my father…”
“I do, Aisling. But I’m afraid they will be right, and I’m not sure I want to see the moment my best friend finds out her father tried to murder her.” The room was heavy with her words like a thick fog had settled in.
On the one hand, it would kill me to find out that my entire life he’d trained me to be his successor, only to attempt to kill me because I grew stronger than him. But the alternative was worse: not knowing, continuing to punish Imbria and banish Kohen when he might really have been trying to protect me. The truth was, I wanted those kisses to be real, those I love yousand… all of it. I wanted what Kohen and I had to be real. And if it wasn’t, if Kohen had been messing with me this whole time and implanted all of this in my head as some long game so he could get his country back, then stars help him, I’d burn the whole thing down.
“I need this,” I told her.
Tetra nodded. Without saying another word, she walked over to a box, ripped the lid off, and grabbed a hunk of papers. “I’ll start with this box. You start with that.” She nudged a box closer to me, and I sat down and got to work.
There was probably top-secret security clearance stuff in here, and I didn’t trust just anyone to go through it. Only Elaine and Tetra and myself would be in this office over the next several days.
We skimmedpapers for what seemed like forever, and didn’t really find anything crazy. My father was hoarding some alcohol and high-value items for himself and wrote them off as being used for the Fleet, but other than that, he was squeaky clean. I was starting to get depressed that Kohen had been playing a game with me all along.
There was a knock at the door. “Dinner!” Victory yelled.
We emerged from the office and out into the dining room, where Gwen was back and just setting out a plate full of chicken drumsticks and honeyed cornbread.
“Yum. I’m starved,” I said, and Gwen went stiff, saluting me.
“Empress.”
I rolled my eyes. “Gwen, we talked about this. At home, we are at ease. You’re not a sergeant, and I’m not an empress.”
She looked confused.
“Okay, well, we still are those things, but just be at ease,” I told her, and she relaxed her posture.
“Yes, Empress.”
