Page 30 of Lies That Blemish
Emberlane Park was on fire, and over a dozen flying Talanagi creatures with Luskin riders hovered high above it. Rage boiled inside of me as I watched our Fleet soldiers trying to fight them from the ground. But they shot projectiles into the air, and the Talanagi riders flew out of the way, dodging them. We’d been taken by surprise. Again. Because we didn’t have enough flying creatures.
‘Kohen is coming with Onyx to help,’Liana told me as she flew closer to the fire, and I pulled my arrow.
‘What? No! Why did you keep the bond open? I don’t want his help.’
‘I opened it briefly to ask if they were attacking and then forgot to close it. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine, but tell Onyx if Kohen comes, I’ll kill him.’I knew the threat was empty the second I said it. I was so confused where Kohen was concerned.
He killed my father, I reminded myself.
‘Can we take all of them?’I asked Liana, surveying the dozen or so flying Talanagi.
‘Without you exposing your hidden power? We can try,’she said.‘They will know you can explode into fire from the last battle, so I’m guessing they will try to evade us and spread out.’
What was their endgame? Burn all of Riverine? Send a message? There was only one way to find out.
Liana flew fast and hard towards the blaze and the enemy hovering above it. Out of my periphery, I spotted a blur of blue. My head whipped in that direction to see Colt barreling towards me.
“I was on leave in town. How can I help?” he shouted over the wind and now roaring fire below. We were only a couple hundred feet from the enemy.
Colt’s power with his new creature was control over water. It was like the stars had sent him at the perfect time.
“Can you make it rain before they burn our entire capital down?” I asked him.
He nodded. “You got it.” He reared back and out of harm’s way. He was still working on his power and had to concentrate to focus it.
It was just me then.
As I approached, ten of the dozen flyers branched off and retreated, heading towards the cove to our west, causing confusion to rise up inside of me.
The two left were the red rider and a male on a green griffin with blue ember marks. They waited for me as if they wanted to talk or something.
‘What’s going on?’I asked Liana. The enemies who had retreated were still going, not just getting distance because they might have known about my ability to control minds. They were leaving. One of our men was able to shoot a harpoon and bring the rider of a fleeing creature down, but the rest got away.
“What the hell do you want!?” I shouted at the red rider female. The smoke and heat from the fire billowed behind me.
She grinned as if pleased with herself. “My brother wanted to send you a little message.” She gestured to the burning park behind us.
“Oh yeah, what’s that?” I asked.
“The Talanagi are ours!” she spat. “If you come on our land again and steal one, we will steal one of your sisters.”
Threatening my sisters to my face was about the last thing any person should ever do. I couldn’t let her live after that. My silence seemed to have sent her a message because I watched the moment fear crossed over her face, and she attempted to pull her dragon back.
‘End her,’Liana agreed.
I’d been practicing with my power. Little things on Elaine, with her permission. I think I was ready to try now.
‘Jump.’I pushed my power out to her mentally, like I would to Liana, without having to speak out loud. The silver cord flew from my lips and wrapped around her mind, and then I pushed a thought to her dragon.
‘Freeze.’And a second cord flew from me and into the dragon.
Her eyes widened.
“No!” she screamed as she stood on her dragon, legs shaking.
“What are you doing!?” the man on the griffin beside her yelled.
