Chapter 12

Chapter

Twelve

“ M arry you!” Admiral Caruso screamed as she stared at the letter that sat open-faced on the war table. The other admirals present, the five I could muster on short notice, huffed their disapproval.

“Who cares about that nonsense? She killed Prime Leader Vlek! That’s what we focus on,” Admiral Blade said.

Nods of agreement made their way around the table.

“I say we distribute an official letter from the empress to the people of Amersea stating that she has killed the prime leader of Luska in retaliation for her father,” Commander Ledger said. “It will make her look strong.”

More nods of agreement. Then they looked at me.

“I’m fine with that, but it wasn’t just me. I had help,” I told them.

They waved me off.

“You lead this Fleet. Their win is your win,” Caruso said. “Now, what should we respond to this Maxim character who proposed marriage and then threatened to kill your sisters?”

Elaine and I shared a wry grin.

“Oh, I’ve already responded,” I told them.

Every single person in the room froze as if made of ice. Their heads slowly pivoted to me. Admiral Blade’s tone was accusatory. “What? When? How long have you had this letter?”

“You have no right to question the empress in such a way!” Elaine snapped, and the admiral’s cheeks pinked.

I pulled out a copy of the letter Elaine and I had sent. She’d made one so that we could show them. I laid it on the table.

As they read, I watched as each and every one smiled at my response, and then Commander Ledger peered up at me. “What gift did you give him?”

Elaine and I had talked about this. I was well within my right to send people out on covert operations and not tell them.

“A pair of his underwear that I had stolen from his very room,” I answered.

Ledger’s mouth opened, and he glanced at Elaine, who just raised one eyebrow.

“We’re sending spies into Luska now? Your father never did that,” Admiral Blade said.

“When we need to, yeah, we are. And maybe my father should have,” I responded. Silence covered the room.

“I think we’re done here.” Elaine popped up and walked over to the table. “Due to the response in our letter, which I just delivered to a messenger at the Wall an hour ago, I suggest we evacuate the entire base back down into the bunker for the next forty-eight hours and put our perimeter troops on high alert.”

Commander Ledger didn’t seem to like her calling the shots, but he nodded. “I agree.”

Fifteen minutes later, I was in the bunker in a gymnasium training room with the alliance, Kohen, and our instructors.

“Holy stars, Aisling, is it true you killed Prime Leader Vlek when you collapsed that building?” Anika asked.

“What?” Everyone chimed in and moved closer to listen.

I shared a look with Kohen, and he nodded. The word was officially out. I’d told Kohen during one of our closet rendezvous.

Kohen knew Vlek was gone, but he didn’t know about Maxim asking to marry me. Or at least I hadn’t told him. Whether or not he had foresight about it, I wasn’t sure.

“Yes,” I stated, and the room erupted into whoops and cheers, including our instructors.

“So that’s why we’re living underground,” Tetra said.

“Is it true Jace is missing training because he has explosive diarrhea?” I asked Anika, and she grinned as everyone else burst out laughing.

Meera winked. “It happens sometimes.”

Before I could say more, the walls shook slightly as a low rumble sounded above us, and everyone’s eyes went wide.

‘Liana?’ I searched for her energy, panicked.

‘I’m fine. Out hunting with Onyx.’

A siren blared from somewhere a few floors up, and the instructors walked over to us. “Practice is suspended until further notice. Empress, you are probably needed in the command center.”

Right . Because I was a student but also the leader of this nation. My friends gave me some fearful looks as I followed our instructors out the door, where Commander Ledger was waiting in the hallway.

“It was a direct hit. I’m still waiting on a damage report, Empress,” he told me as I joined him in making quick strides to the command center on this floor.

“Maxim got my letter,” I stated.

The commander nodded. “Yes, he did.”

Soldiers barreled past us, yelling orders through the halls.

“I’d rather him angry than quiet,” the commander said. “I like predictable people.”

It was a fair point. Maxim doing nothing in retaliation since I’d killed his father was unnerving. This was familiar territory.

We entered the command room. Elaine was there wearing a fresh uniform with her new admiral pin. Caruso was there as well. Commander Ledger and I made four.

“I’ve tripled the guard staff around your sisters back in Riverine,” Elaine said as I walked in, and I nodded, feeling relieved. If Maxim did try to honor his word, then my sisters might be in danger. Though, I slept better knowing they were in the little, unassuming house with the giant willow tree.

I didn’t really know what we were supposed to do. Talk about the damage? Retaliate immediately? War meetings were the final step in my father’s training with me, and I hadn’t had many of them.

“I say we send a message back so that this new leader knows we aren’t going to tolerate the things his father did the last few decades. A change in power is a good chance to gain a new front in the war,” Admiral Caruso said.

Commander Ledger nodded. “What do you suggest?”

Caruso pulled out a map of Luska and pointed to a new inked-in area. “They have a new military base close to the Wall, probably where they are launching from right now. I say we hit them there. Hard.”

Ledger raised one eyebrow. “And how did you get this intel on their new base? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Caruso glanced at Elaine. “Confirmed sighting by one of our own.”

Elaine must have seen it when she was spying on Maxim. Good, she reported it to Caruso.

“Colt has a flying Talanagi creature now. We could drop another payload on it,” the commander said.

I shook my head. “They’ll be watching the skies like crazy, expecting that after what we did to the Red Palace.”

“She’s right. We should either launch it over the Wall or send in an elite ground team to rig it to blow,” Elaine said.

As they went back and forth over which way was the best way to blow up their new military site, I found myself wondering if this was all war was. Back and forth, back and forth. They bomb us, we bomb them. A hundred years later we can barely remember who started it. I’d grown up in war; it was all I knew. My father had a very strict opinion on peace treaties.

‘They’re for the weak. And they don’t last forever. The only thing that lasts forever is if you control everything.’

In my father’s mind, if a country attacked us, he wasn’t happy until he was ruling over that country. And I understood that. I did. But I also wondered what the world would be like without war. What it might be like to rule over a country in a time of peace.

“What do you think, Empress?” Commander Ledger asked me.

“Let’s launch a counterassault from here. Our men on the Wall can shoot down any interference to hopefully get it to its target. If that fails, we send in a ground team.”

He nodded. “I agree.”

Caruso and Elaine agreed as well.

“I recommend you stay down here for the next forty-eight hours. No going topside,” the commander said to me.

‘Onyx and I will stay nearby, but out of harm’s way.’ Liana read my mind as I was about to ask him about our creatures. The smaller creatures were down here with their bondeds, but the larger ones had to stay topside.

“Two more days down here?” I questioned.

“Get used to it,” the commander snapped and then left to go give the order.

Elaine and Caruso left next, Elaine squeezing my shoulder as she passed, and then I made my way to my room.

Two days of hiding out down here with no more lessons. That sounded incredibly boring.

That night, I lay awake around midnight, having trouble falling asleep. There had been another explosion, not as big as the one before, but enough to knock the chess pieces over on the board in the corner.

A small tap came at my door and I grabbed my dagger, padding over to it.

“Who is it?” I asked, refusing to open it until Elaine or whoever it was announced themselves.

“Your soulmate,” Kohen said from the other side, and I grinned, pulling the door open.

“You’re so cheesy,” I told him.

“You love it,” he winked, slipping inside after looking up and down the hallway. I shut the door quickly behind him.

“You can’t be seen in here!” I hissed but secretly relished the fact that he was here.

He nodded. “I know. That’s why I have been casing out the hallway for the past forty-five minutes.”

My heart ratcheted up a notch. Being stuck with Kohen in a broom closet was one thing, but my bedroom was another. If someone saw, they could say we’d slept together. It would be the end of my reputation as?—

“Oh, do you play chess?” Kohen walked over to the board and sat down.

Get out of your head, Aisling , I scolded myself.

Walking over to the chessboard, I sat before it. “I‘ve been playing since I was three. My tutor was the grandmaster of Riverine.” I moved the black pawn forward one space, and Kohen grinned.

He moved his white pawn forward opposite mine. “I may not have had fancy tutors, but I’ve also been playing chess since I was small. My father taught me, and then after he… passed, we all played in the orphanage.”

Passed was a nicer term than murdered . My father murdered his. It was the unspoken thing between us.

“About the orphanage,” I said, changing the subject. “I thought we paid for you and your brothers to be properly schooled and raised and stuff.” I wasn’t really sure what kind of childhood he had. The Blackout started a war with Imbria that took us five years to win, ending with my father killing his. Kohen would have been about ten at the time.

I moved my rook next, and he snort-laughed, quickly pulling out his knight and taking my pawn. Dammit, I was distracted.

“My little brothers and I were thrown into an orphanage in the slums. We went to a government school with all the other poor kids. I was given no special treatment.”

I continued to play chess, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was thinking about him growing up without parents because of my father.

Kohen shrugged at my silence. “Turns out I didn’t need special treatment.”

I shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t saying anything mean, but I still felt bad. It was my father’s fault he didn’t have the childhood he would have had his father still been alive.

“I… I’m sorry for judging you and your friends when I first met you. I was taught wrong,” I admitted, unable to meet his gaze. My father told me that Imbrians couldn’t be trusted. That they all hated us and would turn on us at any moment. He was wrong.

Kohen’s hand slipped across the table and found mine as I moved to pick up a bishop. “I know. It’s okay.”

I finally looked up into his eyes, and all I found was compassion. I didn’t deserve him. I found myself thinking about his gift and all of the visions he’d had about us. I prayed they were true. Every single one.

“If you could give your power back, would you?” I asked.

He froze, contemplating that. “Yes.”

I cocked my head to the side in surprise. “The other day you said you liked having your power. That it allowed you to relive the good moments.”

He nodded, his face appearing void of emotion. “But it also allows me to see the bad, Aisling.”

I frowned. What other bad was there? We’d had the attack on the training campus, my father died, Nikhil died…

“Is there more bad coming?” I asked him.

He looked up at me, sad, and nodded. “You have no idea.”

I stopped playing the game, instead hugging my arms to my chest. “Tell me.”

He stepped away from the table, getting off his chair to kneel before me. He grasped both sides of my face. “We don’t have much time left together. I want our last days to be nice.”

Shock ripped through me. “Last days,” I croaked. Why didn’t we have much time together? What was happening?

He seemed to catch on to what I was thinking and shook his head. “Neither of us dies. But… oh, there are so many things I wish I could tell you. So many things I wish you would just trust me about and take my word for.”

I frowned. “Like what? I do trust you.” I did. As much as I fought that before, I did trust Kohen. He’d earned it.

He chewed on his lip. “Like about your father.”

It felt like ice water had been poured into my veins. “What about my father?!” I snapped.

Kohen sighed, watching me as if I were a coiled snake. Leaning forward, he captured my mouth in a kiss, disarming me immediately. My entire body warmed to his touch, and I parted my lips, letting his tongue spread across mine. I moaned, biting on his bottom lip, and he pulled away panting.

“Same time tomorrow night?” he asked. “We can finish the game.” He motioned to the chess match he was winning.

How could I say no to him? To that kiss?

I wanted to know what he was talking about with my father and what bad was coming. But I also didn’t. I just wanted to freeze time and keep him and me just like this.

I nodded and got up to follow him out. Opening the door, I scouted the hall, telling him it was safe. Then he ran out like he was never here.