I shouldn’t feel bad for him, but I did.
I had too many things to worry about right now, and Kohen Badshah was the least of them.
Chapter 12
Aisling
The secondI got back to my house, Elaine was waiting in the living room.
“Another attack in Riverine!” she said right when I walked in.
I nodded. “Get ready to take notes. We have a lot of work to do.”
She perked up at that, taking out a notepad and pen as I walked her over to our dining table. She sat down, but I paced.
“First, send all three of my sisters to Sky Reach to live twenty-four-seven in the underground bunker with round-the-clock guards.”
Elaine raised an eyebrow at that.
“I’ll tell you later,” I said. There was too much on my mind, too many boxes to check off.
“Then send out a mass invitation to all households with citizens aged eighteen to twenty-five. We are inviting them to join an emergency Lottery which will be held in two days’ time. They need to have a three-day pack and be ready to serve their country.”
If possible, Elaine’s eyebrows grew higher.
“Make sure that includes people from past Lotteries who didn’t get in, like Charlene,” I added.
Elaine peered up at me. “Do you want me to make sure Charlene’s name is called?”
My father had done it with Kohen and Jace and who knows how many people. But I wanted to do things by the rules.
“No, but let’s pick three times as many names as we normally would.”
“I have to counsel you against that. We don’t want to thin the creature population faster than they can reproduce.”
She hadn’t heard.
“Commander Ledger is ripping down the wall in the Wilds as we speak to allow the Talanagi into our side. There will be plenty of creatures.”
Her mouth popped open, and she grinned. “Okay, Empress. What else?” She was feverishly taking notes.
I told her we needed to get the training center up and running, and to have Sergeant Ashendell be in charge of all trainees’ boot camp. I was sticking with people I trusted here.
“Post Tetra at the training center while the kids go through boot. If there is an attack, I need her to shield it.”
There were notes upon notes as we stayed up into the early hours of the morning, planning things for my country to try to keep it above water.
“And the one-week truce with Imbria?” Elaine said. “After one week, are we… resuming?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Ask me when a week has passed.” I hated that I hadn’t just killed Kohen where he stood a few hours ago.
“And are we retaliating on Luska for the attack?” she asked.
“I did. I killed Maxim’s sister, and we are cutting down the wall and luring the Talanagi to our side to bond with our fleet. Ithink that’s enough for now, but we need to be ready for bombs to rain. Activate all reserve Fleet personnel back to their bases.”
Elaine wrote that down. “How are we luring the Talanagi to our side?” she asked.
I sighed, rubbing my temples. “I don’t know, but you and I have forty-eight hours to figure that out before the Lottery.”
