Page 2 of The First Spark (Dynasty of Fire #1)

“You can help me color later?”

“Of course,” Kalie said, as Ariah’s eyes sparkled. “Just take us to your mom, okay?”

Lexie frowned, then the holo blurred as she bolted away, hollering, “Mama! It’s for you!”

Ariah snorted.

The bouncing comm steadied as a holo of a woman’s head slid into view. As always, the sight of her aunt was enough to lighten the pressure on Kalie’s chest.

Duchissa Calida Amador, reigning monarch of the planet Dali, had an ethereal beauty Kalie had always longed for: perfect posture, smooth skin, and shiny platinum hair woven into an elaborate updo.

Creases surrounded her eyes, the product of many cycles of grief and stress, but when she smiled, they faded away.

“There’s my favorite niece.”

“Second favorite,” Kalie said, in her best imitation of Ariah. Flinging herself onto the futon, she pressed her hand to her heart. “You wound me, Auntie, you truly do.”

Aunt Calida’s pale blue eyes flicked between them. Then she laughed, and that melodic sound—so rare, over the past few weeks, months, cycles—finally calmed Kalie’s nerves. “The two of you are still switched, aren’t you?”

Why, Auntie, she nearly said—anything to prolong the joke—but she’d spoken in Archaic Sauvena, the ancient language of Dali’s elite.

Her smile fell away.

The background of Aunt Calida’s holo came into focus.

She was in the makeshift war room tucked beneath the Olympian stadium, where Marcus would soon give his final speech.

This was not a time for jokes or careless slips of the tongue.

Though Aunt Calida had surely emptied the room, any number of people could be listening in.

Ariah gave a curt nod—the nod of a soldier, not the princess she was pretending to be. “We’ll stay switched until we get home,” she said, in perfect Sauvena. “With the election this close, I don’t want to take any chances with Kal’s safety.”

“Good. I don’t put anything past Carik.”

“It doesn’t help that you publicly condemned him last month. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to piss him off.”

Kalie flinched. If she ever spoke so coarsely, the news would tear her apart. Only Ariah would dare to speak so boldly to the ruler of one of the richest planets in the Federation, and only Ariah would get away with it.

“You’re just like Lex,” Aunt Calida murmured .

A jolt of ice blasted through Kalie, and she shivered, dropping her gaze to her steel-toed boots.

Before Ariah, there had been another Soror Res: Lexani. Aunt Calida’s genetically-modified body double.

She, like Ariah, like all the generations of secret royal doubles who’d held the title Soror Res before her, had sworn to lay down her life for the royal family.

And she had. She’d been blown to ashes by a bomb while Aunt Calida waged war against her own mother, Duchissa Madeleine.

Kalie swallowed the knot in her throat. She wouldn’t let that happen to Ariah. They’d been born together and they’d die together. Crib to crypt.

“My apologies.” Aunt Calida drew in a shaky breath. “With everything going on… My, I’m being quite morbid today, aren’t I?”

Kalie blinked. Dark circles ringed Aunt Calida’s eyes. Surely she hadn’t looked so weary the last time she’d seen her, had she?

“Perfectly understandable,” Ariah said, tapping her finger against the silent holopad. It had stopped chiming; she must’ve silenced the polls. “We’re all a little tense right now.”

“But we’re almost through the worst of it.” As if drawing strength from the words, Aunt Calida straightened, and her smile washed her weariness away. “I heard the two of you put on an impressive show this past week.”

“It was all Ariah.”

“You kidding?” Ariah smacked her with a gold-tasseled pillow. “Sure, I did today’s speech. But that was my best friend who gave the opening speech last week, and you were brilliant.”

Kalie frowned. “I think we all know I should stick to writing speeches, not giving them.”

“You’ll be giving many more of them when you return home,” Aunt Calida said.

The air grew thicker, tenser. They’d reached the freezing temperatures of orbit, but the room was stifling.

Aunt Calida was watching her.

Ducking her head, Kalie glanced at her unfinished painting, a dove caught between a stargate and Dali’s surface .

“Well, she sure knows how to make an impression,” Ariah teased. “The senators at the summit’s opening speech couldn’t keep their eyes off her?—”

“Because of my compelling case for Marcus?—”

“Because of how stunning you looked. Who’s gonna say no to a hot princess?”

Kalie’s cheeks flushed. “Very funny. Have you considered that maybe they were so attentive because they hate Carik?”

“A princess with charm, wit, beauty…”

“Oh, shut up.” Kalie swatted her arm. “I’ll keep sending you in my place.”

Ariah fanned herself. “Yes, good idea. After all, I am the prettier one.”

“We have the same face,” Kalie protested, laughing.

Her laughter died as they lapsed into heavy silence.

“I love you both so much,” Aunt Calida said softly. “You know that, right?”

When Kalie dared to look up, her aunt’s eyes were glossy.

Her melancholy gaze flitted away, and she cleared her throat, business as usual.

“I’ve finished the preparations for your return tour.

You’ll start at the summer court in Queensborough and travel the rest of Pharea, then head back to the main continent.

The courts have all been briefed on the arrival of my newest emissary. ”

Kalie picked at a tasseled pillow. “Yeah. Great.”

Dali was a paradise, sure. But it was also a planet whose haughty nobles looked down on her, a planet that heard the name Hannover and thought not of the Duchissa’s niece, but of the foreign emperor who’d slaughtered half the nobility in the war.

As silence stretched on, Kalie looked down at the floor. She hated this. She’d always been able to talk to Aunt Calida.

Ariah gathered her flowing skirt and stood. “I’ll give you two a minute.”

Her stilettos clicked away, and the closet doors slid open. She was probably rifling through luggage for one of her beloved romance novels.

Aunt Calida sighed. “Kalie… ”

“I want to make a difference.” Her voice wavered. It was not strong, like Ariah’s, and it never would be.

“You can do that here.”

“It’s different. Dali is fine. The courts are fine. You don’t need an emissary, not like…” Children’s screams rang in Kalie’s ears, and when she closed her eyes, fires tore across a ravaged city. “I’ve seen holos of worlds like Belcar. That’s where I’m needed, where I can help.”

“Marcus is going to fix all of that when he’s elected.”

“And I can help him.”

“Dali is your home, sunshine.”

Is it?

Aunt Calida was her home. Lexie was her home. Ariah was her home. But Dali, where the nobles called her ‘the Butcher’s daughter’ ? These days, it was no more her home than Father’s dark, foreign empire.

Kalie inhaled deeply, reigned in the words, and let them drop. As she always did.

“It’s not easy being the Duchissa. One day, Lexie will wear this crown, and she’ll need advisors she can count on.

I’m not summoning you home to punish you.

You’ve done incredible work for Marcus. But it’s my duty—I need you to…

” Aunt Calida’s voice sounded strained, and she drew in a shuddering breath.

“When Dali passes to Lexie, you must be standing behind her.”

Kalie frowned. “Of course I’ll be there for Lex, always, but she’s only four.”

Her cousin’s latest masterpiece lay on the glass table beside her holopad. Lex wouldn’t be writing charters or issuing decrees anytime soon—her newest book was a mess of scribbles and illegible words. Kalie’s heart warmed as she gazed at the mess of crayon and glitter.

The intercom blared twice, announcing the jump to a stargate and urging all passengers to take their seats. Motors whirred as darkshields lowered over her suite’s floor-to-ceiling viewports.

Aunt Calida’s holo flickered. Bolts of static shot through the image of her face, and her speech broke into garbled fragments. “—Lex—ready—speech is about to—love?— ”

Static flooded through the comm. Kalie went rigid.

“Aunt Calida?”

The frigate shuddered, and a brilliant flash of light pulsed through the darkshields. Aunt Calida’s holo rippled, then vanished. The comm let out a soft chime. The call had dropped.

“Aunt Calida!”

As her heart lodged in her throat, Kalie fumbled with the buttons, trying to call her back. Holy Azura, something must’ve— no, no, no . “Ariah!”

“What happened?”

Kalie gestured to the vacant comm. “We were talking, and it just—it cut out, she cut out?—”

Ariah exhaled slowly as she dropped onto the couch beside her.

“Breathe. We jumped to the stargate. You lost connection, that’s all.

” The intercom beeped three times, the all-clear signal, and she pointed to the speaker.

“See? Just the gate. We’ll drop in a few minutes to pick up the main route, and you can call her back then. ”

Still, her heart wouldn’t stop racing.

Ariah thrust her wine glass into her hands. “You’re going to drive yourself mad, stressing like this.”

“She was talking about Lex wearing the crown.”

“Don’t tell me you’re suddenly jealous. After four cycles saying you don’t belong on Dali anymore?”

“She was talking about it,” Kalie breathed, clutching the stem of the wine glass, “as if it was going to happen soon.”

“And Auntie says I’m the paranoid one. You’re overthinking everything these days. Seeing shadows where they don’t exist.”

Staring into the depths of her glass, Kalie shivered.

“The succession was a mess when Auntie took the throne. Of course she wants to make sure the court is stable for Lex. She’s nervous about the election, and with good reason.”

Kalie swallowed the knot in her throat.

“But it’s just that, Kal. Nerves. We’ve done a damn good job helping Marcus with his campaign, and no one wants Carik in office for another term.” Ariah nudged her, jostling the glass of wine. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll see. Marcus will be Prime Minister Pool by morning.”

Unless Carik had pulled ahead again.

She reached for the holopad, but Ariah groaned, pushing it further away. “For gods’ sakes. I’m not letting you waste our last night of fun on the stupid polls.” She hopped to her feet, balancing perfectly on her stilettos. “We need a distraction. What do you say we head to the bridge?”

Her wink said it all.

Kalie bit her lip. Ariah was a trained soldier, bordering on paranoid—for every room they stepped into, she drilled her with a dozen escape routes and flight plans. If she wasn’t concerned, there was no reason to worry.

So she mustered up a smirk. “Developed an interest in navigation charts? Ooh, better yet, the stargate routes.”

“Ah, yes, the stargate routes.” Ariah rolled her eyes. “No, it’s that cute tech. The new one. Daevin? Daerin? I want his comm frequency.”

“What happened to the one you were flirting with at dinner?”

“Too chatty.”

Shaking her head, Kalie knelt and laced up her boots. There was no point in going—Ariah didn’t know his name, and she’d forget his comm frequency just as quickly—but there was no harm, either. Ariah was right. A distraction was just what they needed.

“Besides, I don’t want it for me. I’m going to get it for you.”

Kalie’s hands stilled on her laces. “No.”

“ Yes .” Ariah picked up a paintbrush she’d left lying on the table, a gift from Julian before… everything. “This is sad, Kal. Really sad. It’s been two cycles.”

“Just because you’re dressed as me doesn’t mean you get to set me up.”

“Why not? One of us has some game, and it’s only fair we use it to your advantage.”

Ignoring the slight, she rose to her feet. “I have no interest in dating.”

“Who said anything about dating? ”

Kalie’s cheeks burned as she snatched a pillow and hurled it at Ariah. Snickering, Ariah danced out of the way and strode for the door.

“From crib to crypt,” she called, in a singsong voice.

“In this life and after,” Kalie said on instinct, then she scowled. “That doesn’t mean I have to follow you everywhere.”

She followed her anyway, stopping to check her holopad.

“If you check the polls again, I’ll shoot you myself.”

She still checked. Marcus had pulled way ahead. Carik was trailing. With a spring in her step that hadn’t been there in months, she followed Ariah out the door.

The Ventura was a luxury cruiser, not a battleship.

Paintings lined the marble walls. She’d signed most of the portraits as K.

Hannover , except for an older one, which read K.

Amador . That had led to an uncomfortable conversation with Aunt Calida about Mother’s feelings.

Apparently, her pretending to be Aunt Calida’s daughter hurt Mother.

Like she cared. She avoided Mother and Mother avoided her, and that was better for both of them.

Thank the gods Aunt Calida had raised her.

Mother had sent her to live at the Dalian court, since she and Father already had a son and daughters never inherited in the Etovian Empire.

Aunt Calida hadn’t had any heirs yet, so she’d named her the Duchissa Heredem.

For fifteen cycles, she’d been the heiress to the Dalian throne, until Lexie’s birth freed her.

The intercom beeped twice, signaling another drop.

“You know,” Ariah mused, gazing at the painting, “it would really piss your mother off if you started dating a?—”

A shrill screech cut through Ariah’s words, and Kalie’s heart slammed to a halt.

A thunderous crash boomed over the blaring siren.

Kalie’s eyes widened. Her horror was mirrored on Ariah’s face, bathed in red light from the flashing alarms.

“Oh, gods,” she whispered.

The lights shorted out, plunging the hallway into darkness.

Her pulse thundered in her ears. She was frozen, paralyzed to the spot.

Then an explosion roared, and she took off running, sprinting down the corridors to the bridge.

Red rays spiraled across the hall. Alarms screamed, and the floor rocked under her feet.

As Kalie burst through the door to the bridge, her heart stopped.

“Holy shit,” Ariah breathed, slamming to a halt beside her.

Kalie stopped thinking, stopped feeling. Shouts rose across the bridge, but the noise faded to a series of dull sounds swirling in her ears, punctuated by her ragged breaths. Her knees buckled. She gripped a railing for support, blinking rapidly.

They’d dropped out of the stargate route, right into the line of fire of three massive battleships. The tar-black cruisers blotted out the gate beyond. Painted on the flank of the enemy’s flagship was a golden sword stabbing through a crown: the logo of the Federation.

Carik’s men had come for her.