Page 23 of The First Spark (Dynasty of Fire #1)
Dramatic music from Dali’s leading composers filled the Grand Ballroom, awakening a song in Kalie’s blood as she rushed away from Mother’s flock of courtiers. Mother’s solemn, lying voice drifted after her: “I thank Azura every minute that my daughter was returned to me safely…”
Kalie clenched her teeth. As she passed one of the round waterfalls gushing through the floor, crackling water obscured Mother’s voice.
Mother could still see her, though, so Kalie paused in a cluster of nobles. She’d only been able to escape by claiming a courtier was trying to get her attention.
Standing with the courtiers was no better than standing with Mother. With Mother, she had to smile through lies. With the nobles, she had to smile through somber condolences that twisted her heart.
She filtered out their words, focusing on the shades of colorful light shining on their elaborate clothes.
The streak of teal on one man’s shoulder came from the window showing Azura’s Creation, when the Queen of the Skies formed beings from the lifeforce of the turquoise seas.
The deep blue on a woman’s iron-gray hair came from the stained glass window beside it, when the goddess descended through Azura’s Arch, an ancient gateway between the heavens of Eternal Dawn and the lands of the living.
“Your Majesty!”
Kalie jumped and spun around. Another courtier approached her, bowing deeply. Though she wouldn’t officially be crowned Duchissa for weeks, a sapphire diadem was woven into her crown braid, and the foreign title had been thrown her way hundreds of times.
“Pardon me for interrupting. I understand this is an inopportune moment, but I’d been hoping to discuss the Olympia-Hazelcrest trade treaty with you. Your aunt pledged her support, and of course I understand if you need time…”
Praying for strength, she looked heavenward. There was no strength to be found there, just an elaborately painted ceiling depicting millennia of royal history.
The man’s incessant chattering brought the pulsing in her skull back in full force. Exhaustion hung heavy in her bones and muddled her brain. Gods above, she craved sleep. There would be no rest for her, not while she had endless briefings and mountains of petitions to muddle through.
“Talk to the Major Governor,” she said, making a concerted effort not to yawn. “He’ll be able to give you a more concrete answer.”
As the man frowned, Kalie bit the inside of her cheek.
Sending all her problems to Uncle Jerran wasn’t a particularly inspiring start to her reign, but she had no other options.
He had decades of experience in every branch of government.
As Akron had so bluntly implied, Uncle Jerran was a far more capable leader than she.
Mother had stopped watching her. With a sigh of relief, Kalie took her leave of the courtiers.
Wiping the sweat from her brow, she ducked into the shadow between two bronze pillars. Crackling waterfalls covered the walls behind her, and foamy spray ghosted over her skin. Kalie breathed in the strong scent of the ocean she so loved .
The music reached a climax, and the smooth, rhythmic vibrations in the singer’s voice soothed her, calming her worries and stresses.
It was in the Old Language, Archaic Sauvena.
She’d let her studies of it lapse in the cycles since Lexie was born, so she didn’t follow everything it was saying, but that made the music more beautiful.
“Your Majesty.”
The hair on the back of Kalie’s neck stood on end. She’d heard that voice hundreds of times before—husky with lust, soft with love, raging with the rare burst of anger—but never had she heard it this distant, this rigidly formal.
She turned, and her heart shattered all over again.
Her old friend Haeden stood on the left, but beside him?—
Julian.
Apologies rose to Kalie’s lips, but her mouth wouldn’t move.
Both bowed. As they rose, Julian’s tan face betrayed nothing.
Opposite the insignia decorating his Dalian Skyforce uniform, Ryker was stitched into the fabric.
Her traitorous eyes roved over his well-muscled arms and his strong, capable hands that had once held her close.
His baron’s signet ring glinted on his little finger.
Heat rushed to Kalie’s cheeks.
He looked nothing like the wiry, grinning teenager she’d left on one knee in a ballroom two cycles ago.
His eyes were devouring her, too. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She wasn’t the young teenager he’d fallen in love with, either.
Julian cleared his throat. “I wanted to express my condolences for your loss. Your aunt was a great woman.”
“Thank you,” Kalie managed to say. “How… how are you doing?”
Stupid, stupid question. She cursed the day she’d learned to speak; the words were too inadequate, too heartless to be the first thing she said to him since he got down on one knee.
He’d spoken to her since—or at least, he’d spoken to Ariah, who’d pretended to be her because she couldn’t face him after she destroyed everything.
“Ah… well.” Julian scuffed his polished boot against the bronze tiles. “I’m well. ”
Haeden glanced between the two of them like a genapi cub caught between two ranoraks. With a nervous laugh, he stepped away. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Kalie glowered at him.
“No, no, stay.” Julian waved a hand, tripping over himself in his rush to back away. “I was just leaving. It… it was good to see you again, Your Majesty.”
“Wait.”
The soft melody filling the hall reached a crescendo of heart-aching emotion.
She couldn’t leave it like this, with him calling her Your Majesty and her pretending they were nothing more than Duchissa and courtier.
Julian turned back. Flickering lights shone on his pained face.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but she couldn’t think. There wasn’t anything she could say to make it better.
“You can still call me Kalie,” she whispered.
He gave her a ghastly smile and sketched a bow. “Your Majesty.”
It stung.
And then he was gone.
“Glad that’s over.” Haeden was clearly trying for nonchalance, but he couldn’t stop tugging at the spiky black studs posted through his ears. “Can’t say I was looking forward to the long-awaited reunion of the Quartet?—”
He broke off abruptly, all traces of humor vanishing.
Kalie’s knees nearly crumpled.
The crackle of waterfalls and fountains softened, and the flower basket swinging from a strand of fairy lights stilled. The air seemed to grow heavier as an aching hollow spread through her chest.
Haeden fidgeted with the cuffs of his purple sleeves. “I’m so sorry about Ariah.”
“Yeah.” Kalie swallowed, trying to dispel the lump rising in her throat. A lone violinist took center stage and strummed a slow tune. “I am too. She always cared about you.”
Pressing a hand to his nose, Haeden sniffed.
Tall, dark, and handsome, Ariah had called him.
Her first, and as she’d gushed so long ago, her forever.
That hadn’t lasted more than a month before the breakup, which was followed by Haeden’s halting explanation at one of their forest bonfires that he preferred men.
Ariah had gotten over it quickly, and they’d remained the best of friends after the messy fallout of Julian’s attempted proposal.
But none of them had ever really known Ariah. She’d always appeared to them in her disguise as an illegitimate cousin. Julian and Haeden had never known the truth about her birth.
“What do you say we celebrate her memory the way she’d want to be celebrated?”
“Here?” Kalie asked, her brows drawing together.
Though it hurt like blades shredding her heart, Uncle Jerran had been right when he’d pulled her aside before the ball and told her there could be no grand funeral for Ariah.
They couldn’t risk drawing curious minds in the wrong direction.
Gene editing was highly illegal, and their ancestors had kept their genetically-modified doubles a secret for generations.
With a small smile, Haeden produced an engraved silver flask from his pocket, twisted off the lid, and held it up between them.
Kalie frowned. “There’s champagne over there.”
“Yes, but that’s for celebrating.” He raised the flask in a mock toast. “This is for remembering.”
She eyed the flask, then tipped some into her mouth and gave it back to him.
It burned like fire going down, and she blinked back tears as she struggled for breath.
A flickering memory of a bonfire with Ariah and the boys flitted through her mind.
For a heartbreaking moment, she beheld the closest person she’d ever had to a real sister, snickering at Julian and flirting shamelessly with Haeden.
The memory vanished far too soon. Kalie beckoned for him to hand the flask to her, but he pocketed it.
“A lightweight like you shouldn’t have more than one drink,” Haeden teased. She didn’t withdraw her hand. Feigning fatherly pride, he wiped a pretend tear from his eye. “Prim and proper Kalista Hannover, asking for another drink. Ariah would be so proud.”
Kalie’s fingers twitched towards the flask. She needed to see Ariah again. Her absence was like a gaping void, but clinging to that memory had bridged it, if only for a second.
Ariah wouldn’t have wanted her to cling to memories, though. She’d lived in the moment, and she would’ve wanted her to do the same.