Page 32 of The First Spark (Dynasty of Fire #1)

“We’ve been dragging our heels for weeks,” Kalie said, resting her elbows on the long oak table spanning the Advisorium’s meeting chamber.

The sun’s glare, fractured into colorful glows by the stained glass, pierced her eyes.

The counts and senior barons stared back at her with varying degrees of disinterest and hostility.

“Public support for a rebellion declines each day. Our allies agree?—”

“ Our allies.” Count Leighton snorted. “Duchissa, these rebels would only be our allies if this Advisorium had ratified a declaration of war, which we have not. I would’ve thought—” her pot-bellied cousin raised his voice as nobles on the other side of the table raised theirs— “I would’ve thought that by now, you would’ve accepted that none of us want to go to war with another tyrant! ”

“Do not presume to speak for all of us, Count,” snapped an older man, but an uproar from the Silver turncoats, Grandmother Madeleine’s old supporters, drowned him out.

Kalie banged her gavel, but the sound didn’t reach her ears.

“Order! Order!”

Count Leighton was halfway out of his plush red chair. Spit flew from his mouth as he ranted at the Azure nobles, Aunt Calida’s faction. “The last war destroyed this planet!”

“She was our sovereign?—”

“What’s done is done!” Leighton bellowed.

Kalie turned to Uncle Jerran, who sat at her right. His head was tilted to the side. He was assessing her.

Sweat beaded on her brow. She was on her own.

He wasn’t the only one studying her; at her left, Count Hewlett had a calculating look on his face.

Half of the nobles were out of their seats, jabbing their fingers at each other. Leighton slammed his fist down on the long oak table. Kalie jumped, but mercifully, his meaty fists hadn’t damaged the ancient wood.

She pounded her gavel. “In the name of Azura, order !”

Twenty-four hours until her coronation, and her court was still in chaos.

She glanced at Zane for support. He stood guard by the shining window at the end of the hall, but his face was a mask of anger, and that anger was directed at her.

It had been all week. In the rare moments she was close to him, when she tried to ask what she’d done wrong, he made aggressive comments about war and marched away.

Given what Uncle Jerran’s background check on Zane had turned up, perhaps hiring him hadn’t been the best idea.

Kalie grimaced.

Beside Zane stood Mylis. Her afternoon teas with him had lifted her spirits more than once over the last several days, and his smiles helped alleviate her worst headaches. But his smoldering gaze bore into Hewlett.

Neither of them would be any help, and the shouting was only getting worse.

“The Duchissa called for order!”

She followed the familiar voice to a plump woman with sleek black hair, sitting in the fifth seat on her right. Julian’s mother, the Contessa of Rivershire .

As silence fell, Kalie gave her a grateful smile. Her cool stare cut as deep as Mother’s insults.

Once, the Contessa’s round, pretty face had held nothing but warmth and love.

“Thank you, Contessa.” Kalie silently cursed the tremor in her voice. “Now, as I was saying, public support for a rebellion is declining with each passing day. That’s why we need to act now, so we can gather more allies to overthrow?—”

“There will be no rebellion, Your Highness!”

“ Your Majesty ,” Kalie snapped. “Tomorrow morning, I will be your Duchissa. And I swear, I will do whatever it takes to avenge my aunt.”

“Your Majesty,” Hewlett said calmly, “we all sympathize with your loss. Your aunt was a remarkable woman, and a most distinguished leader.”

“But we’re not going to destroy our planet in a doomed war for vengeance!” Leighton thundered, earning a sharp look from Hewlett.

The flurry of heated voices climbed higher and higher, accompanied by the thudding of fists on wood and shouted curses.

Under the table, Kalie dug her nails into her palms. She wished, more than anything, that Lexie was alive. Then Uncle Jerran would be regent, Lexie would be the next duchissa, and she would be free of this court that hated her.

But whether she liked it or not, this was her court, and these were her people. She owed it to them to persevere.

Kalie raised her gavel.

A blur of motion appeared beside her. A grim look creased the aged attendant’s face, and her fingers tightened on the gavel.

“The Prime Minister has sent a transmission to the palace, Your Majesty.”

Kalie’s heart stopped, then kicked into overdrive.

“What—” Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. “What does—what did he say?”

The elderly man grimaced. “He insists on speaking directly to you.”

Heavy silence descended on the room. Thirty pairs of eyes pierced into her. Kalie stared down at her lap. Her hands shook. She twined them together, but the tremors didn’t stop.

I will not be intimidated. I will make him pay.

“I’ll speak to him,” Kalie managed to say. The words sounded like they belonged to someone else, someone far away. She forced herself to rise.

“Speak to him here,” Hewlett said, “so all of us can support you.”

Support, or control? Sighing, she sank into her chair. She barely stopped herself from looking at Uncle Jerran for permission. “Yes, of course. Have the transmission patched through to this room.”

The attendant bowed deeply and hurried off.

“If you want advice, Your Majesty…”

Kalie gritted her teeth. “Of course.”

“Stay calm. All of us know how it feels to face those responsible for the deaths of our loved ones.” Hewlett left unsaid the names of her father and grandmother.

“Lashing out with anger only risks further losses. I mean no offense, but the Prime Minister is vastly more experienced than you are, and we lack the strength to oppose?—”

Kalie held up a hand. “Thank you, Count.”

Eerie silence hung in the room as she glanced at Aunt Calida’s serene portrait, looming on the wall beside her.

The regal painting had been added days ago, joining the ranks of duchissas and duxes spanning the walls of the limitless chamber.

As the moving portrait’s lips shifted into a smile, a lump swelled in Kalie’s throat.

Aunt Calida’s portrait should’ve shown an aged, withered monarch, like the ones before her. Carik had taken her too soon.

I will make him pay.

With a murmured warning, an attendant handed her a remote, and a holoprojector crackled to life.

There, floating above the center of the mahogany table, lounged a projection of Carik.

Kalie’s blood burned. Her heart raged. She tightened her fingers around her armrest to keep from lunging at the projection.

“Princessa Hannover. I do hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Why are you here?”

Nobles bristled and whispered amongst themselves, but she didn’t care. Carik’s smile ignited a roaring fire in her chest, but it also shot a shiver down her spine. If he was able to get to Aunt Calida a few miles from the palace, in the heart of her capital, he could get to her here.

“I’m here because I received your offer for peace.” Frowning, Carik held up a holopad. “I admit I’m baffled by your demands and accusations, Princessa. If this is some convenient scheme to shift the blame away from you and your uncle?—”

“Whatever evidence you planted is false. You can lie all you want, but no one is going to believe it.”

“Betrayal runs in the Dalian royal blood, does it not?” Carik smirked at Uncle Jerran. “I suppose I owe you my congratulations. You’ve found another pawn to manipulate. When this one destroys herself, will you finally make a claim to the throne you’ve been lusting after for so long?”

Kalie’s noisy breaths rattled in her ears, but Uncle Jerran just raised an eyebrow. “Delightful as ever, Zed.”

Carik’s smirk broadened. “Perhaps you have your sights set on something greater than the throne. Perhaps you want my position. After all, you were Pool’s predecessor in the Senate, were you not?

With him dead, and the blame shifted to me, you’re in a prime position to claim his place.

Is that what your little conspiracy is all about?

She gets a throne, and you get my title? ”

Uncle Jerran didn’t rise to the bait.

Whispers swept around the table, rising in their intensity. Hewlett stayed silent, but his extended family’s murmurs were the loudest and harshest of them all.

“I know you’re behind it,” Kalie spat, “so the only question is?—”

“Consider this from my perspective. This ghastly tragedy casts a shadow over the legitimacy of my reign.” Flashing a winning smile, Carik spread his hands. “Why would I bring that upon myself? I don’t need to resort to murdering my opponents to win my elections.”

“But you wouldn’t have?—”

“At any rate,” Carik powered on, cutting her off, “we’re getting off topic.

I called to discuss this travesty of a peace treaty you sent me.

Of course, bringing the murderer to justice is imperative, and there must be cooperation between Dali and the Federation.

But you’re casting blame in the wrong direction. ”

“Let me make myself clear,” Kalie snapped, forging her voice into a weapon of steel.

“You received my terms for peace. The only way there will ever be cooperation between Dali and the Federation is if you resign your post. Allow a neutral investigative team to do an uninhibited investigation into the murders. If they corroborate your innocence, I’ll accept their verdict, but if not?—”

“And waste more time, during which you’ll arrange to make the real assassins disappear?” Carik pressed his lips into a thin line. “No, I’m afraid I can’t do that, Princessa.”

“It’s Duchissa,” she snarled, rising to her feet.

“And if you don’t agree, I swear on my soul—” another round of gasps and protests rose from the table, and they fueled the burning in her heart— “I will use every resource at my disposal to destroy you. I don’t care how long it takes, or how much it costs me. I’ll kill you.”

“Duchissa!”

“She doesn’t mean that, of course.”