Page 38 of The First Spark (Dynasty of Fire #1)

Kalie shut it all out.

She lost track of Zane, of the warplanes, of everything but the levers she was forcing forward as far as they would go .

The levers clicked, capping out at max speed. She kept pushing into the sky. Metal groaned. Alarms screeched. Fires ignited on the viewport’s edges, curling around the corners and licking down the sides of the ship. The blaze swept across the viewport, snapping and hissing.

Still, Kalie strained, pressing all her weight against the levers.

They crashed through the clouds, through a faint blue haze, into the fathomless darkness of space. Warnings trilled from the radar. Lighting down, navigation down, fire suppression down, shields down, engines and thrusters on override. She clenched her teeth and kept barrelling forward.

Her pulse thundered.

This had to work. It had to.

The stargate loomed in the distance, a circular behemoth of shining metal. Kalie’s heart dropped. The ring’s center was dark and inactive.

The transceiver crackled. “Incoming shuttle?—”

“Override code four-four-two-six!” Kalie bellowed. “Four-four-two-six!”

The overtaxed levers clenched in her fists pushed back against her. She didn’t let up. The gate was inactive, so shooting through it wouldn’t send her anywhere, but she had to hope. It was a desperate chance. It was her only chance.

Breathless seconds passed, and the gate stayed empty.

Flickering blue light sparked in the core. Kalie’s heart leapt into her throat.

The pulsing light crackled outward, expanding into a teal ring within the stargate. Blue lights led away from the other side like a tunnel.

The gate was opening.

Warplanes screamed after them. As Kalie closed her eyes and pushed into the ring of light, they collided with the blinding aura.

Spots swam in the white light consuming her vision. Something boomed, and their ship shuddered as they made the jump.

“Close the gate!”

Though her lips formed the words, the ringing in her ears drowned out her voice. She cracked her eyes open. A fathomless white void surrounded her.

Sputtering vibrations shot through her legs.

The control sticks spasmed and went limp in her hands.

Blood rushed in her ears as she blindly fumbled with the controls, searching for an anchor, something to orient her in the unseen room.

Hot metal met her fingertips. A ridge, a button, a cool glass screen. But no images, no sight.

Pain blossomed in her chest as she struggled for air.

Her lips moved. Zane. The sound didn’t reach her ears.

A warm palm covered the back of her hand.

It could’ve been seconds. It could’ve been hours.

Slowly, spots appeared in her vision. They danced through the white void before zipping away, taking holes of light with them.

Dark, endless space appeared through those little windows, growing until the white light was just an aura at the edges of her vision.

Blue shafts of light surrounded them, forming an illusionary tunnel through space. The radar’s light shone in the dark cockpit. There was nothing behind them. Just their ship, careening forward at an impossible speed.

Kalie let out a choked sob. The gate had closed in time. They’d escaped.

In the aftermath, the only sounds in the lightless cockpit were their harsh, gasping breaths, mingling with the sputtering roar of overtaxed thrusters and the near-silent hum of the drained heating unit.

Kalie rested her head in her hands. Her chest was so tight, her ribs so sore, that trying to breathe deeply was impossible.

She didn’t think she could speak if she tried.

Despite her twisting stomach and shaky muscles, sitting in the dark cockpit was peaceful. The electrical system was shot. Only a few screens had survived the burnout of system overload. Blue glows shone from the emergency accent lighting, but the brightest light came from the distant stars.

“That was close.” The tips of Zane’s mouth curved upwards. “To be honest, I expected to be a cloud of ashes by now. You outdid yourself.”

Kalie tried to straighten up, but pain seared her ribs and she groaned. “You didn’t do too bad either.”

Zane snorted. “I saved you, and I get ‘ not too bad ’?”

There were a million things she wanted to say— thank you and I’m sorry and why did you come back and how did you know —but after what he’d said yesterday, after what she’d said, they were on unsteady ground.

No words could express the guilt gnawing at her.

It was easier to fall back on banter, so she turned her nose up.

“I was the one who got us to the stargate route. I’d say I saved us, thank you very much.”

A brief grin twitched at Zane’s lips, but as he stared at the distant stars, his face hardened. “She’s prepared. We bought ourselves some time, but she’ll have planes on our tail and a blockade waiting before we hit the next exit.”

“I know.”

Kalie drummed her fingers against the nav screen where the flight path was supposed to glow. The nav systems were shot, but she could find the route on the map without them. Thank the gods for Ariah and her contingency plans.

“It’s forty-eight minutes to the next exit.

We’ll drop at minute thirty.” She tapped a point on the screen and trailed a bleeding finger westward, to a spot where a gate waited.

“If we pick up the connector at the exit, it’s twelve minutes to this stargate, but since we can’t use the gate routes, it’ll be an eighteen-hour flight.

From there, we can jump to the gate and take Route 136.

It’ll take us about nine hours to cross the sector. ”

“Where exactly are we going?”

Kalie sucked in a hitching breath. Pain lanced through her ribs, and stale air flooded her nostrils. “Etov.”

Zane’s mouth fell open .

Her wry smile made her face ache. “I’m going to run, like they expect me to. Then I’m going to fight.”

“For the throne.”

Kalie nodded.

“Hannover—”

“Kalie.” She exhaled sharply. “After that, call me Kalie.”

“Kalie…” Zane paused, his lips frozen in the shape of her name, as if it was something to be savored. “I understand wanting revenge. But do you really think it’s all worth it? All the bloodshed, the famine, the death?”

A sharp retort was on the tip of her tongue, but she clamped her lips shut. His tone was reasoned, not the fire and fury he’d rained down yesterday.

He had a point. All that suffering…

But hers was a righteous cause, wasn’t it?

“If you fight for the throne, it’ll be a second civil war. And, no offense, but I don’t think the people care who wears the crown.”

“Why did you come back for me, then, if you don’t approve?”

“If you died, I’d never get my money.”

She raised her eyebrows. “All that for money?”

“It’s a lot of money.” Zane stretched his arms out to the dashboard, dropped his head, then straightened with a deep sigh. “You frustrate me.”

Kalie bristled.

“You’re stubborn, and prideful, and you sure know how to cut a guy down with your words?—”

“Wow, thanks.”

“—but I know you care for your people. I do.” Zane rubbed his eyes. “I couldn’t watch you destroy them… but I couldn’t watch them destroy you, either.”

Kalie fiddled with a blood-soaked tear in her shredded dress. “Thank you for coming back. And I’m sorry, about all of it.”

It was horribly inadequate, but he muttered, “Apology accepted.”

A weight lifted off her shoulders, though she didn’t deserve it. She owed him more than a rushed apology .

“And you can thank me by giving me Avington back. The whole barony.”

She raked her fingers through her knotted, blood-streaked hair, wincing at the pain shooting through her arms. It would take some effort, but perhaps she could arrange a marriage between the current baron and a contessa, something to elevate the baron’s station and convince him to give up a mere barony.

It all crashed over her at once, and the world fell out from under her.

The crack of the pulser as it struck Uncle Jerran’s head—but he was not gone.

He couldn’t be. Then came flashes of the blasts, her wounds that burned with every move, the crown glittering on Iliana’s head.

Her aunt, holy gods. Vale’s pulser, the bodies… and Mylis.

Her ribs burned as she struggled for air.

Mylis, who’d made her smile day after day, who seemed determined to erase the stigma of being a Grant.

Mylis, who Uncle Jerran loved like a son.

Mylis, who she would’ve made a count. Mylis, a traitor, all along.

She could still see his blazing eyes and the pulser pointing at her head.

Kalie clenched her jaw. She’d been a fool. A complete and utter fool. How had she not seen it? Why hadn’t she seen the signs from him, from Vale, from any of them?

“We can talk about it later,” Zane conceded, as if he’d taken her silence for rejection.

“I’d give it to you.” She pulled herself upright, though the pain hurt like Zagan’s worst nightmare. “I’d give you twenty baronies, if I could. But it might be a little hard to do, since I no longer have a crown.”

He waved his hand. “Semantics. Oh, and I’m going to need an extra three million credits, on top of the original amount.” He grimaced at the smoke rising from the dashboard’s cracks. “This ship was a rental.”

“A rental with cannons? What were you planning to do with it?”

“I was going to find Mira. Figured I might run into her brand of trouble along the way. I decided to stick around to see your coronation, and here we are.” Zane rose to his feet, stumbled, and winced. “Come on. I have medical supplies in here somewhere. ”

His staggering footsteps drifted away. Kalie’s eyes narrowed as she gazed out the viewport. Something was nagging at her. Three million credits, a ship with cannons, because he was going to see?—

“Wait. Do you have a comm?”

He jerked his head towards the dashboard. A pile of scrap lurked beneath it.

“Dammit.” She knocked her head against the stiff backrest. “I need to call Mira. As soon as possible.”

Zane reached into the pocket of his torn, bloody jacket. Pinched between his grimy fingers was a silver orb the size of a grape.

“That, I can help you with. Why?”

“How much does she charge for her services?”

“Depends on the contract. A quarter mil on the low end, but some of her bigger contracts net up to five million.” Zane stopped, then he marched across the cockpit and dropped into the chair across from her, leaning forward with wide, frenzied eyes.

“You’re not going to hire her to assassinate your aunt, are you? ”

“Of course not! That’s the last thing I need. They’d trace it back to me, and Carik will use that as evidence I killed Aunt Calida.” Kalie huffed. “Just put the call through. I need to talk to her before we drop and lose connection.”

He pressed his finger to a thumb-shaped imprint. A low trill emitted from the pod. The sound was soothing in the midst of sputtering thrusters.

Mira’s head appeared in a miniature projection. Lasers shrieked through the speakers. “Of course you choose the worst possible time to call. What’s up?”

Zane frowned. “Where are you?”

“Oh, don’t look so concerned, playboy.”

Lasers ripped past Mira’s head. An explosion crackled through the transmission, and Kalie was back on the platform, watching the bodies fall…

She brought her shaky hand to her forehead.

Something thundered. Mira swore.

“If this isn’t a good time… ”

“No, no, one sec.” Mira’s face slid out of focus, and the camera panned towards a stack of crates.

Kalie shifted in her chair. It was absurd, but she felt like she was intruding on a personal moment. The feelings Zane never let himself show for Mira were right there on his face. Fear, awe, longing. Something in Kalie’s chest twisted.

Screams tore through the transmission, and wood crackled as one of the crates splintered. Pulsers wailed. Someone muttered a curse, something clicked, and another explosion boomed. More screams, then silence.

Sweat and blood coated Mira’s face, but she grinned. “Now I’m free. Is that Hannover? I thought her coronation was today. Where are you?”

Kalie took a deep breath, pressing a hand to her ribs to ease the pain. “It’s a long story?—”

“Long story short,” Zane cut in, “her secret aunt stole her crown, her guards betrayed her, and now we’re flying to Etov.”

She glared at him. He really could be rude sometimes.

Mira gaped, and something clattered to the ground. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I don’t have a lot of time to explain.” The thought of trying to put this morning into words made Kalie’s stomach flip. “We have to drop from our route soon, and we’ll lose connection. I’m calling to offer you a job.”

Mira raised her eyebrows, and as she turned, the background shifted to a picture of destruction. “Are we talking capture or kill?”

“Neither. I need a spy at my court, and I think you have the skillset to do it.”

She smirked. “Eh. A little boring, but yeah, I’ve done it before. I don’t do this stuff for free, though.”

“Obviously. I’ll give you a million per week.”

Mira whistled. Zane’s eyebrows shot up, drawing Kalie’s gaze.

What money? he mouthed. As the ship jostled, she lurched into her harness and shot him a quelling look.

Bouncing his foot, Zane leaned forward. What money? he silently repeated .

Kalie kicked him. She didn’t have the money now, but she would come up with it somehow. She couldn’t afford to waste any time.

Thankfully, Mira seemed to have missed their silent exchange. She flashed a grin. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”