Page 51 of The First Spark (Dynasty of Fire #1)

She sighed. “This isn’t about us. I’m doing what’s best for Dali.

I need to know that whoever is crowned after me will have the people’s best interests at heart.

” She glanced at Mother’s expression of stoic acceptance, then turned to Selene.

“You’re an Etovian princess. You’re my sister.

I won’t force you to leave this meeting, but I won’t stay quiet while you slander me. ”

Selene closed the space between them, until every fleck of mascara on her long lashes was visible. Kalie held her gaze. Up close, she could see the gloss coating her eyes. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought Selene was holding back tears.

“Funny that I’m your sister now.” Her breath ghosted across Kalie’s face. “I never was before.”

She checked Kalie’s shoulder as she barged past. Kalie caught her balance and turned, but Selene had already tugged the door shut.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Kalie set the note aside. “Thank you for bringing this, Haeden. I’m in your debt.”

Haeden snorted. “Hardly. The message isn’t any good if none of us can read it.”

“I’ll have our translators work on it.”

“No, wait.” Zane seized the note and squinted at it. “It’s an old Oppallese dialect, from the Prime Continent. I will— eternity? No, always . I will always be… faithful? Loyal?”

Theron rolled his eyes. “Perhaps we should get a real translator.”

Kalie silenced him with a slash of her hand.

“ Loyal to the… mortelle master?” Zane’s eyes flicked across the note again. His brow furrowed, and he lowered the paper. “ I will always be loyal to the mortelle master. I don’t know what to make of that.”

Kalie’s pulse thumped in her ears as she glanced from the drivchip to the note to the chip again. Selene’s warning rang in her ears. A trap, a trap, a trap …

Shoving past Father, she snatched the drivchip out of the projector. Smooth, plain, inconspicuous… like the traitor who’d sent it.

“Get this contained.” The words flew out in a jumbled rush as she thrust the chip into Father’s beringed hands. “Tell the techs to check it for bugs, stolen data, hidden trackers… all of it. Haeden, you need to go. Now. It could be a trap.”

“What are you talking about?” Zane asked.

Kalie crossed her arms. “He knows you’re from Oppalli. Uncle Jerran excels at mortelle, and he taught him how to play?—”

“Who?”

She loosed a shuddering breath. “Mylis.”

Zane bit back a curse as Kalie missed another shot.

She was sloppy. Distracted. A clay humanoid target popped up behind a boulder.

Ten yards, an easy shot. So easy. He’d seen her hit targets at that distance dozens of times over the past three weeks.

But her grip was terrible, and by the time she fired, the target had already lowered behind the boulder.

It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. The recoil had knocked her back, and the laser veered far to the left.

Its tinny shriek vanished into the cacophony of cannon blasts.

Zane’s fists clenched as he breathed in the artificial odor of burnt rubber and acrid smoke .

Kalie jogged to the next post. It was a half-assed jog, at best.

“Faster!” he roared.

As a high whistle cut through the grassy field, she slid into a crouch behind a jagged boulder, lining up the next shot.

A thunderous explosion blasted through the speakers, and Zane shivered.

Kalie flinched. She paused for two seconds—two seconds too long.

The misshapen humanoid model lowered to the ground, untouched.

Zane thumped his fist against a pole. “Shoot it!”

She paused to wipe the sweat from her brow. A dummy popped up between two red trees, and she didn’t even try to blast it.

He stormed down the concrete strip, reached the nanotech’s hulking control box, and slammed his fist down on the panel.

The simulation’s nightmarish sounds vanished, but the artificial scents wafting from the machine still poisoned the fresh fall air.

Kalie rested against a wooden beam and gulped down water.

“You’re distracted.”

She bristled. “I’m trying.”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

He leaned on a concrete stand. Across the lawn, blackened patches of wood dotted the charred trunks of shaggy trees. Dozens of shots, all gone astray.

Kalie exhaled sharply. “I’m thinking about him.”

“This isn’t the time.” Zane rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept last night. “We can’t do anything until the data’s decrypted.”

“I can’t trust him. I won’t trust him. He’s a liar, a traitor, just like his father…

and what makes him think I’d be stupid enough to fall for it?

If he betrayed me to get his father out of prison, he’s not going to betray Iliana now that his father’s been pardoned.

Whatever’s on the drivchip is just a bluff, a trick… ”

Zane closed his eyes, shutting out her rambling. It wasn’t a bluff. Whatever it was, it was important.

Mylis had traumatized Kalie when he pulled his pulser on her, but looking back, it didn’t make sense.

There were a million reasons for Mylis to betray them—his murdered mother, his imprisoned father, his own miserable childhood—but he gained nothing from helping Iliana, not when his rival was part of the coup.

He would’ve climbed to greater heights under Roth’s wing than Hewlett’s.

And the way Mylis had talked about Roth, with awestruck reverence… No one could lie that well.

Maybe Mira. No one else.

Blowing out a sigh, Zane spun around. “Until they decrypt the data, or we hear from Mira, there’s no point thinking about it. You need to focus on this. Got it?”

“Fine.” Kalie slammed her water down and shuffled to the starting point at the other end of the concrete strip.

Zane trudged to the nanotech sim’s control box. “Focus. This is important.”

“I know it is.” Kalie’s jaw tightened as she adjusted her stance. She picked up the pulser, and he jabbed the button to start the simulation.

A dummy popped up. Kalie fired. One, two, three . The lasers veered wide, thudding against a boulder.

Rattling cannons boomed through the speakers, a line of crackling thuds in quick succession. Then a wailing projectile, and a deafening collision.

The stench of fire was back, stronger than before.

And the screams.

“No!”

Zane squeezed his eyes shut. He forced himself to focus on the booming cannons, the lull of silence left in their wake, and the shriek of a missile. Fake. All fake. The screams were fake, too, part of the simulation.

But he could feel the fiery blast tearing through his leg. The odor of smoke burning his nose as he gasped. The cool, sticky blood flowing from his thigh. The scream. Footsteps pausing. Coming back, as he bellowed for her to go.

Zane’s eyes flew open.

Kalie was at the third position, firing at a clay dummy fifteen yards out. The recoil knocked her hand back, and the shot soared into the air. Ripples danced across the sky as the blast merged into the forcefield.

Like an idiot, she stood and watched .

“Go!” Zane bellowed. “Keep moving, dammit!”

Finally, she did, but her foot caught on a rock jutting out from the ground.

Zane gnashed his teeth together.

An ear-splitting screech wailed through the speakers. Two thunderclaps rang out, followed by a gut-twisting explosion. Zane inhaled, but the stench of burning flesh was all too real. Another shriek. Crashing rubble. Distant screams.

Bile rose to his throat, and he swallowed, wincing at the acid burn.

“I’m getting you out of here.”

On a distant battlefield, a missile wailed, crashing into the ground. Chunks of asphalt launched into the air and rained down on the broken earth.

“No, go! Run!”

Gasping, Zane turned to Kalie.

She missed another shot and jogged to the sixth position. A dummy rose. Panting, she set her pulser down, seized her ponytail, and tightened it. Her expression was distant, unfocused.

He jabbed a button on the control box, and a scarlet ball of paint exploded against her chest.

Kalie yelped, and her face reddened as she whirled on him. “What was that for?”

“ That ? What the hell is this ?” Zane gestured to her hands, frozen with locks of hair clenched in each fist. “You think it’s a joke? Just a stupid game?”

“It’s practice, and my hair was getting in the way!”

Zane punched the button again.

A second paintball crashed into her chest, and she stumbled back with her mouth gaping open. Beads of carmine paint dribbled down her gray racerback. Her fists clenched, and she stormed across the rocky yard, clomping onto the narrow sidewalk where he stood.

“How dare?—”

“You think they care if your hair’s messed up? If you need a breather?”

Zane’s chest heaved as he fought to get air.

Red consumed his vision. Red splotches staining her shirt, red gushing from a wound in his leg, red staining a pair of dark hands.

Then red staining his hands. He couldn’t breathe.

There was only blood. Holes carved into a camouflage uniform, splotches on an ash-colored tank top…

“They’ll kill you. Out there, the second you screw up, the second you let your guard drop, you’re dead. You’re dead, and—and nothing will bring you back?—”

As his voice broke, Kalie shrank away.

Pulsers shrieked through the speaker, and he could feel their heat scorching his hair.

The spurt of blood, the vibrations as a body hit the ground.

The fires. Their smell had been burned into his nose for three cycles.

Cannons thundering, missiles wailing, distant screaming…

and those tinny, haunting wails as pulsers fired.

Zane slammed the control box. A final explosion boomed, then the sounds disappeared.

He dropped to the floor, putting his head in his hands.

His shoulders shook, and he bit down on his tongue. A coppery tang filled his mouth.