Page 57 of The First Spark (Dynasty of Fire #1)

“That’s good,” Zane said, “right?”

But Mira stared at the floor, and whenever she fidgeted with that ring, it never seemed to mean anything good.

“They’re not planning to liberate Dali,” Kalie breathed.

Mira shook her head.

“They’re not going after Carik, either.”

“Gar and Akron want to.” Mira’s lip curled. “The rest are cowards.”

All too easily, she could imagine the scene playing out in Gar’s conference room.

Bickering delegates, fearful allies trying to back out, uncontrollable commotion, and Gar at the head of the table, barking orders to corral them.

He would fail. They would always fail. Even the best leader would never win support through orders and demands.

Kalie lurched to her feet. Jolts shot up her shin, and a dull ache burned in her thigh. Letting out a low hiss, she clenched her teeth and leaned against the mattress, letting the pulsing recede. Just a moment, then she would go make one last plea.

“Hannover?” Mira stepped towards her.

Zane caught her hand.

Kalie looked at the scars and calluses on Zane’s knuckles, the veins and muscles bulging against his skin, the metal beads tucked under his shirt.

She met his eyes and said, “Not wanting to fight doesn’t make someone a coward.”

A deep furrow creased Zane’s brows.

“I have to finish this, but I understand if you don’t want to join me.”

Cold, sterile air blasted down on them. Zane exhaled slowly, and as a landslide of tension rolled down his hunched shoulders, his breaths turned ragged. He let go of her hand, weaving Lysa’s metal beads through his fingers.

An ache pierced Kalie’s chest. He didn’t have to say it. His avoidance of her eyes was answer enough.

She nodded and lowered her head.

He had made his opinion clear from the start.

Yes, they’d been through hell together, and he’d trained her to fight, and she’d thought…

Well, after all the nights they’d spent together talking and comforting each other after nightmares, after they’d nearly kissed, she’d thought…

But it didn’t hurt that he wouldn’t stand with her.

It didn’t hurt that he was leaving her. There was an ache in her chest, and pain in her throat, but it didn’t hurt at all .

Puffing out a breath, Zane met her eyes. Silver turned to steel, and he dropped Lysa’s beads. They clinked as they disappeared beneath his shirt.

“Of course I’m going to keep fighting. ”

As Kalie’s mouth fell open, Mira’s dark eyebrows shot to her hairline.

Zane gripped her shoulders, and she gaped up at him. “They nearly killed us, Kalie. I’m done running. You’re right, we have to fight back.”

His voice trembled. Determination shone in his tight jaw, his blazing eyes, his rigid stance. She could’ve kissed him.

Kalie beamed. “I couldn’t agree more.”

With the warmth of his gaze encouraging her, she limped to the door. Her arms trembled as she hauled it open.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” Mira chided, blocking the threshold. “You’re healing.”

“I need to see Gar.”

Glancing at Zane, Mira pressed her lips together, then she nodded and stepped aside.

Like a strand of falling dominoes, long strips of fluorescent light flickered to life.

Kalie hobbled down the hallways. She set her teeth against the bursts of pain spiraling up her leg, but with each step, the pulsing pain from her newly-mended wound faded.

Two sliding metal doors waited at the end of a corridor, surrounded by black-and-yellow warning stripes.

Mira raised a remote. The codebox by the doors flashed green as the thick metal panels slid apart.

At the other end of the hallway, a sliver of light shone through a cracked door, and familiar voices reached her ears.

“Forgive me, Minister Gar, but wouldn’t it be more prudent to wait?” Senator Poltrun’s tone was wheedling. “Etov is compromised, enemy reinforcements are on the way, and Carik’s onto us now. He has to be. We should postpone the invasion and gather more allies.”

“There’s no time to wait!”

“Carik will use that time to consolidate his power,” Senator Nadar said, in his gravelly accent. “If we wait too long, no one will dare stand against him. And there’s been no indication that Carik knows who Emperor Hannover has been meeting with.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Poltrun argued.

Kalie reached towards the door, but she let her hand fall as Minister Gar fired back a retort. Her eyes fluttered shut. They wouldn’t listen to her. She was twenty, and they had decades of experience. Who was she to say anything?

Someone chimed in with Poltrun, and Kalie’s fists clenched.

Mira raised her eyebrows.

If Mira was in her shoes, she would say something. She wouldn’t sit back while everyone else made decisions.

Even Zane, who’d raged about the prospect of war, waited on her heels.

“I’m sorry, Minister, but I can’t commit Britirian troops to this plan,” President Arrosa said. “It’s too risky.”

Kalie shoved the door open.

Gasps rose from the assembled delegates, whose holos floated around a conference table.

Dull pain pierced Kalie’s thigh and a faint sting shot up her shin, but she forced herself to march into the room.

Nadar’s huge eyes mournfully traced her figure.

She followed his gaze from her flimsy hospital gown to the bandages patched over her legs.

An unruly lock of hair fell into her face.

Gods, she looked like a wreck. A faint flush crept up her neck, but she held her chin high.

Resolute, unbreakable—that was how she needed to appear, not weak and defeated.

“Princessa.” Gar blinked owlishly at her. “You should be resting.”

“I can’t rest while my people are in danger.” Screens ringed the walls, simulating an attack on the Krygeon Pass. Kalie arched her eyebrows at General Akron. “Your plan, I take it?”

“With Etov’s forces out of the equation, we can’t afford to divide our troops,” Gar said, before his one-eyed general could speak. “I’m sorry, Princessa, but the only strike we’ll be making is on the Krygeon Pass.”

“The only strike you’ll be making.” Arrosa’s pink skin flushed scarlet. “The rest of us aren’t going to stake the safety of our planets on a gods-cursed suicide mission!”

“If we can get into One?—”

“Carik will come for our planets!” Poltrun protested. “The Hannover whelp sold us out, and she saw our faces. Carik knows. If we leave our worlds undefended?—”

“If Carik knew, he would’ve attacked us by now. ”

Poltrun barreled on as if he hadn’t heard Nadar. “If we attack Sector One, what’s to stop Carik from dividing his forces and launching a counterattack on our people?”

Gar scowled. “He doesn’t have the resources to attack all of us at once. We have the power to defend our planets should the worst happen.”

“No one really knows how many resources the Federation has, and Britiria will not withstand an invasion if our forces are divided!”

Kalie cleared her throat, and the raised voices fell silent. Arrosa looked at her flimsy gown with an expression of pure pity, and Poltrun wrinkled his nose, as if her interruption was an annoyance. Still, they were listening.

“We came here because we have the same goal—the freedom of our people. You may think your people are free, that it’s just Dali being crushed under Carik’s boot. The truth is, your people are no safer than mine. We’re all just waiting to be crushed by a tyrant’s whim.”

Arrosa pursed her lips.

“Maybe it is dangerous, but we all knew the dangers when we signed up for this. It’s Dali today, but who will it be tomorrow?

” Kalie breathed in the station’s sterile, recycled air.

“When Carik bombed Pool’s rally, he didn’t just kill Dali’s Senator.

He killed Dali’s sovereign. He killed her child, a girl who hadn’t even seen her fifth birthday.

He’s killing our innocent civilians. Nothing is stopping him from doing the same to each and every one of you. ”

Akron tilted his head, and Senator Poltrun nodded absently.

In the corner, Zane flashed her a thumbs-up.

Kalie wrenched her gaze back to the table. “My planet is in danger, but all of yours are too. If we don’t strike now, we won’t get another chance, and Carik will have another three cycles of tyranny.”

Akron tipped his beret. “Well said, Princessa.”

Some looked skeptical.

“I know I’m not Marcus Pool. I’m not my Aunt Calida. I’m not the Etovian Emperor, and I’m not Governor Roth. But I’m willing to fight to my last breath to save my people and the freedom of our worlds.” She flattened her palms on the table. “The question is, are you?”

Silence. Kalie’s pulse thundered as seconds dragged by. Her body ached, and she wanted nothing more than to lay down—close her eyes and sleep, let the stress and fear melt away. But for her people, she had to stay standing. For her people, she couldn’t fall.

A slow clap sliced through the silence. Nadar. Clapping .

Kalie’s breath hitched.

Arrosa’s face scrunched up, and she slowly joined in. A few of the other holos did as well, but their feeble applause was half-hearted at best. Poltrun’s eyes narrowed as he glanced between them. Silently, he brought his hands together.

Gar regarded her with an expression of stone.

There was no time for doubt, so she cleared her throat and pressed on. “I can’t force you to fight for Dali. Nor would I want to. You have your own people to think of. So I propose a vote to decide the goal of our strike.”

Gar coughed and pressed a blood-spotted handkerchief to his mouth. When he lowered it, his jaw was tight. “Dali or Sector One.”

“Dali or the original plan,” Kalie said, raising her eyebrows. “We can fight for both, even without my father’s support. I don’t think Carik will fall with a single strike, but?—”