Page 63 of The First Spark (Dynasty of Fire #1)

“The phoenix is the Emperor’s crest.” Ryker’s face was gray and drawn. “Etov’s fleets are coming.”

Zane’s eyes widened. Etov was coming. Help was coming.

Slowly, he registered the cold seeping into his bones, the vicious chattering of his teeth, the white plumes of air gusting from his mouth.

They must’ve diverted the energy from the heating units to the shields, but the cold didn’t matter.

He wouldn’t have to duel. Kalie would be safe.

If their forces could hold on, Etov would save them .

“Delay…” Nadar stared at the carnage surrounding their destroyer. “Do they really think they can make it in time?”

Shuffling footsteps drew Zane’s gaze to Mira. He started to ask if she’d heard—then his heart slammed to a halt.

She slunk towards him alone, her head low, fiddling with her ring…

“Mira.” A gust of air blew through his chattering teeth, but it wasn’t the chill of the bridge that froze the blood in his veins. “Where’s Kalie?”

Taking a deep breath, Mira raised her head. “She’s gone.”

Gone. The word rocked through Zane like a death sentence, stealing the breath from his lungs, freezing his pulse, crushing his heart.

Reality shattered around him, splintering the looming metal walls of the bridge and the sound of the alarms, leaving him and Mira alone as he stared into her guilty brown eyes.

Kalie never would’ve been able to escape Mira.

Not if Mira had tried to stop her. But she was gone—Mira had let her go.

“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Ryker cried.

“Her best friend is down there,” Mira said quietly, without taking her eyes off Zane. “The person she loves most in the world. If I was her, I would do the same thing. So I let her leave.”

Let her leave —Mira had killed her, that was what she’d done.

He stopped thinking, stopped feeling anything but the red-hot rage clouding his vision as he lunged for her.

He might’ve grabbed her shoulders, he might’ve thrown a punch, he might’ve tried to tackle her.

But when a vicious impact jolted up his spine, he was sprawled on the catwalk, ten, fifteen feet away.

Fury warped Mira’s face as she glared down at him. “If you ever try that again, I’ll knock your teeth out,” she spat, but it was not her voice; it was something deeper, primal, and the rage that burned in her eyes looked hot enough to roast him.

Zane shivered.

The anger twisting Mira’s features subsided, but deep creases pressed down on her brows.

Breathing deeply, Zane shoved himself to his feet and wrenched his gaze away from her. “Call the hangar bay! Don’t let any ships leave!”

Even before a tech said she’d already left, he knew it was pointless. Mira wouldn’t have come back until Kalie was out of reach.

“I’ll go after her.” Ryker checked his pulser’s charge and slid it into his holster.

“My fleet is closest to the surface. If I can make it down in time, I’ll pull Kal out of there.

If not… I’ll challenge. I haven’t fenced in cycles, and I’m rusty, but I had proper training. It’s only right that I… for her…”

It would be so easy to say nothing, to save his own skin and let Ryker go. But he’d prepared for this, Ryker was already wounded, and Kalie’s life was on the line. “I’ve been training with Theron Hannover. I’m ready for this, I’ll go.”

“Hannover was afraid you’d say that. She told me not to let?—”

“I don’t give a damn what she said!” Spit flew from Zane’s mouth, but he was past the point of caring. “Get me a plane, Nadar. I’m going.”

“That’s suicide! Half the cannons around Olympia are operational!”

“They’ll kill you,” Mira seethed. “A few fencing championships is nothing, Zane. Whether they shoot you down or gut you in a duel, you’ll be dead, and I?—”

A thunderous impact slammed into the ship, throwing Zane into the floor.

He rolled into the blow, but his elbow took the brunt of the impact, and he swore as he pushed himself up.

A tech screamed that their central thruster was gone, but it was the sight before the viewport that drained the blood from Zane’s face.

The onyx warplanes had looped back around.

A flurry of red lasers bombarded the weakened forcefield.

“They’ll kill us all.” The crackling webs of blue energy wavered as red blasts splintered into them. “Lexington can try to appease Carik by handing over Kalie, but we’ll all die anyway. ”

“Let Ryker go, then.” Mira pulled him to his feet. “Stay.”

“You said if the person you love was down there, you’d go.”

Mira went deathly still. Zane swallowed, willing his legs not to give out.

Her wounded expression was the answer he’d never asked for.

She might as well have been screaming it, but he didn’t have time to care.

The unspeakable image of Kalie’s gemod double was seared into his eyelids, and that unspeakable image could be Kalie.

Love was too strong a word—he doubted he’d ever feel so strongly for someone again, after Lysa. But he cared about Kalie. He liked her for her strength and her kindness, her bravery and her courage. She was his friend, his confidante, and he wasn’t going to let her get herself killed.

She would not be another Lysa.

“I’m going. Don’t try to stop me. Ryker, how much time do you need to repair your cannons?”

“Hours.”

“How many?”

Ryker scratched the back of his neck. “Three? Four?”

“You have one. Senator Nadar, I need you to negotiate with the Feds. Offer the surrender of the Aquisian fleets.”

“What?”

Zane held up his numb hand. Kalie would lecture him about being condescending to allies who ranked far above him, but now wasn’t the time to play by the rules.

“Ask for a ceasefire to negotiate a surrender. Both of you. Pull out all the stops, the most outrageous demands. We have to stall long enough for the Etovians to get here.”

“The Etovians are coming? They’re blockaded!”

“If you’d brought Kalie back, you would’ve heard that,” Zane snarled. Mira lowered her head. “I’ll get into the palace and challenge Iliana.”

Ryker’s lips flattened. “You won’t get within fifty miles of the palace, and you need the Speaker to oversee the challenge.”

Mira drew her lip between her teeth, sighed, and tugged out her comm. “I have a contact. He can get you in.”

She strode away, murmuring into her comm.

Another blast rocked the ship, and screams wailed over the speakers.

Zane’s heart thumped. Beyond the viewport, beyond the red lasers and the vicious swarm of black warplanes, a frigate exploded into shards of scrap.

The blue webs of energy around their bridge flickered.

Spitting a curse, Nadar stalked away to bark orders at his officers.

“Can you call the Speaker?”

Ryker’s laugh was the hysterical howl of a man about to die. “The woman’s over a century old. She lives in a cave. No, I can’t call her! I can go to her cave, try to convince her that Kal sent me, but she doesn’t come out for just anyone.”

“He can get us in.” Mira marched between them, pocketing her comm. “There’s an abandoned warehouse a few miles outside the palace. The tunnel underneath leads to a bunker in the mountain, and there’s old shafts we can use to get up to the palace. He’ll take us as far as the foyer.”

“Us?” Zane asked.

“I’m going with you, obviously. Someone has to watch your back.” Mira’s smirk vanished as she stared at the spot where the projections had disappeared. “And besides, someone has to save his son. It was our deal.”

“His son?” Ryker spluttered, glancing at the vacant spot beside his holo. “Don’t tell me you’re putting your lives in the hands of Landon Grant!”

“Do you have a better idea?” Mira checked her pulser’s charge. “He’s a father who’s terrified for his son, and he doesn’t have any bad blood with Zane and I. He was friends with your father—both your fathers,” she added, glancing from him to Ryker. “It’s the best chance we’ve got.”

A chill raced across Zane’s frozen skin, but she was right. “We have to trust him. But I need you to go to the Speaker’s cave first, Mira. Convince her to come and give the challenge her blessing.”

Ryker shook his head. “She won’t come, not if a commoner asks. I’ll go.”

“No. I need you here, to sell the surrender.” Zane swallowed thickly, meeting the dark stare of the man who could’ve been Kalie’s fiancé. “If this goes wrong, I need you to promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to protect Kalie. ”

“I swear it on my soul.” Ryker bowed his head. “Keep her alive, Wells. May Azura bless you.”

Wind lashed through the ranks of barren trees as Zane’s tempor bike tore through a patch of mud.

Fed warplanes had tailed them in orbit, but in true Mira fashion, Mira had managed to crash-land their battered ship on the next ridge over.

She’d left just enough time to get out with the bike before the whole thing blew.

So much for a stealthy landing.

His holocomm pulsed green, the signal that he was in range of the meeting point. He cut the engines and slowed the bike to a crawl, scanning the treeline. This was one of those times Mira would really be helpful. She had a knack for spotting marks he never saw coming.

But he’d sent her to find the Speaker, so he didn’t see the man emerging from the trees until he was already in the clearing.

Zane braked in the middle of the field, sliding off the bike. He didn’t take his hand off his pulser.

The man that approached looked nothing like Mylis. His face was lined and withered by age, marred with what looked to be scars from welts. His graying hair was shorn short, but despite his hunched, emaciated frame, there was an air of darkness about him—one that raised the hairs on Zane’s arms.

As wind howled through the clearing, neither spoke.

What was he supposed to call a former count who’d turned out to be the world’s most infamous traitor? Count Grant? Lord Grant? Certainly not something as plain as Mr. Grant—the man had once been among the most powerful nobles on the planet.

“You’re Zander and Kirah’s son,” Grant murmured at last, as his hazel eyes swept across Zane’s face.

Zane nodded. Grant’s tone felt uncomfortably vulnerable, and he resisted the urge to look away from this weathered, worn-down man.

Grant drew in a slow breath. “You’re friends with my boy? ”

“Yeah.”

He smiled, but it looked broken. “Good. My Elle would’ve been happy to hear that, I think. Kirah, too.”

Zane shifted his weight between his feet. Everything about this man put him on edge. He’d been expecting someone menacing, like the other convicts who’d escaped from Titan, but Landon Grant seemed oddly normal. Somehow, that made him seem more dangerous.

“You can get me into the palace?” Zane asked.

Unless it was a trap.

“Can you save my son?” Grant peered past him, and a sharp frown creased his face. “Where are the rest of your men?”

“Mira’s on it.” But the rage he’d glimpsed in Mylis’s eyes quickly seemed to be brewing in his father’s, so he added, “She’s collecting the reinforcements.”

Technically, the Speaker was backup. Just not the sort Grant imagined.

Grant nodded, seemingly placated. “Are we waiting on them?”

“No. I’m supposed to be causing the diversion while you locate Mylis. They’ll sneak in and retrieve him while I keep Lexington’s attention.”

“Kirah’s son, through and through,” Grant said softly. He jerked his head towards the treeline and motioned for Zane to follow him. “There’s an escape tunnel this way. Hasn’t been used in… oh, decades now. We shouldn’t run into any guards. But you’ll have to hurry.”

A chill trickled down Zane’s spine. “Why?”

“Your girl’s ship touched down thirty minutes ago. By now, she’s probably in the palace.”