Page 76 of The First Spark (Dynasty of Fire #1)
A dim haze shimmered around dark trees as Mira’s boots crunched through drifts of dead leaves.
The Dalian sun’s fading orange rays sagged below the distant mountains, but the glade was brighter than any forest could possibly be at sunset.
As she stepped into the cave’s gaping mouth, blinding daylight crashed through the canopy of trees behind her.
“You would dare come here?” The Speaker’s raspy voice echoed off the damp cave’s jagged walls. Come here, come here .
Mira didn’t want to move closer, but she was moving anyway.
“Your kind are not welcome!”
Your kind are not welcome, your kind are not welcome, your kind are not ? —
Mira wasn’t aware of moving her lips, but her voice reached her ears: “My kind?”
She jolted back as an old hag appeared before her, leaning on a knobbly oaken staff. The Speaker’s golden eyes pierced straight through her .
“You do not see!” the Speaker wheezed, cackling. “Oh, the goddess didn’t tell me you could not see !”
The ground split open beneath her, and she crashed through a crack, falling through a mirage of shapes and colors—then her eyes snapped open.
Red light shone in the darkness.
Like glowing red eyes, her eyes, shining in the reflection of Zane’s discarded blade.
Mira scrambled away, and the world slid out from under her.
She landed on the metal floor, bashing her head against the kaf table.
The impact jolted through her bones. Glass bottles clinked, and her pulse thumped in her ears as she pushed herself to her feet, shaking.
Every hair on her body stood on end as she looked up at the light.
In red symbols, the chrono on her wall read 02:14:51 .
The room was empty.
The red light was only the chrono.
But clear as day, she could remember her reflection mirrored in Zane’s sword— her twisted brown face, her burning eyes, like fiery red orbs.
Mira fumbled for a half-empty bottle of cyr, brought it to her lips, and took a long swig.
Even with her eyes closed, the memories kept coming.
She was grappling with a burly agent in a black uniform, mere steps away from Zane’s bleeding body.
As he hurled her body into the stone, pain cracked through her jaw.
Cuffs clinked as he locked them around her wrists.
Then his comm crackled, and a clipped voice flowed through:
“Acknowledged, Obsidian. Meet at the rendezvous point as planned.”
Mira gulped down the rest of the bottle, trying to force the memories away.
But that haunting voice hissed in her ears along with her family’s screams, as lasers mowed them down and blasts skewered Vesta. A blinding red haze clouded the distant slaughter, but that voice followed her: “We will find you, young one… you can’t hide forever…”
Mira hurled the empty bottle at the far wall.
The sound of shattering glass only added to the rage burning in her veins.
She shoved it all down, hard , locking that voice and Vesta’s screams deep down where they couldn’t hurt her.
This was her ship. The hitch in the rattling thruster, the gusts of warmth flowing from the chipped heating units, the familiar license plate nailed to the wall—V3STA. She was safe.
“We will find you, young one…”
Mira whimpered.
Eight cycles had passed since she’d heard that voice, but it was her . She was back. The woman who’d given orders to the agent on the dueling platform was the same woman who’d murdered Vesta and the crew.
If she was taken, and that bitch ever found out where she was…
“You can’t hide forever.”
She couldn’t let that happen.
Her comm trilled, sending daggers through her pounding skull. She fumbled around the kaf table, knocking empty cyrs to the floor. The caller ID read ‘Playboy’ . Again.
She couldn’t talk to Zane now. Not until she unraveled the mystery of her glowing red eyes, not until she understood the Speaker’s cryptic words in that cave. Not until she had answers.
But stars, where was she supposed to start?
TO BE CONTINUED