Page 146 of The First Spark
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 hurtat 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 killedus, 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. Theywouldn’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?”
