Page 79 of The First Spark
Mylis snorted. “Sometimes, I’d rather face an asteroid than everything going on down here.”
“I know the feeling.” Kalie sipped at her tea. “I don’t know much about piloting, just the basics, but being in a ship is an escape for me too. When I’m flying away from Dali, I’m on an adventure. It’s never anything exciting, politics mostly, but Ariah and I used to pretend…” She drew in a shaky breath. “I think calm is what I need now, though. A new perspective.”
“You’ll get that up in the air.”
Blood was rushing in her ears, creeping to her neck and cheeks. “Maybe someday you’ll have to take me flying. If you can stand the intrusion.”
“You, my lady, could never be an intrusion.” Mylis gave her a crooked smile as his cheeks turned pink.
Kalie’s face heated, and she quickly looked away.
Clearing his throat, Mylis motioned to the mortelle board abandoned on an end table. “You play?”
“Oh, no. Uncle Jerran’s tried teaching me for cycles, but strategy isn’t my forte.”
“Set it up. I’ll teach you.” Mylis winked. “I guarantee I can do it without any of Roth’s complicated metaphors.”
Kalie chuckled. “He taught you too?”
“Yeah, but I’m nowhere near as good as him.”
She glanced at the stack of papers and holopads scattered across Aunt Calida’s magnificent oak desk. They could wait. She grabbed the mortelle board, tipped a few of the crystal pieces over, and set it up between her and Mylis.
For what felt like hours, they talked and played and talked some more. He told her about his adventures in the Skyforce. She complained about the never-ending headache that came with her new position. They delighted in poking fun at some of the more stuck-up nobles; Mylis did an imitation of Count Leighton that had her wheezing, and after that, she couldn’t stop laughing. Neither could he. When the chrono struck noon and his shift ended, she found herself wishing he would stay.
“Mylis…”
He turned back at the door, tilting his head.
Kalie bit her lip. “Would you be willing to join me for tea again tomorrow?”
“I’d love to, Your Majesty.”
“Call me Kalie.”
Mylis smiled at her. It was a beautiful smile, one that shone in his eyes and stretched across his face. Somehow, she knew that smile was a thing of rare beauty, brighter than the glowing diamonds in the chandelier above her. A hidden treasure.
She beamed back at him.
Dali, Sector 4
Decemmensis-28, 817 cycles A.F.C.
“We’ve been draggingour heels for weeks,” Kalie said, resting her elbows on the long oak table spanning the Advisorium’s meeting chamber. The sun’s glare, fractured into colorful glows by the stained glass, pierced her eyes. The counts and senior barons stared back at her with varying degrees of disinterest and hostility. “Public support for a rebellion declines each day. Our allies agree?—”
“Ourallies.” Count Leighton snorted. “Duchissa, these rebels would only beourallies if this Advisorium had ratified a declaration of war, which we have not. I would’ve thought—” her pot-bellied cousin raised his voice as nobles on the other side of the table raised theirs— “I would’ve thought that by now, you would’ve accepted that none of us want to go to war with another tyrant!”
“Do not presume to speak for all of us, Count,” snapped an older man, but an uproar from the Silver turncoats, Grandmother Madeleine’s old supporters, drowned him out.
Kalie banged her gavel, but the sound didn’treach her ears.
“Order! Order!”
Count Leighton was halfway out of his plush red chair. Spit flew from his mouth as he ranted at the Azure nobles, Aunt Calida’s faction. “The last war destroyed this planet!”
“She was our sovereign?—”
“What’s done is done!” Leighton bellowed.
