by May Sage
Kai liked Isha, although the feeling wasn’t mutual. Kai had always been good at telling how people felt. His mother’s brother watched him with some suspicion, as though he expected him to do something unforgivable any second. It didn’t bother the child. He knew trust was earned. Someday, Isha would know he was good, reliable. Isha already nodded at his work from time to time.
Along with half a dozen other apprentices, Kai labored in silence for hours under the watchful eye of the workmaster assigned to the forges. Then came their break. Someone rang a bell in the distance, indicating their food was ready, and they had fifteen minutes to go fetch it and eat it.
Everyone hurried to secure their work before heading out toward the eating hall.
One apprentice rushed the process that day. Instead of properly locking the blade he was sculpting onto the overhead shelf, Fein just hurriedly crammed it there.
Kai turned and screamed, “No!” before anyone saw the trajectory of the weapon as it fell. The slaves froze. The workmaster turned and watched Kai, who was standing, hand outstretched.
The blade had been halted in its course, millimeters away from Isha’s face.
He’d never forget his uncle’s face. There was terror in his eyes.
Kai didn’t understand. He couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Why hadn’t the blade fallen to pierce Isha’s skull, like he’d felt it would? Like he’d seen it would.
But he knew why. He’d stopped it. Without touching it, he’d stopped the object in midair. He could feel it, feel his hold on the metal as surely as if his hand had been around it. It wasn’t his hand holding it, though; it was his mind.
That was his last thought as the workmaster hit him hard with the hilt of his blaster. Kai fell unconscious and woke up in chains.
He’d never been here before, but he knew exactly where he stood. The marble walls, the tall statues, the gold on the ceiling were all too luxurious for any other edifice in Haimo. He was in the palace.
In front of him stood Akia and Veli.
Veli was older than Kai, a teenager. He watched him with unconcealed rage. Akia was simply cold. His expression betrayed nothing.
Somehow Kai knew that it was all a facade. Beneath the indifference and the disdain, there was one clear feeling emanating from both father and son.
Fear.
They feared him.
They should.
“How long have you had magic?”
Magic. Was that what that was? Kai’s heart stopped. He’d heard of magic. He’d heard those who wielded it were dangerous and evil.
He knew that they were killed.
“I don’t—”
“Don’t lie, child.”
He closed his mouth.
He had magic. He’d witnessed and felt it; why deny it? Kai was no liar.
“I don’t suppose it matters.” Akia gestured to his guard. “Lead the boy to the woods, tie him up. I won’t curse this land by spilling magical blood. Let the beasts and the cold take him.”
Kai knew he was going to die when they left him outside the village, tightly bound to a tree. He didn’t cry. It felt… familiar, like he’d lived through this again and again.
Like he knew this wasn’t the end. He’d come back. He glared at the master defiantly. However many times they destroyed him, he’d come back.
* * *
Away from this, in a system where slavery was outlawed—the only system of the sort in the whole of the Ratna Belt—she was born that day.
They called her Nalini, daughter of Moa and Claus Nova, lords of the Val, King and Queen of Itri. As she was the eldest child in a strong line, rooted right back to their original planet, the happy parents cried for their little princess, foreseeing that she would do great things.
They had no idea.
She opened her eyes—one was blue and the other amber, almost gold—and every object in the room started to fly.
Then, they really cried, because there was only one fate for those of their kind born with magic in their veins.
Death.
* * *
And yet, neither of those children were destroyed that day.
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