by May Sage
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.
Three
The Wise
The villagers watched with silent grief as Kai was tied up, bound by the wrists high about his head. His mother was one of the last to leave, tears in her eyes. Not a word crossed her lips. His uncle stayed until everyone else was gone.
No one attempted to free him. He didn’t expect them to. They would have been filmed doing it by the hundreds of drones flying around Haimo at any given time, and then they would have shared his fate.
“I always saw it in you,” said Isha. The words weren’t accusatory. He sounded sad. “You know just what to do when no one explains it. Things that take years to learn, things my most senior apprentices can’t do, you mastered in minutes. I’ve heard that those with magic were faster than us. Smarter.” His uncle shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Kai’s lips were turning blue, and he couldn’t feel his feet right then. The apology left him entirely cold, like everything else. He didn’t reply, and, at long last, Isha left him.
By the time darkness came, he could barely keep his eyes open. When he closed them, it would be the end. At that point, Kai wished it would arrive quickly. The bitter frost had taken his heart, his blood, his very being.
Hours passed. He closed his eyes and tried, tried as hard as he could to find peace. But his heart was as weary as it was wary. He felt like his life wasn’t his to give up. Not just his at least.
If he died today, someone else would die too. He couldn’t explain it, even to himself, but he couldn’t shake that strange notion. Kai searched inside him, digging deep for an explanation of any sort. He didn’t find one. Instead, breathing slowly, calmly, serenely, he found something else. Something strong he’d not even begun to tap into. The instant he connected to it, it came to him.
Warmth. Fire.
Kai mistook the unexpected comfort for death at first, but his eyes opened and the confused boy stared at a flame floating right in front of his face, practically burning his frozen nose.
He watched it, taking in the impossibility in disbelief.
And he saw other things, too. A few feet away, beasts had come, attracted to the darkness and the smell of his flesh. A pack of snow wolves. Beautiful, terrible beasts. Had they been standing up, they would have reached the size of a grown Evris man; on all four, they were almost as tall as Kai. They stayed away from the slaves’ village when the lights were on, but it was dark now. They’d no doubt sensed an easy prey.
The fire Kai had conjured made them pause.
Kai tried to think clearly, ignore the fear, the cold, the pain. The fire was doing nothing more than keeping the immediate dangers at bay, simply prolonging his suffering. He closed his eyes and attempted to coax it into listening to his will.
The flame moved upward and started licking at his bonds. The wolves approached now that it was out of the way.
“Goddess Light, please hurry,” he muttered urgently.
The flames became more intense, eating at the rope faster. They should have burned his fingers; somehow, they didn’t.
His hands were free by the time the closest wolf was upon him. Falling forward, as his weak, frozen limbs wouldn’t carry him, he watched the animal pounce.
His hand reached out, like it had back at the forge, an instinctive movement that had little to do with what was occurring right then in the physical world. Energy flowed from him to the beast, half caring, gentle, and just as authoritative. I won’t hurt you, it said, as well as a clear, simple order. Submit.
The wolf whimpered and dropped its head. The rest of the pack stilled, watching Kai with their bright, beady eyes. Then they all howled in one voice, and their stance relaxed. They didn’t seem ready to pounce now.
“I take it I’m not dinner anymore.”
That was good. Great, in fact. It didn’t change the fact that he was going to die unless he got himself off-planet.
Struggling, Kai got painfully to his feet. His first steps were slow. Feeling warmer, warmer than he’d ever been outside, he started to jog in the direction of the palace hangar.
Kai was a little confused to see the wolves follow suit, but there was no time to question it.
His speed increased; in no time, he was standing in front of the hangars where the Hora kept their ships.
There were guards, four of them at the door. More inside, he knew it. Twelve. He could… feel them. Their life force. Their presence.
These guards stood between him and his freedom. His very existence.
Both of Kai’s hands lifted this time. Then he closed his fists, an automatic movement that yet again accompanied the rush of energy his mind released.
The four guards before him were violently pushed backward, hitting the wall.
He stood there confused for a half second, before running inside.
Whatever luck he lived by could run out at any moment now. He was as silent as he could be, and, following his lead, the wolves advanced softly.
Kai got to the first ship before any guards spotted him. Seeing the pack of five bluish-white wolves that reached past his shoulders get into it, Kai’s mouth opened. But rather than voicing a protest they wouldn’t comprehend, he shrugged and climbed further inside the dark cockpit, taking in the high-tech, unfamiliar surroundings.
He had no clue how to navigate a ship.
His uncle’s voice resonated in his mind.
You know just what to do when no one explains it. Things that take years to learn, you mastered in minutes.
Ships had an autopilot, right? He just had to find a way to engage it.
“Quiet,” he told the wolves, advancing toward the control panel of the ship.
It was all very complicated. A panel with a lot of options and various screens. There was a big red button on the right-hand side and a hand lever that looked important.
Who was he kidding? He couldn’t do something this technical by himself. He’d never been in a spaceship before. He wasn’t even familiar with the strange alphabet the instructions were written in. No way, no how.
But if he didn’t somehow manage to make this thing fly, he’d die.
Kai closed his eyes. He stayed that way for a long time, too long perhaps. Any moment, the guards would find the men he’d left outside and storm the hangar….
He put that possibility, and every other worry, out of his mind and just breathed. The child found himself kneeling and holding his head down as his mind searched deep inside him.
His eyes opened again, and Kai moved to sit in the chair in front of the panel. He fastened the security belt. His arms moved like he’d done this routine a thousand times before. He would have been hard-pressed to explain what he was doing—it felt like muscle memory rather than any conscious choice. Kai started the ignition and pushed the stabilizers, then reached above his head, turning on the artificial gravity and the oxygen-level regulator. Finally, he started the engine.
The system went live. Guards shouted, pointing at him from a distance, rushing with their blasters in hand. Shield. Activate the cloaking function, too. He lowered the commands on his left to engage it and then activated the propulsors.
Kai was out of the hangar at high speed. He navigated out of the atmosphere before punching to warp mode, without inputting any coordinates. It didn’t matter where he went, as long as it was far, far away from the only home he knew.
He briefly th
ought of his mother, of old Kumi, Balu, and Isha too. But still, he went forward. His life was starting now.
Kai would soon learn his bronze coin wasn’t worth much in the real word. And that space could be as cold as the bitterest nights on Haimo. He felt hunger and fear and, for a long time, loneliness.
But he lived.
Enlil, Warlord of Ratna, didn’t believe in coincidences, not where magic was concerned. That he’d lose his seer, his secret weapon, the very day another mage was born in his sector meant something.
Magic didn’t develop in most until later in life; children started to display these aptitudes in their teens. Yet, the Nova family reported a child who could make objects move with her mind from the cradle.
They were a good, loyal family. An old and powerful one too.
He’d had his ship prepared immediately; now he stood before the couple who ruled Itri. They looked tired. Queen Moa was as painfully beautiful as ever, and Claus, as puzzlingly undeserving of her. He was too meek for a female like his wife. She should have been consort to a male of Enlil’s caliber.
Neither of them was carrying the child. They weren’t even looking at her; no doubt reluctant to form an attachment for a thing destined to die.
Enlil advanced toward the servant who held the infant.
“What’s her name?”
Moa closed her eyes. Claus replied, “Nalini. We called her that before….”
A good, strong name.
Enlil looked at the little thing. Unlike his own children when they’d been days old, she wasn’t wiggling happily, or cooing some nonsense. She wasn’t crying out either. She looked severe, as though she knew her fate was being determined.
“Three years,” Enlil stated.
Moa lifted her blue eyes. Claus frowned.
“You’ll keep her for three years. Make sure she can speak. I’ll come for her then.”
They were confused. “The Wise have decreed that mages….”
Yes, and Enlil was only too happy to carry out that directive. Mages were too powerful. A real threat to his rule.
“The Wise are hypocrites. They wield magic themselves. If it’s that dangerous, why don’t they jump off a cliff?”
The Novas stared at each other in shock.
“I keep one mage. She’ll stay under my supervision. As long as she’s loyal and useful to me, the child can live.”
Four
The Child
Nine years passed in a blink of an eye. Kai managed just fine, most of the time. All right, so he wasn’t always on the right side of the law. Make that never. What did they expect of a child without a family or any friends out there? He stole stuff to survive, making a point of only taking from those who could afford the loss.
It had served him well until now. Today, his luck had run out.
Damn, he hated being in chains. Hated it. It served as a reminder of a past he didn’t wish to ponder. Something in Kai boiled under the surface. With some effort, he kept it under check. No, he told it firmly. Never again.
It had been close to a decade since he’d made use of that part of him, but he wasn’t about to forget the lesson he’d learned that day. Using magic wasn’t a solution, not for anyone who wanted to live in peace. And where he was, in Vratis, home of the warlord of the entire Ratna Belt, it would simply have been suicide. Thieves were imprisoned; that beat what happened to mages.
Kai lifted his gaze to his hands, tied high above his head in a familiar, and uncomfortable, position. They’d used energy-field bonds, the good stuff. He wasn’t going to break out of those easily. The door to his cell was flimsy in comparison, a simple lock he could pick with just about anything sharp, long, or pointy. Old-fashioned. It suited the rest of the edifice, built in the old days.
Ratna was one of the first conglomeration of systems the Evris had found when they’d left the original world they’d come from, over a thousand imperial years ago. They’d shaped it like the temples of old, with high halls and curved domes letting in light. Whoever was in charge of the decoration of the cells was old school; the structure had been modified as little as possible. Modernized, not compromised.
It said a lot about his race as a whole. So unwilling to embrace change, evolution. Stuck in the golden old days.
Kai smiled and tugged on his energy chains, observing the ceiling. Bingo. The bonds might be unrelenting, but the foundation wouldn’t hold if he applied the right amount of speed and force.
He bent his knees and got ready to jump when a noise caught his attention.
Kai turned to the main doors beyond the bars of his cell, feet away. Guards. He adjusted his stance, regaining an inconspicuous position.
There were too many guards for little old Kai. At least a dozen. If he considered that they could be taking precautions because they suspected who—what—he was, he kept his concern well hidden.
One of the guards opened his cell and stepped aside to let the others pass. The rest of the guards parted, and Kai frowned in confusion.
They hadn’t been here for him at all. The guards encircled someone else. A child. A boy between eight and ten years of age perhaps. His bald head drew attention to his strange eyes. Kai looked into them and felt something stir in him. Not quite fear. Not quite wariness. But there was no doubt, he needed to be careful of that child.
One of his eyes was blue, the other amber, practically gold. Both were intensely focused on him.
No. Not a boy at all, he realized. The child wore plain, asexual, simple clothing, and the lack of hair had fooled him at first, but it was a girl.
Not that it mattered. Her sex didn’t change the fact that the girl was dangerous.
One humorless laugh escaped him. So much for the law everyone across the lands of Ratna diligently complied with. Their sector and the Imperials had an interesting dynamic. Everyone knew the Imperials wished they could completely claim their sector, but they didn’t try. While small, the Ratna Belt was a powerful multi-planet kingdom, isolated and well protected. Still, their uneasy peace was based on the understanding that the warlord of their sector still had to obey one of their laws. Just one.
As the Wise of the Imperial Council demanded, the warlord ordered that every magic user be killed. And yet, good old Enlil kept one mage under his own roof.
Kai knew, from the bottom of his very soul, that the child was a mage. She wasn’t even attempting to hide it. He felt power emanating from her. So much power.
She also knew him for what he was. Her steady, intense gaze had seen right through him, to his own essence. And she was going to tell them. That was why she’d been brought to him. No doubt, they used the child to identify and eliminate rogue mages.
«You’re smarter than you look.»
He heard her voice directly in his head; her lips didn’t move. Her expression remained unreadable.
“Untie him.” Out loud, she sounded cold and severe, while there had been a gentleness to her tone when she’d addressed him in his mind.
No child should have quite so much authority. None of the guards thought to disobey. Seizing a control screen, one of them input his code, and the bonds disappeared.
Kai rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck.
“Thanks.”
The child tilted her head. He knew his mistake right away. He’d made it sound like she’d done him a favor, perhaps even thought of his comfort. And he realized, before she even moved, that she was going to make a point of proving that she hadn’t.
Her hand reached out, and violently, without so much as a warning and with no way to stop it, Kai was pushed down to his knees; his head bobbed down. Her mystical hold on him was lifted immediately. That had been a warning. Kai remained on his knees. He was right at her level that way, looking into her face.
He focused on her, trying to understand it. Her.
“What am I to search for?” she asked.
One of the guards explained, “He stole a speeder. When he was chased, he evaded our best men. We wouldn’t
have caught him if the owner hadn’t had an infraction for unlawful parking the previous day. The vehicle was tracked.”
Kai had to shake his head in distaste. Being brought down because of a parking ticket was a brand-new kind of pathetic.
“I’m not usually disturbed for petty theft,” said the child.
He imagined she wasn’t. No, this child probably sat next to their lord in his council chambers and spent the rest of her time meditating on the fate of the world.
He could be mistaken, but he would have sworn he saw the phantom of a thin smile on her lips for a fleeting instant.
“He was too good. Lord Enlil wants him scanned.”
The child nodded before stepping toward him. She took her time. One step, then she lifted both of her hands. Another step. An intake of breath. Then, she reached out and slowly touched each side of his face. Barely. A featherlight touch.
It felt like a punch in the gut. Kai had to fight the darker part of himself harder than he ever had before. His magic wanted to lash out and recoil from those soft, warm hands.
His body stayed put. Then the real torture started.
He didn’t scream. He breathed in and out, hard, in sync with the child, as vision after vision flipped through both of their minds.
Little Akai Lor of Hora crawling away from danger in the cold. Him crying that night, alone. Cursing his stars. Hunger. Darkness. Fear. Images he didn’t recognize. Some he never wanted to see ever again. Others….
His mind stopped spinning, focusing on it. On her.
In this vision, Kai stood even taller than his current considerable height, and he was also older. Rougher, perhaps. He was bearing an expression that had never marred his features, yet it seemed as solid as anything he’d ever seen. He was at peace. Finally, finally at peace. And all because of her. The female in his arms smiled softly. Her sky-blue eyes looked at him as though he’d just come down from the stars and offered her the entire world.