Kai took Pender within the next seven months. As it was the main planet in the Darien system, the entire system fell to his rule in no time. Itri was his next target, but he surprised everyone involved by preferring diplomacy this one time.

He spoke to the Novas in a private council; none of his men knew what was said, but, next thing they knew, Itri was theirs, too. The Novas retained their titles and their resources. As the system had already outlawed slavery, their main concession was guaranteeing safety to those born with magic. And, of course, some of Kai’s troops stayed behind to see to the transition.

Nalini was genuinely surprised to see soldiers in exosuits parading around Fruja. They really were thorough, if they visited their irrelevant little village.

She pulled her hood around her face and resolved to stay home while they were in town.

“They’re pretty cool,” Kronos told her. “They have weapons, but I saw one of them make something float in his hand. Right out there, in public.”

The child’s eyes were widened in wonder. The very notion of not having to hide magic was as foreign as it was wonderful. Nalini smiled, hoping that the world would become a place where they were safe to do just that someday. But it wasn’t. Not yet. Not for her, in any case.

“What do you think they’re doing here?” the boy wondered.

She shrugged. “There’s a lot of disagreement over Kai Lor Hora’s rule, from the talk. Maybe they’re looking for insurgents.”

Or for her.

Probably both.

Kronos snorted. “Here? Yeah, right. Like something half that interesting would ever happen here.”

He hated their little village. To be honest, so did Nali. There was a whole world out there they could fly to, explore.

But the village was safe, for the thirteen-year-old boy and for her.

Or so she thought, until half a dozen men stormed into her house.

They’d watched her carefully avoid them and avert her eyes, and, for their simplistic commander, that was enough to warrant a forceful questioning. What reason would a pretty young female have to be quite so wary of them if she didn’t have anything to hide?

Eager to prove himself, Yurik Grans ordered the raid that sealed his fate.

As a seer, Nalini was always a little frustrated when something she hadn’t seen at any point occurred, but her own future, and things in the immediate future, were often clouded. She knew the date when the sun of their system was going to die in millions of years. She knew that the palace where her parents lived was going to burn in less than a decade. She saw it clearly, marked in stone. However, she’d be hard pressed to predict what time she was going to wake up the next morning.

Nalini froze, eyes wide open, as her door was kicked open.

Her surprise didn’t last long. The next second, the hilt of her whip floated to her extended hand. The instant the object touched her palm, the whip flashed red, her power coursing through it, coating it in something far deadlier than the energy it had been built to contain.

“Trust me when I say you don’t want to do this, boys,” she roared darkly.

Nalini wasn’t one for violence, given a choice. She detested war, and there were always alternatives to fighting, as far as she was concerned. But these men had entered her home armed and without an invitation. So, yes, responding with a whip in hand seemed appropriate.

“You’re mage.”

Yurik was confused for an instant. It didn’t compute. He’d imagined that she had some loyalist intel, but loyalists, the old warlord’s supporters still fighting against Kai in every system, were firmly anti-magic. He might have made a mistake here.

He took a step forward, hand up. “Look—”

The female cracked her whip. “Come closer, I dare you.”

He was no coward. Lord Kai himself had remarked upon his courage in the past. But that female made him freeze and want to turn back.

He was about to explain he’d just assumed she was an insurgent, and maybe even apologize, when something hit him from the side. Something fast and powerful. Yurik’s finger automatically pulled the trigger of his blaster, aiming and shooting at the threat.

The threat stopped and fell. A long silent second passed as what he’d done sank in.

It was a boy. Just a little boy, not even a teenager. And he’d shot him right between the eyes.

* * *

He felt it from worlds away. Heard the scream like she was right next to him. The hole forming in her bright, soft, loving heart hurt his, practically bringing him to his knees. He couldn’t breathe.

Nalini was hurting like she’d never hurt before. And for the first time, he was the one who instinctively travelled to her.

He took in the scene before his eyes.

Nalini was on the floor, crying over the body of a child. The boy she’d saved from Enlil. Kai recognized him from the recordings he’d watched, although he was much older now. And dead.

Yurik stood speechless and trembling at his own action. “Lord—”

He didn’t let him finish that sentiment. Kai lifted his hand, and the commander fell, screaming in pain.

He took in her simple, large, one-room dwelling in one glance. It was disorderly; she hadn’t made her small bed, on one side, or the smaller one tucked away next to it. Dark clothing hung behind a chair. His eyes settled on her bedding. It smelled like her, no doubt. He hooked his hands together, behind his back, to fight against his compulsion to make things just right.

Kai advanced toward Nalini carefully, slowly. He crouched close to her and put his hand on her back.

“You did this.”

Her spiteful accusation didn’t faze him. He hadn’t, and yet he had. Everything his enforcers did was a reflection of his rule. Instinctively, Kai just ran his palm up and down her back in a comforting motion that soothed them both. He’d never done that to a living soul, not even Sky.

Finally, he dared to look directly at the boy. Nalini loved him, that much was clear. He was her child, in a way. In another world, Kai might have cared for him, too.

Kai put his free hand on the boy’s forehead, covering the wound he didn’t want to see, and moved it down to close his eyes.

As his hand caressed the still-warm skin of the dead boy, Kai felt something. Something pulling at him, tugging at the edge of his mind.

Frowning, he gave into his instinct and pushed energy through his mind. Nalini turned her glare on him, a protest ready on her lips, no doubt. Kai saw her open her mouth from the corner of his eye. Whatever colorful words she’d planned to say, they never crossed her lips. A faint light lit up inside Kai’s palm, and transferred to the boy’s body.

He felt it being absorbed, taken in by the lifeless child.

After a few instants, they felt it; the child’s presence was back. He wasn’t breathing, not yet. But there was a spark of life inside this body; as mage, they could decipherer the presence of a life form.

“That’s not possible,” Nalini breathed next to him. “He is dead.”

Kai shut her out and kept on pushing everything he had, everything he was. Back on Vratis, his nose bled blue and his body shook.

“Fuck.” Nalini rushed to place her own hand on top of his. Without hesitation, she trusted him and relinquished all of her strength to him.

He’d never felt power like this before. The instant he let her in, he truly, physically, felt connected to every part of the universe. Each flower, animal, each dying star, each crying mother birthing daughters and sons, and each old couple dying hand in hand were part of him. He saw them all, past and future forever interlinked. And he felt her love for it all. The pureness of her beautiful soul.

Kai had the power to make the earth beneath him shake, reduce worlds to cinder, and Nalini was light to his dark. Life to his destruction.

But right now, they were together, finishing the circle that should never have been broken. His body stopped struggling in his cold, dark chamber. Right then, everything was effortless. Golden energy coated their intertwined fingers. Life and death, that they could mold like gods. The strands of translucent matter entered the child’s broken body and lit it up before fading.

The boy’s chest rose and fell. And again. Kai moved his hand, still coated in blood. There wasn’t so much as a scratch or a scar where the child had been shot.

“Kronos,” she whispered through her tears.

The boy blinked. “Wow. Talk about trippy.”

She laughed, cried, and pulled him to her arms, holding him close.

Then, Nalini’s glare lifted to him. Cold. Unforgiving.

“I’m sorry.”

No response crossed her lips.

“We don’t shoot children, Nalini. This was visibly an accident. The party responsible has already paid for it.” He waved toward the dead male in her foyer.

“Get out.”

Everything in him rebelled against it, but right then, he had no hopes of getting through to her, he knew it. With time, she’d forgive him. She’d be grateful for his help, too. But now all she knew was that her child had died because of his troops.

He tilted his head, and his stunned enforcers rushed out the door.

How he wished Nalini would just come home, where she’d be safe. Today, it had been his side. Next time, it could be insurgents or Imperials. She could take care of herself, but he didn’t want her to have to.

“Thank you, mister,” the boy called out as he disappeared, returning to his body.

He found it in himself to smile. “Take care of her.”

The moment he regained consciousness, reentering his body crouched on the floor and immobile, he went to his command board and checked on Yurik Grans’s placement.

The Val. A little village in the outback of the most irrelevant county of Itri, the principal planet in the system. He pulled up his map and marked it with a red pin. If he was right, Nalini and the boy would be gone by morning. He recorded the intel, nonetheless. He’d purposefully look for similar locations in the future. Remote, yet close enough to a consequential system for her to have access to every type of technology and recent news. The sort of place those who were running from something preferred.

And she was running. From him.

Kai could have had her trailed, but that seemed counterproductive now. She wouldn’t be receptive to anything he had to offer today.

He had to do better. Be better. Represent something she’d approve of. He’d do his very best, and then soon, she’d be by his side.

That, he refused to doubt for one instant.