A thousand years before this war, their race had inhabited Tejen, one single planet, living there quite peacefully and in harmony with all living things. There were great beasts that breathed fire, and Evris were their companions. When they came of age, the warriors amongst them went to the heart of the forest and sought one out, binding their hearts together.

This sacred bond with nature, cultivated with love, strengthened them. Some lines of Evris, known for their valor, were blessed with a link with nature. Magic, they’d call it.

Mages were revered and celebrated. All of them tamed dragons with ease, brought rain when the fields were dry, and stopped tornadoes from destroying cities. Mages were their protectors. Even more so when aliens came down from the skies.

The invading creatures had sought their world’s resources. Evris fought, but, against the technology of a race that could travel through the infinity of space, their weapons were little more than sticks and stones. Every one of their weapons—except magic.

She was born during that war. A child. No one knew whose. What they knew was that one day, she stopped time. Another day, she called night, moving the sun by her strength of will. That’s when they started to call her Darkness. The child grew in power every year. Finally, she destroyed a thousand enemy ships in one blast.

Once the enemies were gone, one thing remained. Darkness. A child who could kill them all effortlessly. Who wanted to take that risk?

The Wise council of mages at the head of her order voted, and they voted wrong. Only one voice spoke against their decision that day.

The vote was a sentence: death. For the safety of all, the child was condemned.

If they’d managed to kill her then, the consequences might have been less destructive. They didn’t. How could they?

Darkness ran alone. She didn’t stay so for long. Worshipped by some, admired by others, she soon had followers. The Darklings. They took over the world and cornered the Wise, who fled, along with their supporters, using the foreign alien technology to leave their original world behind.

Darkness followed, determined to destroy her enemies. The first inhabitable sector she found was what was now called the Ratna Belt. There, she was eventually defeated, but a seer foresaw her return.

The Wise settled on Magneo, forming their new order there. The Empire. They enthroned a leader without magic and ordered that every child born with power be put to rest for the good of the entire universe.

Darkness came back. Again and again and again. And each time, before it came of age, before it became conscious of the extent of its power, it was killed.

Until now.

For the thousandth time, Nalini closed her eyes and tried as hard as she could to see more. Most of the books about these ancient times were nothing short of fairy tales. Those that seemed even remotely accurate had been written by the Wise, who may or may not be biased on that subject. But it was ever so important that she grasped what had happened the first time, in order to avoid the same end.

But past and future were clouded. No, not clouded. Purposefully blocked. As though a force consciously prevented her from seeing more. That made little sense to Nalini. This only occurred when she attempted to see her own future in details.

She cursed and got up, feeling helpless, frustrated, and confused.

Over the decades, centuries, the Imperials grew in size and power, discovering and conquering more worlds. Yet they always left the Belt relatively alone, allowing it to be ruled by its leader, rather than considering it as a territory of the Imperials. It was still mostly inhabited by the descendants of those who’d accompanied Darkness and settled there. Over time, Evris had succeeded in weaning most of the magical blood from their families, but still, in that sector, there had always been more children developing those aptitudes, as most of them had Darkling blood.

Vratis had been the City of Darkness. Still, it showed. Even a thousand years later, there were spells guarding against enemies, pushing Kai back every time he attempted an offensive.

Kai had no clue how to fight against these powers. A magnetic field, he would have been prepared for, but this was something else. The entire planet was coated in pure magic. An elemental magic he recognized—fire and something more. It felt like his.

Instead of attacking the main system, he took the surrounding planets, cutting the warlord off, leaving him nothing but his one planet.

Vratis was used to receiving provisions from all over the sector; the planet was a center of commerce and politics, with leisure palaces and luxury retreats. The siege didn’t last long. In 1226, at age 33, Kai entered the warlord’s palace as its new ruler. Enlil’s son had killed his own father in his sleep and called to surrender.

Now, Kai was done. He didn’t hold every single planet in the Belt, but he didn’t need to. No one would contest his absolute rule. His laws would stand. They’d have peace.

He should have felt fulfilled. Happy, even. Not lost, confused, and disappointed.

He shouldn’t be. He hadn’t expected the female to miraculously appear the moment he’d reached his goal. Still, something felt wrong.

The only person who might have an answer—as he had an answer for all things, or so it seemed—had left the previous day.

“Listen, kid, I gotta dash. There’s somewhere I need to be.”

“Sure,” he’d replied, shrugging indifferently. “When will you be back?”

“I won’t come back.”

Kai had stared at Ian Krane in complete disbelief. Imagining a world where the old male wasn’t by his side barely made sense.

But it had happened the moment they’d landed on Vratis. Krane was gone, taking Nox with him.

Strange how hard it was to see what one has, until it’s taken.

Kai was purposefully not thinking of his old friend, mentor—whatever Krane had been—and his unexpected defection. There was too much to do, too much to plan.

At least, Wench had good news about the girl. He could hold on to that.

Kai followed his young mechanic to the surveillance level, where the boy prepped him by saying, “Okay, so we found her and compiled one single file for you. It took a while; there were years of data. We’ve fast-forwarded through the irrelevant stuff; so overall, you have about three hours of recordings. I could just tell you what happened, but….”

“No,” he replied, adamant. “I’ll watch it.”

Wench smiled goofily, visibly proud as he handed his lord a slim database controller. Catching himself in time, for once, Kai told him, “Well done.”

He glanced down and saw three letters marked in an ancient phonetic alphabet on top of the database. NA-LI-NI.

He recognized that name. Down to his bones.