Seven years ago.

She needed to stop the bleeding, keep herself and the crying child calm—-but more importantly, she needed transport off this planet, out of this system. Now. Because Enlil would soon have the entire place on lockdown and destroyers blasting everything unauthorized trying to take off from Vratis.

“You’re okay. We’re okay,” she told the boy. “Listen, if we don’t get out of here now, we’re going to get in big, big trouble. You think you can run with me?”

He nodded while pouting.

Good. She couldn’t carry him long while bleeding out like this.

Nalini looked in every direction before closing her eyes. Eyes were deceiving. When they opened again, flashing amber, she knew where to go. “Let’s get moving.”

She found a small, wealthy village and stopped at the first home. An elegant young couple was having dinner. They looked at her, distraught and terrified. Nalini didn’t know either of them. They were probably good people. They didn’t deserve to have their free will stripped away. No one did.

Right now, it didn’t matter.

Her eyes gold, she stared them down.

The female moved first, heading to the bathroom to get the medic pack out. The male started to describe his transport, telling her exactly how to unlock the security system around it.

“You need to get out of here,” she told them, another order. Although they’d not done any of it of their own will, they’d be punished, tortured, and probably killed for helping her if they were found. “Now.”

They obeyed this compulsion just like the others. Nalini didn’t let the guilt eat at her conscience over the violation. Then, and later, she did what she had to.

And she lived.

Now.

Nalini woke up to a familiar feeling; only, it was a thousand time stronger. Kai, she knew. But it didn’t feel like there was anything wrong with him that day.

She remained in her bed, breathing in and out, willing herself to clear her mind. She’d had the dream again. That dream. The jumbled mixture of visions that made her both want to seek out and run from Kai. It exhausted her and left her restless.

“Nali!” a little voice called out, pulling her back to reality. “Client.”

She lifted her head toward the small window in her room. It was barely dawn. They’d better pay extra.

She stretched and dragged a tunic up her tired limbs before emerging. “Have you been up all night again?” she asked the boy.

Kronos was a night owl. At thirteen, the boy was allowed to keep whatever sleeping habits he wanted, as long as he was up on time for school and did his chores. Nalini was pretty certain many a parent would have disagreed, but well, she wasn’t much of a parent at all.

After running from Vratis together seven years ago, they’d stuck together, traveling as brother and sister. No one questioned the story; Kronos was dark of hair, and while they didn’t share many features, they certainly did have a similar snarky attitude.

It had taken a while to find somewhere she felt safe. At first, they’d moved often, always looking over their shoulder. But strangely, she’d finally settled on Itri, her home world.

Enlil had every guard looking for her in every single system of the Ratna Belt. There was a humongous price on her head, and it had recently changed to a higher amount. However, thankfully, her poster showed a little monk in white, with her signature heterochromatic eyes. She could genuinely look an enforcer right in the eye without them so much as lifting a brow now.

Nali’s eyes were both blue these days. She’d learned to control it, as long as she kept her powers in check when she had company, they stayed that way. She’d started growing her hair out right away. After over half a dozen years, it reached her lower back. She often had it colored for fun. Right now, the bottom part of it was bright red. She never wore white, cream, or other boring shades she’d had to stick to in her youth. In fact, most of her wardrobe was black.

The one thing she couldn’t change was her DNA, and the authorities did have that in their records. So she did her very best to stay away from officials. As it turned out, she wasn’t the only drifter who preferred to stay away from authority’s radar. A lot of them had ended up in the Var.

The system had recently acquired a reputation for being quite loose with protocols. They rarely did a proper census, and no one was required to identify themselves for simple things like buying milk. Nalini had heard whispered theories. People said the royals of Itri had a thing against the warlord because of what had happened to their poor little daughter. She smiled, liking the sentimentality behind that theory. From what she knew of her parents, it was unlikely, though. They probably simply preferred to keep things vague to lower their taxes.

Nalini opened her door, finding a middle-aged female in front of it. She sighed.

“Again?”

Sofra Blue’s son had needed her help four times in as many months. He managed to get into a fight every other weekend, and he rarely won any of them.

But Sofra was a baker, and she paid in breads and cakes. Nalini wasn’t about to complain. She unhooked her bag from the back of her door, and followed the female through the streets of Fruja, which were always peaceful in the early morning. It would be a warm day, she could tell. There was barely any wind coming from the Endless Sea, and although the sun had just risen, the air already felt heavy. Nalini didn’t mind winter, but summer really was exhausting.

Beau Blue needed stitches and an ointment that day. On her way back, she was called to the Craden household; Marja’s pregnancy made her drowsy. Nalini prepared an herbal drink and came home with eggs for her trouble.

She’d picked a simple town. People had little money and little use for it; everything was bartered.

She’d fallen face first into healing. Her schooling hadn’t prepared her for many practical professions, but she’d developed an interest in botany as a child. Enlil had seen no harm in letting her spend some time in his inner garden, as a reward for good behavior. He’d made relevant books available on the subject. Therefore, she knew which plants eased fever, which ones calmed upset stomach or slowed down an infection. She also knew how to grow them.

Someone saw her prepare an infusion for Kronos when he’d caught a bug years ago; she’d asked if Nalini could do the same for her own child, in exchange for a payment in barter. The rest was history.

Nalini smiled each time she imagined Enlil’s scowl, had he known that one of his rare kindnesses towards her had given her a profession.

Once home, she tended to her plants, which needed a little more love than usual in the heat, before sitting down for breakfast, at last.

It was then that the feeling came back. Kai.

He’d always been there, every day of her life since they’d first met. But today, something really was different. It was as though he was calling to her, whispering her name. She should have—could have—ignored it. But she gave in. Searched through the link, their bond, and tugged on it. The next instant, her consciousness was sucked into a void, so fast she had to close her eyes, and then violently pushed back out.

Her surroundings had vanished, replaced by his.

He stood in his room—she knew it was his room. Large, plain, and extremely tidy. God, the male seriously needed someone to mess his life up a little. She bet his underpants were folded. Maybe even ironed.

Kai was looking out the window. Nalini glanced in the direction of his gaze and gasped out loud. She knew this place. Vratis. He’d made it to Vratis.

She’d heard about his civil war, everyone had. As systems fell to mages, nobles had started to panic around Itri, like their kind had everywhere else; in her village, it was nothing more than campfire stories people discussed indifferently. The rulers of the world had little interest in places like Fruja.

In any case, Nalini had expected to hear that he’d taken over from Enlil someday. She’d seen it quite clearly. She just hadn’t expected it quite so soon.

As she gasped, Kai turned sharply, hand lifted defensively, fire in his grasp. His expression changed when he took her in. She saw shock and something else, too.

He dropped his hand.

“Nalini.”

It was the first time he’d said her name; she should have wondered how he knew it at all.

“Akai.” She looked around. “You made it, then.” His eyes trailed her as she awkwardly kept on watching everything but him. “Congratulations are in order.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

She frowned. “At home.”

“Where?” he repeated insistently, his voice made darker as he used his power to emphasize his command.

Like that would work on her.

She dropped her eyes. There was a reason she hadn’t sought him out seven years ago, although she’d been dying to. She knew he would have helped her. Taken care of her. Cold and intense as he was, his unrelenting, intense gaze caught on hers like he was trying to set her soul on fire, he would have helped, if only because he owed her.

But she was a powerful seer, and that power couldn’t fall into the hands of a male like him. A male who was just another—a younger, more appealing—Enlil.

“I’ll find you.”

She’d heard a warlord say that to her before. The first time, it had been a threat, barked in rage, promising torture and vengeance.

Kai almost whispered it, softly. Yet, this time, she shivered.

She should have been frightened. He was stronger than she was now. If he recalled his fire and set it against her, she’d be reduced to ashes. She should be careful of him. Take a step back, perhaps. Kai was also infinitely tall, with large shoulders and the presence of a male of war. Physically, he dominated her.

Yet fear had nothing to do with the reason why she shivered.

Nalini hadn’t seen him in twelve years. Now they were both adults. Now, she knew enough of the world, and she recognized the longing and need burning her insides as she watched him. Something pulled her toward him in a way she hadn’t expected to ever feel. Not after twenty-four years of utter indifference toward the other sex.

“Why?” she asked him.

His answer was simple and immediate. “Because you belong here.”

Here, in Vratis, in her cold room, where she’d be locked away until he needed her council.

She forced herself to take one step back, then another one, and, on the other side of the sector, she blinked, back in her body.

Enlil had told her he’d had other seers over the years, and the others had all made mistakes at some point. When Nalini predicted a course of action, it was accurate. Always.

Kai wanted to use the strongest seer in the universe, like the warlord who’d come before him. Of course he did. With her, he’d be unstoppable.

She might have given in to temptation, all the while knowing that the only male who’d ever made her feel this way wanted her for her power. But her dreams and nightmares served her well. In half of those visions, their worlds still burned at his hand. As long as that future was a possibility, she’d stay away. She had to.

* * *

Kai remained immobile for all of three seconds as Nalini disappeared before his eyes. Then, he gave up on attempting to keep it in. The instant he let go of the careful hold he’d had on his power, everything in his room exploded, turned to ashes and dust. The windows were shattered; the walls cracked.

He regained control after a beat. It wouldn’t do to destroy his new home in a fit of rage.

A battalion of soldiers rushed in, ready to take orders, no doubt believing someone had bombed him.

“My lord, is everything—”

“Get my ship ready,” he ordered. “We’re pushing through to Pender today.”

There were thirty planets divided in nine systems in the Ratna Belt. Seventeen of those planets were under his control now.

Nalini was somewhere on one of the thirteen planets left. She wouldn’t have left the sector, of that he was sure. The Imperial territories were far too dangerous for an Evris who possessed magic. But she’d also stay away from the worlds under his thumb, knowing other mages would recognize her for what she was.

He’d take them all.

Every planet, every city, every single village, until he’d found her.