Twenty-four years ago.

“Kai,” Balu whispered, waking him up instantly. It didn’t take much to pull him from his light, restless sleep. Bad things happened to those who didn’t stay on their guard in Haimo. “Kai, he’s coming.”

The boy stiffened at his friend’s warning. Balu needn’t specify who he meant when he said “he” that way. “He” was Master Hora.

Akia Tai Hora was the fat, indulgent noble who owned Haimo. Yes, the entire planet. His ancestors had come from a trade background, and prospered so much through the entire sector that a warlord of old had declared them dukes of Haimo, a then unclaimed, yet rich planet-wide territory.

Lord Hora didn’t visit all his slaves’ homes. Kai’s was different in many respects, and a little nicer than most. Although she was owned by Akia, the female who lived there had a few slaves at her service. Mae, Kai’s mother, and lady of this home, was no doubt the most exquisite female amongst the slaves. She had smooth, spotless, golden skin and long dark hair—a rare physical characteristic in their land—and a mouth that didn’t need any rouge. She certainly looked nicer than Akia’s noble wife. Thus, as their lord and master, he used her as he saw fit. Even at nine years old, Kai knew of these things.

No one had told him, but he’d guessed, with repulsion, that the fat noble was his biological father. Many clues had led him to that conclusion. For one, in looks, he was quite similar to Veli, the master’s legitimate son. Kai was a little darker, with black eyes and hair like his mother, but their features were nonetheless similar. Secondly, Kai had long ago realized that he was treated quite well for a slave. Boys his age normally labored in the dangerous mines or in the fields—a hard, relentless work. Haimo was situated far from the sun of their system, making it the coldest planet in their world. But instead of being condemned to such work, Kai, at age six, when he’d been deemed old enough to work away from his mother, had been sent as an apprentice in the forges.

Akia also had an interest in him. He talked to him and sometimes even ruffled his hair. Kai thoroughly washed after such distressing occurrences. And then there was his name. Akai, he’d been called, by someone so lazy they’d simply flipped around his sperm donor’s name to form his. He started demanding to be called Kai right after connecting the dots.

Kai jumped out of his bed, and promptly proceeded to hide his things—things he made from scraps he found everywhere. Pieces of metal, broken glass. Anything he found that could be of use, he kept and fashioned into something else. His mother called him her little artist.

From time to time, Akia came to his room, and he’d order him to keep the trash away. Kai had never received a beating for disobedience, but he’d seen others take one. Two winters past, he’d seen a grown-up die after a workmaster struck him with an energy whip. Five blows was all it had taken. Kai certainly didn’t wish to gamble away his life that way. He couldn’t pinpoint why, but Kai really did wish to live. Although perpetuating his harsh existence might have seemed pointless, he had hope. Hope for something more someday. He’d heard of slaves who’d earned their freedom. Why not him?

Balu helped. The boy put things in his trunks and polished his boots as Kai washed his knees and hands with soap. Balu was eleven, having two years on Kai. The boy had made it out of an accident in the mines a year ago, but it had left him weak and with just one leg. Kai had watched his mother kneel in front of master Akia upon Balu’s behalf. “He’ll do just fine in the house as there’re no stairs,” she told him. “He’ll work.”

Kai understood why she’d begged that way. If she hadn’t spoken for him, Balu would have been shot. For his own good, the workmasters would say. Then, they’d mince him and give his flesh to the vepkhia or the nekos used in the arena games. Occasionally feeding them Evris flesh made them more vicious, hungry for more of it.

Akia wasn’t the worst master. He’d sighed at Mae’s request, but he let the boy heal and then sent him to their home. Kai was glad; he’d never had a friend before. The other children hated him because they knew. They saw it in his eyes; they might be dark like his mother’s, but their shape didn’t lie. He was the pampered master’s bastard.

Kai hurried downstairs, keeping his gaze on the floor once he’d reached the master.

“Ah. Here he is. Getting bigger every time I see him.”

Kai didn’t reply, knowing the remark wasn’t for him. “Yes, sir,” said Mae Lor, always formal and deferential.

“Do you work well at the forges, boy?”

“Yes, sir,” Kai echoed, talking now that he’d been addressed directly.

“Good, good. Come here. Take this.”

He held his hand up and received a bronze coin for his effort. A fortune.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do.”

This, he knew, was his clue to leave the room, leave the house. He was dismissed. The master had business with his mistress.

Kai ran. There was nowhere for a boy to go at six in the morning, but he ran. He’d reached the end of the village, arriving in front of the endless barren landscape where white dunes extended as far as his eyes could see, and then further still. There was no town on the planet, just the Hora residence surrounded by simple, flat roofed, identical buildings where he kept the men and women he’d purchased to work until they died. The contrast between the off-white homes with rustic materials and the golden palace with all its towers and domes couldn’t be overstated.

Kai had never stepped in the palace. Later that day, he would.

He’d left so fast he hadn’t taken his coat, mittens, or the brown hat his mother had knitted him the previous week for his birthday. To keep warm, he moved constantly, blowing hot air on his hands. He was used to the cold, but in the dead of the Haimo winter, it was biting.

“Little Akai?”

The familiar voice calling him belonged to old Kumi, one of the few females with wrinkles on a well-worn face. Their way of life didn’t lead to longevity.

The elder didn’t ask what he was doing out by himself at this hour; instead, she waved his way. “Come on in, I’ll give you something hot.”

He practically tripped in his hurry to accept that invitation. She made the best root and spices drinks.

An hour later, wearing Kumi’s scarf, he headed to work. He liked it at the forge.

Haimo was a mineral planet, so most of the slaves went down to the mines to dig out ray crystals. Those laboring at the surface cut and loaded humongous blocks of stone—granite, limestone, alabaster—onto cargo ships. The riches of Haimo were sold all over the galaxy, even to the Imperials.

The very best crystals, the rarest stones, and all of the fyriron were kept and sent to the forges. Fyriron was silvery and smooth, yet stronger than gold. It took a higher temperature to melt it, and Kai had heard that only a handful of forges in the galaxy were equipped to cast it. The weapons they formed were meant for warlords and kings.

Kai rushed to his station, not bothering to disturb the head of the forges with a greeting. Isha Lor, his uncle, didn’t care much for civilities in general, and it was twice as true when he was sharpening a newly made blade. There was that look in his eyes, pride and sadness all mixed together. Isha loved his craft, but while he might create these masterpieces, it wasn’t his name engraved in one corner; it was their master’s. The half dozen of workmasters stationed in the forges served as a reminder of their position in this world.

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.