Kai liked the new bridge of his command ship. It was an oval room, large enough to fit an entire squadron of enforcers. The floor was made of humongous triangular metallic plates. The captain’s seat was quite similar to his throne on Vratis, a rectangular block with command platforms either side of its arms - except it was blood red. The rest of the room was an immaculate white.

He’d had that ship built from scratch, a long endeavor that had proved fruitful. As warlord, there were few occasions of using the Lotus in an official capacity. The Dominion made a statement. It also served another purpose. The command ship was large and equipped with so many facilities its crew and passengers could live there for the rest of their lives if they so wished. It could comfortably house a million people, and uncomfortably transport up to seven million for a time. There was no denying that his enemies had grown bolder over the last few months. Better equipped, too. He had every reason to suspect that they had the support of influential groups around the entire galaxy. Perhaps even the Imperials, although the delegation of Coats sent by the emperor had greeted Kai with respect.

This ship helped with his peace of mind. If the need arose, he could evacuate his people from any base relatively fast and safely. The shields Wench and the rest of his team had built had been forged like the shield around Vratis, blending magic with technology. No weapon could penetrate it, not even anything the Imperials had in their possession.

It was the first time he’d made use of the Dominion. She flew well, faster than expected for a baby of her size and weight.

“You surpassed yourself,” he told Wench, who beamed.

At his side, Evi rolled her eyes. The female had taken an important place at his side over the last few years, and even more so since they’d conquered Vratis.

There was much to the warlord thing—a lot of politics and endless meetings—and his armies had needed a leader entirely focused on it. He’d named Evi without hesitation. Not only because she was bloodthirsty, but because whatever mission he sent her on, regardless of how dangerous it was, she always brought back her entire team. Sometimes, she lost the battle. She never lost a life.

She’d proved herself a better strategist than Kai, subtler, for one.

When he was on board, he still officially led the fleet, but his general made most of the decisions, only coming to him when she was unsure. Which had happened exactly twice.

He… liked her.

Evi was the first person he’d let in. He’d considered taking her to bed when they’d first met—Goddess knew she was appealing enough—but he’d decided against it. Once he fucked a woman, he was done with her. He liked to stay entirely detached; Evi was too important to compromise their relationship that way.

He also started to trust Wench more, noticing that the little boy had turned into an adult male at some point. Young and enthusiastic, but Kai enjoyed his company.

Kai didn’t fail to notice the timing. The ability to feel and let people around him affect him had been entirely foreign to him until recently. Until he’d seen her. Touched her. Her hand. Felt her energy, her power, her love for all things.

Nalini Nova. The female meant for him.

It had been a year since their last meeting. He wondered if she hated him still.

Since that day, he’d played and replayed each of their meetings in his mind. As time passed, he cringed more each time he thought of them.

“Why?” she’d asked. Why did he want her? He recalled her eyes when those words crossed her lips. And then, that look when he replied the most stupid thing he could have told her. “Because you belong here.”

Here. In his cold Vratisian palace. A place she’d been imprisoned, tortured.

Her eyes when he’d said that. He couldn’t stop seeing them, seeing the light leave. Her lip had trembled ever so slightly. She’d taken a step back.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again next time he saw her. And there would be a next time.

* * *

She was going to kill the old male someday, and she’d laugh with glee while his entrails spilled out of his stomach.

“Taking a break?” Ian Krane asked, one brow raised. “I said twelve laps. You’re at ten, if I’m not mistaken.”

The stadium she was meant to run around was twenty-four miles in circumference. She’d asked. And then she’d demanded to know if he was insane when he’d demanded that she run it three times before they started training.

That was a year ago. Now, they were at twelve times.

She hated running. With all her little heart.

Krane was, no need to say, leisurely lounging on the side of the track, a book in hand.

Asshole.

She picked up her speed, knowing that if she just jogged around slow like this, he’d demand another lap when she was done. If she was going slower than Nox, who loved to tag along, she was too slow for him.

What really blew was the fact that his stupid-ass, cruel method worked. Her first month on Tejen, he simply had her exercise, forge her frail body into something else, work on her stamina, and already she felt stronger and more settled. Things that had required her concentration before, like moving an object with her mind, came with ease.

After the run, he’d had her training in combat with some of the Tejen natives—Evris who rode dragons for fun and started wrestling before they could walk.

She basically spent a week eating dust, crying, and cursing the name Ian Krane. A year later, she was still eating dust, because, again, her adversaries were that badass. But occasionally, she managed to hold her own—when they were having a bad day or, more than likely, letting her win out of pity.

The real work had started the second month. She understood now how fucking pointless that cage and the shocks of energy coursing through her body had really been. It was not training, just torture.

Training a seer took quiet, peace, and nature. Sitting in silence while listening to the water and extending her mind to it. Seeing it. Predicting its current. Knowing which fish would eat the other one. And then, in the middle of all that, when she was really one with everything around her, Krane hit her with a stick. A simple slap on her hand, not meant to hurt at all. Just… training.

It wasn’t easy because Krane was forcing her to catch glimpses of the future that involved her. Her power was designed to look outward, glance far and wide. After two weeks, she knew when to move her hand to avoid those hits. The following month, instead of a peaceful beach, she was to do the same in a forest full of predators and prey, where nature was busier and more dangerous. It wasn’t Krane and a stick interrupting her then; it was tigers and dragons. She had to avoid their claws or die.

She was still alive, so something must have worked.

The third month, Krane announced, “I think you’re strong enough now. We can get started.”

“What were the last ninety days all about then?” She rolled her eyes.

He grinned. “Making sure you don’t break.”

That had made little sense to her at the time. Later that day, crying out in pain, she understood.

“There’s exactly two reasons why we’re here. The first one is so that you can read these. No one is allowed to take them off-planet or copy them,” Krane said, pointing to the bunch of books he’d placed right in front of her. “And the second one is to train your mind to push against invasion. Any invasion. Even as you sleep, I need you to keep it closed.”

And so, the torment had begun.

“Resist me.”

But she couldn’t. Krane pushed her mind relentlessly, breaching it. Her nose bled, her every muscle ached.

Reading the books wasn’t much better. They were boring. Boring. All had one common denominator: information on psychic bonds. Bonds between mothers and children from the womb. Bonds between wives and husbands. Bonds between friends.

Basically, people were happier when they had a link to someone else. Yay. Great information.

What she would have given for a good old thriller instead.

Kronos had classes that didn’t involve fighting off firebreathers, being psychologically raped on a regular basis, or boring books. Lucky kid.

Still, despite the insane, intense training, Nalini was strangely… happy here. People accepted her. No judgment, no fear, no threat.

There were mages on Tejen. That shocked her; they weren’t killed and hunted like the rest of their kind elsewhere in the galaxy.

Those born with powers were directly overseen by the order of the Wise.

“I don’t get it. Your Council makes the whole galaxy destroy us everywhere – and here, it’s fine?”

Krane sighed. “Each mage born here passes various tests that ensured that they aren’t Darkness, as soon as their powers manifest themselves. It isn’t doable on a larger scale. Here, there’s a maximum of half a dozen mages born each year on the whole planet. We can handle it. I’m not saying the Council made the right decision when they opted to condemn every child with magic, but we certainly couldn’t have trained them all throughout the galaxy like we do here.”

She agreed begrudgingly: the Wise trained youth on a one-on-one basis. As there were less than two hundred of them in their order, they certainly couldn’t have overseen the entire universe. But Ian was right, that didn’t excuse the Council’s edict. In her opinion there just was no valid reason for killing children.

The Council had little weight on that planet, ruled by its own warlord, a female who welcomed Nalini with open arms. Rani Tharshen wielded magic herself.

“Seers are very rare,” she said. “Although perhaps not in your family.”

An ugly, old wound reared its head at the mention of her family. Nalini brushed it aside every time it flared.

“You’ve missed the solstice,” the warlord had said, welcoming her when they arrived. “It was just yesterday.”

Nalini saw Krane tense behind her. “Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing. We don’t celebrate those things out there,” he pointed upward, toward the skies.

Rani had smiled wickedly. “Well, that should be a treat to you both next year.”

The old male twitched. As soon as the ruler had disappeared, he warned Nalini, “Don’t ask. And we’re getting out of here before the year is out. You don’t want to see a winter solstice here. Trust me on this.”

It had been a year, now, and the solstice was tomorrow. They were supposed to leave today. This was her last training day here. Soon, they’d be back to the real world—their real world, at least, outside of this wonderland bathed in sunlight.

She mostly thought he was talking out of his ass and doing his best to avoid the solstice for some reason, which only served to make her more curious about it. She’d attended various events throughout the year, and damn, they could party here. She’d even learned to dance, unable to resist the music, the sea of bodies undulating with each beat getting under her skin.

How different could it be?

“Very,” he’d replied, when she asked just that.

Which wasn’t a response at all, so she’d gone to ask someone else.

People just giggled and blushed when she mentioned the ceremony, telling her frustrating things like, “You’ll see” and “Don’t miss it.”

She’d argued all month about attending. Krane was adamant that they shouldn’t. But as she happened to be a twenty-five-year-old, grown-ass female, she declared, “Fine, you can go if you’re in a rush. Give me coordinates, and I’ll catch up. I’m staying.”

“That’s a fucking no. Trust me on this, dammit.”

“You told me not to trust you once. I listened.”

He wasn’t giving in, so she’d done the one thing anyone would have and disabled his ship’s hyperdrive. Goddess Light knew it would take the old male more than a day to figure out what was wrong with his ship.