Everything in Kai protested against his steps. Told him to turn back and go get the kid. The strange little lady might have gotten herself in some trouble when she chose to help him.

Such concern for a near stranger was quite uncharacteristic of him. He wasn’t what one would call selfless. But that child had changed something deep inside him. He couldn’t exactly figure out how.

He thought about her. Her ordeal in that cold palace, the way she’d had to grow up fast to survive. And, by extension, Kai considered the rest of his kind. Their kind.

There were mages in this world, the rest of the sector, and all around the galaxy. Mages who died chained up and left to the wolves. Others who reached adulthood, but had to constantly survive in fear and hide who they were, like him.

He’d always known that, but whenever he’d thought of any of them, he’d purposefully put it out of his mind. It wasn’t like he could do anything about them, right? Or so he’d told himself, before seeing a freaking child fight in the middle of their enemy’s home, in silence, without expecting any reward or recognition for her effort. Taking risks for no other reason than the fact that it was the right thing to do.

Kai turned away from the palace. Getting caught again in an attempt to break the girl out wasn’t a solution. It wouldn’t solve the core of the problem. He took the longest way back to his current hideout, as though purposefully wanting to pass through the poorest, dirtiest districts of Vratis, to convince himself he was making the right decision.

There was a boy too hungry to cry or beg, just sitting there with his hand outstretched. Kai didn’t have anything to give him. And whatever he could have spared wouldn’t have helped in the long run. Thus was their world. Golden palaces and famine living side by side, hand in hand.

By the time he’d made it to his ship, the Kai who’d run at nine years old and spent the second half of his life aimlessly traveling their sector, taking what he wanted, living without rules, was dead. Buried by the male he was always meant to become. Murdered by a little lady whose name he didn’t know yet.

A large beast jumped up to him, putting her paws on his shoulders, and flapping her tail. Sky.

“I’m alright, girl.”

The wolf inspected him herself, and licked his face before putting her front paws back on the floor, satisfied.

They walked side by side into the ship. As soon as they’d passed the trapdoor, his first and only partner greeted him with a grumble. “I heard you’d been snatched.”

Kai lifted a brow. “And yet, you’re still here, with my ship.”

Ian Krane was a grumpy old male. Kai’d ended up saddled with him because they’d attempted to steal the same ship a few years back.

“She’s mine,” Krane immediately protested.

“I am the person sitting in the captain’s chair. By definition, that makes it my ship.”

They had this particular argument on a weekly basis. Technically, the ship belonged to both of them. They’d shared everything equally since they’d teamed up, and they’d both put the money down to get this custom, modified beauty made for them.

“Only because these damn beasts don’t let me anywhere near it,” he replied. “Doesn’t change the fact that my name is on the papers.”

Krane did love to complain—about anything and everything. Especially the four other wolves now coming to greet Kai. Never mind the fact that the old male was, more often than not, stroking one of them right between the ears.

Kai smiled. If anyone had asked him, he would have said he put up with Ian Krane because most heists were easier to pull off with a partner, and flying the Zonian with a copilot made sense. But he might end up missing Krane, now that it was time to part ways.

“Listen, I’m gonna change direction a bit.” A lot. “I mean, we have plenty of money.”

Krane watched him carefully.

“You’re not going regular on me, are you?”

Kai laughed, imagining working behind a desk or opening a shop. Yeah, not for him. “No. Quite the opposite.”

The older male waited. “I was caught,” Kai confirmed. “And I had help. I got lucky.” The word didn’t sit well with him. Meeting that child hadn’t quite felt like something as casual and mundane as luck. “Anyway, I just saw that our system is sick at the core today. On one side you have cold, hunger, slavery, and then the other, with the fat, indulgent nobles who feed off of it.” After a beat, he added quietly, “There are children killed because they develop abilities that frighten those in power.”

Krane watched him intently. Then, he laughed.

“Color me surprised. Kai, who refuses to work for nobles, refuses to pay their taxes, always steals from them and no one else, revealing that he’s anti-government.” He rolled his eyes. “That ain’t nothing new.”

He shrugged. “Maybe not. Except maybe now I want to do something about it.”

The old man’s keen, green eyes sparkled. “And about time, too, kiddo. About time.”

* * *

Enlil watched the recording, lips thin. They were right. The boy had used magic.

“And Nalini scanned him, you said?” he asked the head of his guard, who bobbed his head.

“Yes, not even an hour before.”

Hmm.

He watched a hologram showing the entire interrogation, careful to scrutinize Nalini’s expression. The child remained stoic as ever. Cold and cruel, as she generally was with enemies. She’d been that way at three years of age, why would she be any different at nine? Then, he watched her leave and go to her room. Surveillance drones trailed her every step.

She was training, something she did often. She stretched first and then she started with her various weapons.

None of his mages had ever displayed an interest in the art of war. Nalini had asked to be taught how to fight at age five. “I want to defend myself in case enemies get to me,” she’d said. Enlil agreed she should learn. He’d assumed she’d be as interested in these things as his own daughter, who had picked up fencing and given it up within one imperial year, but four years later, the child still persevered. She wasn’t half bad. He’d had a tracker placed inside her the previous year, just in case.

Enlil observed her with her baton. Precise and fast, not very strong, though. She wasn’t allowed a real sword; the warlord didn’t feel comfortable having her armed with steel. The child was already dangerous. Too dangerous, perhaps. Had she ever displayed any belligerence, he would have been forced to dispose of her.

Perhaps he should, regardless, but Enlil wasn’t fond of the idea of doing without such a powerful weapon.

His power had considerably increased since he’d taken the child in. His rule of the Ratna Belt had been conditional on the Imperials’ approval until recently. As their sector was on the outer border, not quite part of the imperial territory, they were mostly left alone. But when the Imperials required their resources, they demanded them, and paid a pittance, too. With Nalini’s foresight abilities, which were always accurate, he’d led an embarrassingly short battle against one young, impetuous Imperial commander.

The boy’s considerable loss had made it clear to every Imperial lying in wait that Ratnarians were no pushovers and asserted Enlil’s dominion.

The girl could foresee the outcome of wars, but she hadn’t seen that a young boy was going to escape? Or that he had magic himself?

Enlil frowned. Nalini had only showed loyalty until now. But this was one offense he couldn’t just brush away. Not when the child was so powerful.

“Put her under constant observation,” he ordered. “Not just drones. I want one guard to have eyes on her at all times. If she acts out of character, notify me immediately.”

His gaze returned to the hologram of the boy. Or young male, perhaps. If he’d really thwarted Nalini’s probing, he was dangerous.

“And put a damn bounty on that boy.”

“How much?” asked his private secretary.

“A hundred.”

That amount would steadily rise over the next few years, as the unidentified thief continued evading them. But it was nothing compared to the millions of marks he would offer for any information that could lead to the capture of the magic user he would come to know as Kai Lor.