Z

“We have plenty of time, Master Saif,” Lord Xavier said. “Master Arron won’t be arriving for another two weeks. I promise you, everything will be perfect for his stay.” I lean back against the side of the throne, quietly playing with the Rubix cube as I tune out Lord Xavier. An old friend of Master Saif is visiting soon, so of course, Master Saif wants to show off his prized possession. And by that, I mean me.

I close my eyes and twist the cube randomly, then solve it in a few minutes. I’ve had this cube for so long that the colorful boxes are starting to wear off but I don’t mind. My leather gloves are worn at the knuckles and for a moment, I wonder what the smooth plastic would feel like against my fingertips. The doors opened, almost soundlessly save for the footsteps of the person that opened them.

I usually ignore it and continue playing until Master Saif needs me but this time is different, this time I can sense something unfamiliar entering the room. Master Saif’s throne room is a long, large room with windows lining the left side and a red carpet rolled out from the large wooden doors, up the steps of the dais, and to the throne.

Lord Xavier leads the procession into the room. As they approach, this feeling grows stronger, a presence with such an immense force that it both frightens and intrigues me. Lord Xavier stops at the steps of the dais and bows to Master Saif, seated on the throne. I ignore the golden boy. I set the cube down and sit up. He steps aside and presents the prisoner two guards had dragged into the room behind him.

I stare at the grubby boy, at his hair matted with such filth that I can’t decide on its color, at his skin and the layer of grime painted over it, at his clothing, ripped and tattered. Everything about his posture and appearance screams that he is a prisoner that has no rights and certainly no shower. But his eyes are different. Orbs of blue, sparkling with intelligence, locked inside cages of steel. He lifts his head and our eyes lock, for a moment this overpowering force doesn’t seem so vicious.

My eyes fall to his neck and it's surprising to find it bare. I reach up and tug at my own collar, a band of black leather that Master Saif had gifted to me when he declared that I was a trained slave. I let my eyes drift from his neck to his hands, held in front of him with metal. Chains dangle from his wrists, connecting to more metal on his ankles. All at once I felt the need to protest to Master Saif, the boy is harmless, there’s no need for the chains that are obviously weighing him down. The guards are the ones holding him up, not his own two feet. I look at his eyes again but his gaze has focused on Master Saif.

Master Saif is saying something but I cannot focus on the words. The boy’s pull is too strong. His mind is too strong.

I can see things that others can’t, that’s Master Saif has me sit here. He says that my power is the strongest of them all and that’s why he treats me so well. He said that my mind is strong, he said that my mind is the strongest of them all, and yet this boy’s is stronger. I know that he can’t do the things I can do, but he’s strong in another way, a way that I cannot name.

I feel my body rise from the floor but I cannot be certain that I commanded it to. I feel my feet take me forward and the sudden silence in the room as Master Saif ceases to speak. I walk down the steps, unable to look away from the boy. He draws his eyes to me but it’s difficult for him to keep his head up. I freeze on the final step, suddenly afraid to move closer. His strength is terrifying in a number of ways but it does not feel as if it is directed towards me. A crease forms between his eyebrows. I swallow thickly and dare to speak.

“How are you so strong?” He’s surprised by the question. His eyes flick from me to Master Saif then back to me.

“I-” He winces as his voice grounds out in a painful-sounding manner. I know that they hadn’t given him water in a while.

“It's okay, you don’t have to speak.” I take another step towards him, touching the buckle of the leather glove with my opposite hand. “Can I come in?” He gives me a puzzled look. I hear footsteps behind me and turn to see Lord Xavier coming towards me, no doubt to drag me back to my place beside Master Saif.

“Wait.” Master Saif holds up a hand to stop him. He turns his cool green gaze to me. “Take them off.” I wish I could say that I’m shocked that he would give me permission for such a thing. I unbuckle the glove on my right hand and slip it off. The air feels cold and unfamiliar against my skin. I stretch my bare fingers, clenching and unclenching my fist several times but the movement feels almost alien.

I turn back to the boy and take another step but this time he moves back. The guards hold him in place but they both move back themselves. The boy watches me with something that I’ve seen many times before, a sort of worried curiosity.

I take another step and the guards let go of him entirely. Without their support, he loses his balance and begins to fall. I close the short distance between us and help him stand, half holding him up. I feel my hand brush his bare skin and everything is sucked away.

*************

I blink my eyes open, startled to find myself in such an unfamiliar place. Structures of metal and glass rise above me, some so tall that they seem to disappear into the clouds. I stand on a black slate of some sort of stone with painted yellow and white lines. I turn towards the closest of the structures and walk towards it. The glass reflects my image, the space behind it dark. I step close to it, peering at my own reflection. My brown hair is cut short around my ears. My skin is pale, almost to a sickly degree, and my eyes seem far too dark of a color to belong. My clothing is nice, soft, off-white cloth that fits my lithe body well. My left hand is gloved. I poke my face, surprised that I’m still this young. It feels like I’ve lived fifty lifetimes already, or maybe that’s because I’ve experienced others' lifetimes so often.

This isn’t right.

There’s something extremely wrong here as if something is being hidden from me but I can’t understand what. I reach out and touch the glass with my fingertips. It rippled. I snapped my hand back, some irrational fear telling me it was dangerous. Of course, it's dangerous, that’s the nature of my ability. I touch the glass again but this time I press my entire hand against it.

“Show me what you're hiding,” I command. The words spill out of my mouth and I imagine them rippling out from me, spreading across the glass from my fingertips and disrupting the secrets from their hiding spots. I can feel the ripples trying to spread, wanting to wash over everything, but I contain it to this single memory. The glass begins to clear, spreading out from my hand to its edges until I see a building, not unlike the ones surrounding me. The memory is from a young child, looking up at a tall man as they walk into the building. The man holds his hand so the child will not be able to wander off.

I run my tongue over my teeth, almost tasting the word before the memory taught it to me. “Daddy.” The man turns to look at the child and I’m struck by his appearance. He looks like a clean and older version of the boy. I lower my hand from the memory, slowly backing away from it with another word in my mind.

“Kyle?”

“How are you here?” I turn to find Kyle standing several paces away from me but he’s not the same as the boy I had met. This one is clean, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt with the word KISS written across the chest. His hair is blond, swept to the side in front, and cut very short on the sides. His skin is darker than I would have guessed but his eyes are just as blue. I hate it when people look at me like that.

“Please, don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

I pause then look away from him. “Like I’m a monster.”

“I don’t think that about you.”

I shrug, hugging myself. “That’s because you don’t know everything that I can do.” I think about the ripples I had imagined earlier. I close my eyes and throw my hand up to the sky, releasing them all at once. They sweep over the buildings, over the city, over his entire mind, releasing everything that he had tried to keep hidden from me.

The word suddenly came to me, spoken from his mind to mine. This power of his that unnerves and excites me, that drew me to him in the first place. It's his willpower. I don’t understand it completely but I know that his willpower is why he’s survived in the dungeon for so long with so little food and water. I know it's why he clings to his mind and how he still can make decisions for himself. It’s the secret I saw hiding behind his eyes.

His mind is stronger than mine will ever be.

He looks around at everything I had revealed in silent shock and maybe fear but once again, I can’t take my eyes off him. I lower my arm and watch the fear take hold of him.

“How… How did you…” He gestures wildly to the memories all around us.

“It’s okay if you want to keep your secrets. I don’t want to pry.” I lift my hand up and wave away my ripples, letting them fade away but he doesn’t put his barriers back up. The memories stay in focus.

He gives me a baffled look. I tuck my hands into my pockets and shrug. “I… I like puzzles.” His brows furrow and that familiar crease between them appears again. “I mean, that’s how I like to think about it. This is just a very, very complicated puzzle.” I gesture to our surroundings, though not as widely as he did.

“Who are you?” he asks breathily.

“I’m Z.” The crease deepens. I wait for him to say something about my strange name, but instead, he asks, “Why are you here?” I can sense his fear receding but it's still present. If I wanted to, I could wipe out his fear of me entirely, I could change his memories so he would always think that he was Master Saif’s slave. He’s at my mercy and he doesn’t even know it. I shiver with the evil of the thought. Sometimes I have to think things like that just to prove to myself that I would never do it.

“I… I just want to talk. If that’s okay.”

He hardens suddenly but I can't understand why. “Do I have a choice?”

“Yes.” That surprises him. “Say the word and I’ll leave.”

He pauses and for a long moment, I think that he’s going to send me away. Finally, he tucks his hands into his pockets and asks, “Why me?”

I blink. “Excuse me?”

He closes the distance between us, when he stops he stands so close that I could reach out and touch him if I dared. He looks at me in a way that I’ve never seen before. I’m tempted to search his mind for the word but that same look holds me back. “Why did your Master kidnap me? Why has he been doing this to me? There must have been hundreds of people that he could have chosen so…”

“Why you?” He nods sadly. There was something so miserable in his voice that I want to have the answers he’s looking for but I don’t. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

“But you must know everything!” He steps forward and grabs me by the shoulders, desperate now. “I’ve heard the guards talking about you, how you never leave Master Saif’s side. How could you not know?”

“I can't know everything. I-I’m just a kid.” But even as I said it, I knew it was a lie. I’ve done too much to have any rights to my childish innocence. He sighs and drops his hands.

“You're just a kid,” he repeated hopelessly.

“Master Saif does what he wants.” I look at the ground and scratch the back of my neck. “I don’t know why. Sometimes he just sees someone he thinks is pretty and picks them up.”

“You mean kidnap.” Even though I tried to stop it, his mind told me all I needed to know about the word.

“Yes, kidnap.” Thunder rumbles in the air above us and I can smell the beginnings of rain. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down before I do something bad in his mind. Then I realized, it wasn’t me making the storm. I look up at Kyle, watching the tear slide down his cheek. It started to sprinkle. “It's not your fault,” I try because I don’t know what else to say.

“Yeah, it's not my fault I was kidnapped, taken away from everything I care about and tortured.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “It's not my fault.”

The sudden urge to change his mind and make him happy is almost overwhelming. I know that I could do it, all I’d have to do is command him to be happy and he would be. But I can’t. I won’t.

But, there might be another way I can make this right.

“I can get you home.”

His head snaps up. “What?” He looks so hopeful that it almost breaks my heart.

“It might take a while but I think I can help you escape Master Saif.” He stares at me, wide-eyed.

“You… You’d really do that for me?” I nod. “Why?”

“Because… I want a will, too.” He blinks. “When I first saw you, I sensed that there was something different about you, different from anyone I’ve ever met before. You have a will, you can make your own choices and live your own life. I want that, too. So, when you leave, I want to go with you.” He looks shocked but then he relaxes into his first smile. It softens the edges of those steely blue eyes.

“Okay, I can do that.”

“Thanks.”

*************

I blink my eyes open, startled to find someone kneeling over me. Lord Xavier backs up quickly as I sit up. I rub my eyes with my gloved hand. A shadow passes over me and I look up to see Master Saif standing over me.

“Why did you want to go inside his mind? You usually hate doing that,” he says. His voice is silky smooth and I often wonder if he had to practice in the mirror for it to sound like that. I’m too tired to think of an excuse. As much energy as I took from Kyle, it takes twice as much to stabilize the connection enough for the two of us to talk like we did. I glance over at him, in a heap on the floor beside me, completely unconscious.

“I wanted to talk to him.” I look up at Master Saif. “Can I keep him?” He looks startled by the question. I’ve never wanted a slave before but Kyle isn’t an ordinary slave. In fact, I would argue that he’s not a slave at all.

Lord Xavier steps forward. “Master Saif, it’s not wise to give him a slave, especially this one. This boy has caused an increasing amount of trouble-”

“He won’t cause me any trouble,” I say, getting to my feet. I look Lord Xavier in the eye and all I see is his hatred towards me. After all, a Master can have as many Lords as they like, but only one of them will ever become a Master themselves. I turn my gaze to Master Saif. “Besides, it’s about time I start taking my title seriously,” I lied.

“Master Saif-” He holds up his hand and silences Lord Xavier.

“Lord Z is right, it is time for him to take this seriously. If he wants to give himself a challenge, then so be it. Z, I trust you will take good care of him.”

“Better than Xavier’s done.” He fumes when I ‘forget’ his title but says nothing. He has no grounds to stand on, all the evidence is laying at my feet. I step away from them and retrieve my glove from where it had fallen on the dais.

“How long will Master Arron be visiting?” I ask curiously.

“Three days, at most. Why?” Master Saif asks. I snap the buckle into place and tug at the fingers to be sure.

I look down at Kyle, crumpled on the floor like a ragdoll. Soon enough, Xavier won’t have to worry about me taking his title. I never wanted it in the first place. “I have to prepare my new slave to meet him. Or would you prefer if I kept him locked away for the event?"