Free Dance of Time by Viola Grace

Chapter One
     
     
    Zez heard the shouts, and she got ready. The swarm of small thieves stampeded past, and she did what she did best, she froze everyone else.
    For thirty metres around her, time stopped. She quickly moved through the frozen and angry population, picking the pockets of all the witnesses. She had to work fast. She only had a minute.
    The moment she had her take, she ran.
    She was around three corners when she heard the distressed shouts from behind her.
    She kept running until the world shifted under her feet.
    She was levitated up over the rooftops and even the central tower. A pale-green woman with emerald hair sat there and applauded, a slow and even effort.
    “Well, I see that the scouts were right. You are an impressive talent.”
    Zez looked down, swallowed and tried not to activate her power.
    “Yes, you have caught on. If you freeze me in time, my talent ceases to flow and you will drop like a stone. I must say, temporal manipulation is a definite boon for a pick pocket.”
    Zez couldn’t really say anything. She had a dozen credit packs in her arms. It wasn’t like she had just picked them up.
    “Not talking? No protestations of innocence? Good. What if I could offer you a life where you don’t have to steal for a living? Is that an idea that interests you?”
    “Who would I be sold to?”
    The woman gestured to her clothing and the robes that hung from her shoulders. “You would not be sold. You would be trained to work for the Citadel.”
    “I would be free?”
    “Free. Fed. Clothed, educated, anything you want could be yours, including using your talent for good, for the masses, to save lives and not pick pockets.”
    “Can you put these credits at that corner?”
    “Of course.”
    “Good. Do that and I will go with you. It should be enough to buy Mikki’s freedom.”
    The woman arched a brow. “Who is Mikki?”
    “My older sister. I have to pay for her or Toniak will turn her out.”
    The woman scowled. “Where is she?”
    Zez pointed to a building with a collapsing roof. “There.”
    To Zez’s surprise, the woman pushed herself off the building, and they floated toward the rotted roof. “Let’s get your sister.”
    Zez held the credits to her chest as they flew over the rooftops and then dropped through the roof.
    Zez spoke immediately. “Toniak, I have the money.”
    Toniak and his men were pointing weapons at them. “Zez. Who the hell is that?”
    “She has offered me a job. Now, where is Mikki?”
    The men looked at each other, and Toniak looked at the credits in her hands. “It isn’t enough. She is worth more than that.”
    The woman with her said, “What do you want for her? I will see that you get it.”
    One of Toniak’s men came up from the cellar where they were keeping Mikki. He was tucking himself into his trousers, and Zez smelled blood.
    “No.” She ran at them, and Toniak shouted. Zez froze them all and moved past them.
    There, on a filthy pad of straw, was her sister, torn and broken. Her body was already cooling.
    Zez’s mind shattered, and she ran back up the steps, grabbing a blade and slitting every throat of every man who smelled like her sister. The scent of her sister’s blood was not something she would ever forget.
    Zez stood next to the woman from the Citadel and touched her, deliberately breaking her hold on the woman.
    “Take me out of here. There is nothing left for me here.”
    The woman nodded and didn’t ask questions. Zez looked down at her sister’s blood on her hands. “We will bring her with us. I will carry her.”
    They lifted off through the roof, and when they were far enough away, the sound of weapons fired once and then were silent.
    “What just happened?” The woman from the Citadel carried Mikki and Zez through the sky.
    “They took my sister’s life, so I took theirs.”
    “She isn’t dead yet. I am trying to get us to my ship so I can put her in stasis.”
    Zez looked at her sister and thought of what she