I count my steps. One thousand three hundred and twenty-seven to reach the bottom. I’ve made this descent twice before in my decade of service—once for my initial blood-reading certification, once when Sister Vela wanted to demonstrate the consequences of inadequate harvesting protocols.
The second visit gave me nightmares for months. The things preserved in the Womb Chamber’s walls?—
Stop. Focus.
I run through possibilities as I descend. The Matron could have discovered my network—the whispered communications, the sabotaged rituals, the stock I’ve quietly helped slip through cracks in the system. Tomek might have been compromised. Or Vela might have noticed patterns in my behavior, reported concerns that warranted investigation.
But if they knew, I’d already be dead. The Matron doesn’t waste time on interrogations when blood reading can extract any truth she desires.
Which means this is different. A task that requires my expertise specifically.
Step one thousand. The air grows thicker, warmer. My robes cling to my skin. The scars along my arms and spine tingle as the ambient magic presses against them—my own ritual modifications, delicate channels carved during my harvester training. They let me read blood better than most. They also make me more sensitive to the Sanctum’s currents, and right now those currents are screaming.
Step one thousand one hundred. I think about the seven-year-old I harvested three years ago. The one who cried. The one I couldn’t save. The one who made me realize I couldn’t do this anymore, couldn’t keep being a cog in the machine, couldn’t live with what I was becoming.
She’s dead now. They all die eventually.
Step one thousand two hundred. My legs burn. My heart pounds. My expression gives nothing away.
Step one thousand three hundred and twenty-seven.
The Womb Chamber opens before me.
TWO
IMARA
Circular. Warm. Humid. The Chamber is designed to evoke the interior of a body, and it succeeds with revolting precision. The walls curve inward, glistening with moisture, embedded with preservation alcoves that hold the Matron’s centuries of specimens. Fetuses suspended in blood-glass. Organs floating in alchemical solutions. Bone fragments arranged in patterns that hurt to look at directly.
I keep my eyes on the floor. The floor is safe. Just stone, just channels, just the accumulated residue of rituals I don’t want to contemplate.
“Harvester Calder.” The Blood Matron’s voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, soft as silk, cold as a corpse. “How good of you to come so promptly.”
I drop to one knee. Standard protocol. Head bowed, hands visible, posture of absolute submission. “I serve at your pleasure, Matron.”
“Rise.”
I rise. And I make myself look at her.
The Blood Matron appears ageless—preserved in a state that the centuries should have destroyed. Her skin is pale as exposed bone, threaded with crimson veins that glow faintly inthe Chamber’s bloody light. Her features are beautiful the way a blade is beautiful: perfect, cold, designed for a purpose that has nothing to do with comfort. Her eyes are solid red, no iris, no pupil, just endless depths of arterial color that see everything and feel nothing.
She stands at the Chamber’s center, robed in layers of ceremonial fabric stiff with dried blood—centuries of accumulated ritual residue that serves as both armor and power source. Her white hair trails in the channels at her feet, soaking up whatever flows there.
“I have a problem.” The Matron gestures languidly. “One that requires your particular skills.”
“I’m honored to assist, Matron.” The words come automatically. I don’t mean them. She knows I don’t mean them. Neither of us cares.
“Kharvek has become… unreliable.”
The name sends ice through my veins.
Everyone in the Sanctum knows Kharvek. The weapon. The monster. The Blood Matron’s greatest creation and her most terrifying enforcer. I’ve seen him work twice—once during an escape attempt, once during a punishment ritual—and both times I had nightmares for weeks after.
“Unreliable?”
“In what way, Matron?”
“Small rebellions.” She moves through the Chamber, trailing her fingers along a preservation alcove. The specimen inside twitches. “Delayed responses to commands. Excessive force against targets who should have been taken alive. Nothing overt—nothing I can punish without damaging his effectiveness. But the pattern concerns me.”
