“Everything.” Imara meets my gaze. Holds it. “When I read your blood in the Womb Chamber, I felt more than your modifications. I felt your potential. Your raw channeling ability—the power you can hold without burning yourself out. It’s unprecedented. The Matron’s greatest success.”
“I know what I am.”
“Do you?” She leans forward. “You’re a perfect vessel. Built to contain and direct power that would destroy anyone else. And I’m a perfect controller. Built to manipulate blood magic with surgical precision.” A pause. “Do you see?”
I don’t. Then I do.
The realization hits like a fist to the gut.
“Offspring.” The word tastes foul. “She wants us to?—”
“If we had a child, that child would likely inherit both traits. Your capacity. My control.” Imara’s voice stays steady, but I see the tension in her shoulders, the tightness around her eyes. “The Matron has spent two centuries trying to produce that combination. She’s never succeeded. We’re the closest she’s come to the perfect pairing.”
My gorge rises. The idea of creating a being—someone—for the clan to use, to harvest, to turn into another weapon?—
“No.” The word comes out harsh. Final. “I won’t. I have no intention of siring offspring. Whatever she wants, she can?—”
“She doesn’t need your intention.”
The interruption stops me cold.
Imara’s expression has gone flat. Controlled. The face she wears when she’s about to deliver news that will shatter me.
“The Womb Chamber.” The words come out like razor blades. “You’ve been there. You know what it contains.”
“Specimens. Failed experiments. The Matron’s?—”
“Artificial wombs.”
The words land in the silence between us.
“The clan has the capability to force conception through ritual. They don’t need willing participants. They need blood. Bodies. Raw materials.” Her hands curl into fists. “The Matron could take us both, extract what she needs, and grow our theoretical child in one of those tanks without either of us consenting to anything.”
I can’t breathe.
The cave feels smaller suddenly. The walls pressing in. My scarification pulses with power I can’t release, energy building with nowhere to go.
All my life, my body has belonged to others. The Matron created me, modified me, sent me to kill and collect and destroy at her command. I thought rebellion meant taking myself back. Claiming ownership of my own flesh.
Now Imara is telling me that even my potential children—offspring I’ve never wanted, never imagined—are already claimed. Already factored into the Matron’s plans. Already commodities in her bloodline calculations.
“Nothing.” The word scrapes out of my throat. “They want to take everything. Leave us with nothing.”
Imara doesn’t respond. Doesn’t need to. The truth sits between us, heavy and immutable.
I stand. Pace the cave’s narrow confines. My hands shake—not from fear, not from exhaustion. From rage so deep it has no outlet. No target I can destroy to make it stop.
“This is why she let us run.” The pieces click into place, each one more horrifying than the last. “She’s not trying to kill us. She’s trying to capture us. Alive. Intact. So she can?—”
I can’t finish the sentence.
Imara rises. Crosses to where I’ve stopped, my back against the cave wall, my breath coming in harsh gasps that I can’t seem to control.
“Kharvek.”
My name in her voice. It cuts through the rage, finds a part of me underneath.
“Look at me.”
