I think about the seven-year-old I couldn’t save.
I think about the look in his eyes—not hope, not desperation, but resolve. Determination. The look of a weapon that’s realized it can choose its own targets.
“No.”
The word surprises us both.
I pullmy hand from his arm. Step back. Force my breathing steady, my expression carefully blank.
“I found nothing unusual.” I turn toward my implements, movements controlled. “Power flow is optimal. No degradation, no unexpected modifications.”
He’s still watching me. That dark focus hasn’t wavered.
“Why?” The words come out rough, edged with confusion. “Why are you lying for me?”
“I’m not lying for you.” I gather my implements with deliberate care. “I’m making a strategic decision.”
“You could be killed for this.”
“I could be killed for a lot of things.” I meet his stare. Hold it. “The Matron wants her weapon functional and controllable. If I tell her what I found, she’ll try to remove your modifications. You’ll fight her. People will die—probably you, possibly others.” A pause. “Including me, if she decides I failed to report quickly enough.”
“And if you don’t tell her?”
“Then I have a weapon that’s planning war.” The words land between us sharper than I mean them to. “A weapon the Matron can’t fully control. That seems more useful to me than the alternative.”
He goes still. Completely, unnaturally still—a predator reassessing, recalculating. Recognizing that the room holds a fellow predator rather than prey.
“You’re not what you seem.” He leans forward against his restraints, studying me. “The loyal harvester. The efficient tool. That’s a mask.”
“We all wear masks in the Sanctum.” I move toward the chamber’s exit. “Some of us are just better at it than others.”
“Harvester.”
I pause at the drapes. Don’t turn around.
“What’s your name?”
“Imara.” The word feels strange in my mouth—too personal for this place, too vulnerable. “Imara Calder.”
“Imara.” He rolls the syllable across his tongue, testing it. “I won’t forget this.”
“I’m counting on it.”
I push through the drapes and walk toward the Blood Matron, pulse racing, hands steady at my sides. The monster behind me doesn’t move.
He doesn’t need to.
No going back now.
I make my report. The Blood Matron listens with those solid crimson eyes, her expression revealing nothing. I tell her Kharvek’s blood shows normal patterns. I tell her his power flow is optimal. I tell her if there’s a source for his rebellion, it isn’t physical—perhaps psychological, perhaps philosophical, beyond my expertise to evaluate.
She accepts my findings. Dismisses me with a wave of her bone-pale hand.
I climb the spiral stairs. One thousand three hundred and twenty-seven steps. Each one carries me further from the Womb Chamber, further from the monster I just lied to protect.
I reach my quarters as dawn breaks over the Crimson Vale. The sky through my narrow window is the color of old wounds, red light bleeding across barren earth. I close the door. Lock it. And then, only then, do I let myself feel.
And now, so do I.
