Loves?
The thought catches me off guard. I shove it aside. No time for that now.
“Stay behind me.” I take her face in my hands, kiss her hard. Quick. A promise I intend to keep. “Work from cover. If they break through?—”
“They won’t break through.” She kisses me back with equal force. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”
I don’t want to let her go. Want to stay here in this broken farmstead, wrapped around her, pretending the world outside doesn’t exist. But the hunters are coming, and pretending has never kept anyone alive.
I walk to the door.
Time to be what the Matron made me.
The morning airis cold against my skin as I step outside.
Grokh’s formation halts fifty yards out. I can see his face clearly now—the same green-gray skin as mine, the same ritual scarification, the same eyes that have seen too much death. We could be brothers. In a way, we are.
“Kharvek.” His voice carries across the dead earth. “The Matron sends her regards.”
“The Matron can come herself if she wants me.”
A ripple of movement through the Guard. They’re not used to defiance.
Grokh doesn’t react. Tilts his head, assessing. “She doesn’t want you dead. None of us do. Come back. Bring the harvester. The Matron is willing to forgive everything.”
“I don’t want forgiveness.”
“Then what do you want?”
Behind me, I sense Imara taking position in the farmstead’s doorway. Her presence burns warm and bright in my awareness.
What do I want? Something I didn’t have a name for two weeks ago. Something she gave me.
“I want her to burn.” I let my scars flare, power flooding the channels Imara repaired. “And I want to watch.”
Grokh nods slowly. “Then we have nothing to discuss.”
He signals. The Guard charges.
THIRTY-ONE
KHARVEK
Combat is the only language I’ve ever been fluent in.
The first wave hits me in a coordinated assault—six bodies from three angles, trying to overwhelm through numbers what they can’t match in raw power. I meet them without hesitation.
The first Guard dies with my hand through his chest, scarification channels splitting open as I drain him dry. His life-force floods into me—fuel for the fire. The second catches my elbow across his jaw; bone cracks, and he spins away. The third comes at me with a blade, and I catch his wrist, redirect the strike into the fourth Guard’s throat.
Behind me, Imara works. I sense her magic—precise, surgical. One Guard stumbles as his leg gives out. Another claws at his eyes as blood vessels burst. She doesn’t kill them. She creates openings.
I kill them.
We move in concert, anticipating each other without words. When a Guard flanks left, I know she’ll disable him before he reaches me. When I overextend, her magic covers my retreat. It’s a dance—violent, bloody dancing, but dancing nonetheless.
Six Guards down in ninety seconds. I’m breathing hard but not spent. Imara’s support flows into me, her will reinforcing mine, pushing back the exhaustion that threatens at the edges.
The remaining hunters fall back, regrouping around Grokh. Only four left, plus the captain. Their faces show what they won’t say—they didn’t expect this. The Matron told them I was damaged, weakened. Easy prey.
