She was wrong. Or she was lying.
Grokh steps forward. His own scars flare, not as bright as mine but bright enough. “You and me now. The way it should have been from the start.”
The remaining Guards spread out, forming a perimeter. They won’t interfere. This is between weapons.
“You could walk away.” I’m not sure why I offer. Something about facing the only person who ever shared my training pens. “Take your soldiers. Tell the Matron you found me already dead.”
“I could.” He draws a blade from his belt—ritual iron, designed to disrupt channeling. “But I won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because she made me too.” He settles into a fighting stance. “And I want to know which of us she made better.”
He moves.
Grokh is faster than me.
I knew this—remembered from our training years—but knowing and experiencing are different things. He’s inside my guard before I can react, blade slicing toward my throat, and only instinct saves me. I throw myself backward, feel the ironwhisper past my skin, counter with a strike he dodges with contemptuous ease.
“Slow.” He circles, blade ready. “The healing must have cost you.”
I don’t waste breath responding. Attack.
We clash in a spray of blood—his, mine, impossible to tell. He’s faster, but I’m stronger. He’s more skilled with the blade, but my channels can do things his can’t. We’re mismatched in ways that make this fight unpredictable.
His blade catches my shoulder. Pain flares. I grab his wrist, try to drain him, but he twists free before I can draw more than a trickle.
“The Matron wants you back.” He feints left, strikes right. I block, barely. “She has plans.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?” Another exchange—blade and fist and power. “She told me things. About your blood. About the harvester’s blood. About what you could create.”
“She can want whatever she wants.” I catch his next strike on my forearm, feel the iron disrupting my channels. “She’s not getting it.”
“She will.” His blade finds my ribs. Slices deep. “She always gets what she wants.”
The iron burns. My magic stutters along the damaged pathways. I can’t draw power—can’t defend—can’t do anything but bleed.
Grokh smiles. Moves in for the kill.
“Down!”
Imara’s voice cuts through the chaos. I drop without thinking—trust her without understanding—and in the space where my body was, a lance of crimson light tears through the air.
It takes Grokh in the chest.
The captain staggers.The light burns through his scarification, disrupting the channels he relies on for speed. He’s not dead—Imara’s magic isn’t built for killing—but he’s wounded now. Slowed. Vulnerable.
I don’t give him time to recover.
I’m on him before he can raise his blade. My hands close around his throat, scarification flaring as I pour power into the grip. He fights—clawing at my arms, trying to break free, trying to use his disrupted channels for one last burst of speed.
It’s not enough.
“Come back.” The words rasp out through blood-flecked lips. “The Matron… will forgive. She always forgives… her children.”
Her children. As if the thing that made us has any right to that word.
