“Perfect channeling. Perfect stability. But no will.” The Matron’s voice holds genuine regret. “I removed too much of the base consciousness. He could follow orders, but he couldn’t think. Couldn’t adapt. Couldn’t be more than a very expensive puppet.”
She turns to face me. Her expression softens into something almost like affection.
“And then there was you. K-7. My seventh attempt. My success.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
KHARVEK
Istare at the cylinders. At the six failed versions of myself, preserved as trophies of the Matron’s experiments.
Six brothers. The thought surfaces unbidden. I had six brothers, and she killed them all.
Origins. Not father. I heard what I wanted to hear—and she let me.
“This doesn’t explain—” The words catch. I clear my throat, try again. “You said I was your son. That’s not what breeding stock produces.”
“No.” The Matron’s smile widens. “It isn’t.”
She moves past the cylinders, toward a section of wall covered in genealogy charts. Breeding records. The same kind of documents I’ve seen my whole life—bloodlines tracked, traits catalogued, pairings optimized.
But these charts are different. They don’t show two parent lines converging. They show one line—one single bloodline—modified and refined over generations.
Her bloodline.
“I was human once.” The Matron’s voice drops. “Two centuries ago. Before I discovered what blood magic could trulyaccomplish. Before I understood that the body is merely a vessel—one that can be improved. Perfected. Transcended.”
She traces a finger along the chart. Down through generations of modification. Each step bringing her further from humanity.
“I couldn’t breed in the traditional sense. I’d modified myself too extensively. But I could extract—essence. Genetic material, processed through ritual. Combined with carefully selected orc stock to produce…” She gestures at me. “You.”
The words take a moment to sink in.
“You’re saying I’m?—”
“My child.” Her eyes burn into mine. “Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. Biologically. Half of your blood comes from me. Half of your potential. The orc characteristics—the size, the channeling capacity, the physical resilience—those come from the stock I selected. But the core of you, the essence that makes you more than a simple weapon…”
“That’s you.”
“That’s me.”
Imara’s hand squeezes mine so hard it hurts. Her shock travels through the resonance—her horror at what the Matron is describing.
But I can feel something else too. Something in my own blood responds to the Matron’s presence. That recognizes her on a level deeper than thought.
She’s not lying.
The realization is a knife in my chest.
“Why?”The word comes out hoarse. “Why tell me this now? What do you want?”
“I want you to come home.” The Matron’s voice is gentle. Reasonable. The voice of a mother welcoming back a wayward child. “I want you to take your rightful place as my heir. The clan needs new leadership, Kharvek. I’ve been guiding it for two centuries, but even I can’t last forever. Someday I’ll need a successor—someone who understands blood magic the way I do. Someone who carries my essence in their veins.”
“You want me to… lead the clan?”
“I want you to continue my work.” She spreads her arms, encompassing the Chamber, the cylinders, the entire Sanctum above us. “Everything I’ve built—it’s not cruelty for its own sake. It’s progress. Evolution. I’m not harvesting bloodlines because I enjoy suffering; I’m doing it because it’s necessary. Because the alternative is chaos. Because someone has to guide humanity’s magical development, and I’m the only one with the vision to do it properly.”
I think of the child’s skull in the drainage tunnels. The bones built into the walls. The countless lives ended to fuel her “progress.”
