“Because she hid it from you.” Imara’s eyes burn with fury—not at me, never at me. At the creature who created us both. “She designed you not to recognize her signature. But now that you know what to look for?—”
“I can’t stop feeling it.” My stomach churns. “She’s right. Her blood is in me. Half of what I am came from her.”
“Half.” Imara’s voice sharpens. “Half of what you were born as. Nothing of what you’ve become. Nothing of who you are now.”
I want to believe her. Want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything. But the Matron’s words echo in my skull—blood endures—and I can feel the truth of it in my very cells.
“She made me to be a weapon.” My voice breaks.
I think of the moment I first decided to rebel. Not against the clan—against myself. Against the programming that said I had no value beyond violence. Against the certainty that I could never be more than what they made me.
Imara gave me that choice. Showed me it existed. But I was the one who made it.
I was the one who decided to be more.
“She can’t control what I feel.” The realization steadies me. Grounds me. “She can limit my power, lock down my channels, keep me trapped in this Chamber. But she can’t make me stop loving you. She can’t make me stop fighting.”
“No.” Imara’s smile is fierce. Triumphant. “She can’t.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
IMARA
The Chamber’s wards are a nightmare of tangled magic.
I crouch at the base of one of the blood-glass cylinders along the Chamber’s far wall, fingers pressed against the stone where the floor-wards anchor into the foundation. Crimson light flickers through channels carved into the rock—blood magic flowing in patterns I’ve spent years learning to read. Learning to sabotage.
Kharvek paces the Chamber’s center, prowling its perimeter, searching for the records the Matron promised about his origins. I can sense him without looking—that warmth in my scars that tells me he’s alive, he’s close, he’s mine. The resonance between us hums steady and strong.
I push the awareness aside. Focus on the work.
The Matron’s ward network is ancient. Two centuries of accumulated power, layered over itself as sediment in a riverbed. Breaking it outright is impossible—the system would simply route around any damage, healing itself faster than I could tear it apart. But poison is different. Poison works from within.
I find the first node—a junction point where three major ward lines converge in the Chamber’s foundation. My own blood magic slides into the pattern, subtle as a whisper. I’m notbreaking anything. I’m introducing flaws. Weaknesses. Places where the system will fail when it’s stressed.
It’s delicate work. One mistake and the wards will recognize me as a threat. Sound alarms. Bring the Matron back at a run.
I work fast. My arms ache. My scars burn with the effort of maintaining precision. But the sabotage spreads—alive in my awareness, a cancer growing in the Sanctum’s magical infrastructure. When I trigger the final activation, the whole system will collapse.
The Matron won’t be able to track us anymore. Won’t be able to control her guards through blood commands. Won’t be able to maintain the power that’s kept her alive for two hundred years.
All I have to do is finish the work before she comes back.
The Chamber doorsslam open behind me.
The Matron sweeps through them, white hair streaming, three Attendants flanking her. She doesn’t see me—I’m crouched low behind the cylinder, blocked from her sightline. But she sees Kharvek. Sees him at the Chamber’s center where she left him.
“Restrain him.” Her voice carries the weight of two centuries of command. “The wall manacles. The ward-sigils I prepared. Now.”
Kharvek moves, but the Attendants are faster. They’ve been trained for this exact purpose—restraining things stronger than themselves. Power flares from the Matron’s hands and slams Kharvek to his knees. Then to the wall. The iron locks around his wrists. The ward-sigils carved into the metal flare to life.
He roars. Strains against the chains. The sigils flare brighter, drinking his power, leaving him weaker with every pulse.
Kharvek.
My hands falter on the ward node. The careful pattern I’ve been weaving stutters, almost unravels. I force myself to steady—to breathe—to push through the surge of emotion that’s flooding into me through the resonance.
He’s in trouble. Serious trouble.
