Her gaze slides to Imara.
“No.” The word comes out low. Dangerous.
Behind her, Imara has managed to sit up. Her hands are pressed flat against the floor, and her magic stirs against my awareness—weak, tentative, but there. She’s doing something. I don’t know what.
I need to keep the Matron talking.
“What about consent?” I ask. “We’ll never cooperate. You said that yourself.”
“Consent is irrelevant.” The Matron waves a dismissive hand. “I don’t need your cooperation—just your genetic material. The Womb Chamber can extract what I need from both ofyou. Conception, gestation, birth—all of it can be accomplished without your willing participation.”
The words hit me in the gut. Everything we feared, confirmed. Our bodies aren’t ours. Never have been. Never will be, as long as she lives.
I think of Imara. Of mornings waking up with her in my arms. Of the future we’ve started to imagine—a life where we choose our own paths, make our own decisions, belong to ourselves instead of the clan’s machinery.
The Matron wants to take all of that. Reduce us to breeding stock. Turn our love into another tool for her control.
A cold clarity settles through me. Quiet. Focused.
Not today. Not ever.
FORTY-TWO
KHARVEK
The Matron keeps talking.
She outlines her plans in detail—the breeding schedule she’s devised, the traits she hopes to cultivate, the timeline for producing the first viable offspring. Two years, she estimates. Maybe three. She has patience. She’s had two centuries to develop it.
I stop listening to the words. Focus instead on the warmth in my chest.
Imara is there. Hurt and weakened but present. I can feel her working—slow, careful movements of magic that brush against my awareness like fingertips. She’s doing something to the wards around us. Something subtle.
Trust me. I have a plan.
I don’t know if she’s actually communicating or if I’m imagining it. Doesn’t matter. I trust her anyway.
The problem is keeping the Matron distracted long enough for whatever Imara is doing to work.
“Why tell me this?” I interrupt the Matron’s monologue. “If you’re going to take what you want regardless, why bother explaining?”
She pauses. Considers the question.
“Because I want you to understand.” She steps closer, close enough that I can smell the old blood on her robes, the death that clings to her skin. “What I told you in this Chamber an hour ago wasn’t a tactic. You owe me everything you are.”
I think of Imara’s hands on my scars. Warm. Gentle. Healing instead of hurting.
“You gave me nothing.” My voice comes out steady. Certain. “You designed a weapon. That’s not creation—it’s manufacture.”
Something crosses her expression. Not hurt—nothing so human. More like calculation disrupted.
“You’re angry,” she observes. “That’s understandable. The truth is rarely comfortable.”
“I’m not angry.” I meet those unblinking crimson orbs without looking away. “I’m done. Whatever you thought I was, whatever you designed me to be—that’s over. I belong to myself now. And to her.”
My gaze flicks to Imara. Just for a heartbeat.
The Matron follows my look. Sees Imara sitting up, hands pressed to the floor, eyes closed in concentration.
