Imara
THIRTY-EIGHT
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 not breaking 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 doors slam 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.
The Matron crosses to him, calm, almost casual. She hasn’t looked my direction. She doesn’t know I’m still in the Chamber—doesn’t know I slipped behind the cylinders the second the doors began to open.
Every instinct screams to break cover. To run to him, fight beside him. To die with him if it comes to that.
My fingers dig into the stone until my nails crack. The pain grounds me. Helps me think.
If I break cover now, the ward sabotage fails. Hours of work, wasted. The Matron keeps her power. Keeps her ability to track us, control us, use us however she wants.
If I stay hidden and finish, Kharvek faces her alone for a few more minutes.
The resonance pulses again. His fury is fading now, replaced by cold resignation. The feeling of defeat.
No.
I close my eyes. Reach for the warmth in my scars—that echo of his heartbeat that tells me he’s still alive.
I’m coming. Hold on. Whatever she does to you, hold on.
I don’t know if he can sense the message. Don’t know if our resonance works that way. But I send it anyway, pour all my desperation into it, and then I turn back to the wards.
Finish the sabotage. Then save him.
It’s the only way any of us survive this.