41. Kharvek
FORTY-ONE
KHARVEK
The wards hold me like a fist.
I can’t move. Can’t fight. Can only hang in my chains and watch as the Matron deflects Imara’s attack with a casual wave of her hand.
Power ripples through the air—two centuries of accumulated strength against Imara’s decade of precise sabotage—and there’s no contest. Imara flies backward, slams into a blood-glass cylinder hard enough to crack it, and crumples to the floor.
No.
The word tears through my skull. I strain against the chains until blood runs fresh from my wrists, until the ward-sigils carved into the iron burn white-hot against my skin. The resonance between us pulses with her pain—sharp, stunning, but not fatal. Not yet.
She’s alive. Hurt, but alive.
The Matron straightens her robes. Doesn’t even look winded.
“Disappointing.” She steps over Imara’s prone form without glancing down. “I had such hopes for her.”
I want to kill her. Want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything—more than freedom, more than purpose, more than my next breath. My scars burn with the desire to unleash everything I have, to tear through these wards and wrap my hands around her throat.
The wards don’t budge.
“You’re wasting your energy.” The Matron approaches my chains. Her fingers trail across my chest, tracing the scarification patterns she designed. “These bonds are keyed to your channels. The harder you fight, the tighter they hold. It’s quite elegant, really.”
I bare my tusks at her. “When I break free—”
“You won’t.” She cups my chin. Forces my head up. Her touch is cold. Dead. “I built you, Kharvek. Every pathway in your body, every conduit for power—I created them. Do you really think I didn’t include failsafes?”
Behind her, Imara stirs. Pushes herself up on shaking arms. Blood mats her hair. Her robes are torn. But her eyes find mine across the room, and what I see there isn’t defeat.
It’s fury.
I’m here. Stay down. Don’t give her an excuse.
Her jaw tightens. She stays down.
The Matron positions herself between us. Arms folded. Expression patient.
“Now.” She gestures to the Chamber. “Let’s discuss the future.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.”
“On the contrary.” She begins to pace. Each step measured, deliberate. A predator circling prey that’s already caught. “There’s everything to discuss. Your bloodline. Your harvester’s bloodline. What you could create if properly guided.”
“We’re not creating anything for you.”
“Not for me.” She stops pacing. Turns to face me fully, those unblinking crimson orbs burning into mine. “For the future of blood magic itself.”
I don’t respond. Just watch her. Wait for the monologue I know is coming.
The Matron doesn’t disappoint.
“Do you understand what you are, Kharvek?” She spreads her arms, gesturing at the Chamber around us.
At the blood-glass cylinders lining the walls.
At the six failed versions of me floating in their preservative solutions.
“You’re proof that the old limitations can be overcome.
Blood mages have always burned through their own life-force.
Always aged, weakened, died before their time.
But you—you channel power without cost. You take from others and grow stronger instead of weaker. ”
“I know what I am.”
“Do you?” She moves closer. “You’re a breakthrough. A revolution in magical breeding. But you’re also incomplete. Your power is vast but uncontrolled. Destructive but imprecise. You need a counterbalance—someone whose magic complements yours. Someone who can provide the precision you lack.”
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 of you. 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.