Kharvek
NINETEEN
This is deliberate—a choice we’re both making with full knowledge of what it means. Her body fits against mine, small and warm and alive, and when her lips meet my scarred mouth, the sensation floods through every nerve.
She tastes of exhaustion and fear and sweetness underneath. I drink it in. Memorize it. This moment, this choice, this woman who looked at a monster and chose to stay.
My hands find her waist. Hers curl around my neck. We hold each other in the dim cave light, two damaged people choosing each other despite everything.
When we finally pull apart, her forehead rests against my chest. Her breath comes quick, warming my skin through my thin shirt.
“We should rest.” Her voice is rough. “While we can.”
“Yes.”
Neither of us moves.
“The survivors need us functional.” She’s convincing herself. “We can’t protect them if we’re exhausted.”
“True.”
Still we stand there, wrapped around each other, unwilling to let go.
“Kharvek.”
“Imara.”
I take up a position at the cave entrance. Watch the barren landscape for movement. Try to quiet the storm in my head long enough to think clearly.
The Matron wants us alive. Wants our bloodlines, our potential, the child we could create. She’ll send hunters—not to kill, but to capture. Different rules. Different dangers.
Can we outrun her? Outfight her?
I don’t know. I’ve never run from anything in my life. Running isn’t what I was built for.
Hours pass. The survivors sleep. Imara dozes against the cave wall, exhaustion finally claiming her despite her efforts to stay awake. Dena shifts in her sleep, small sounds of distress escaping before she settles again.
I watch them all. Guard them. Feel the strangeness of caring whether they live or die.
The sun drops toward the horizon. Shadows lengthen across the dead landscape. The air grows colder, that residual warmth from the Vale’s magical infrastructure fading to nothing.
We’ll need to move again soon. Find food. Find water. Find somewhere more defensible than this cave.
We’ll need to figure out what comes next.
The blood-wards stir.
I tense. The sensation is faint—we’re beyond the Vale’s boundary, beyond the Matron’s direct sight—but I feel it anyway. A ripple in the magical infrastructure, a surge of power being channeled toward—
The words echo across the dead valley.
“Kharvek.”
Not amplified this time. Not addressing a crowd. Just my name, spoken with intimate precision, carried on currents of blood magic that shouldn’t reach this far.
But they do. Because she’s the Blood Matron. Because she built these systems. Because when she wants to be heard, nothing can stop her voice from finding its target.
“I’ve sent my hunters.” Soft. Almost gentle. “What remains of them. They’ll reach you by dawn.”
Imara jerks awake. Her hand finds mine in the darkness.
“But that’s not why I’m speaking to you now.”
I should move. Should rouse the survivors, should start running, should act rather than stand frozen while my creator’s voice wraps around me.
“There’s truth you deserve to know. Something I should have told you long ago.”
Imara’s grip tightens.
“Come back.” The Matron’s voice holds no anger. No threat. Just quiet certainty. “Come back, and I’ll show you where your bloodline really came from. Where you started. What you are.”
The words hit like physical blows.
“I’ll show you your true origins, Kharvek. The reason you’re capable of things no other orc has ever achieved.”
Static. Silence. The voice fades, leaving only the wind and my own ragged breathing.
My origins.
I never thought about where I truly came from. Never questioned it. The clan bred me from selected stock—that’s all I ever knew, all I ever cared to know. Bloodlines were data points. Nothing personal. Nothing that mattered.
But the Matron’s voice held a tone I’ve never heard from her before. Something that sounded almost like—
“She’s lying.” Imara’s voice is tight. Hard. “Trying to lure you back. Whatever she claims to know—”
“Maybe.” I stare at the horizon, at the direction her voice came from. “Maybe not.”
“Kharvek—”
“I’m not going back.” I turn to face her. Let her see the truth in my expression. “Whatever she knows, whatever she’s offering—it doesn’t change what she wants to do with us. Nothing she could tell me is worth becoming her prisoner again.”
Relief floods her features.
“But I need to know.” The admission costs me. “When this is over. When she’s dead. I need to know where I came from.”
Imara studies me. Then she nods.
“When this is over,” she agrees. “We’ll find out. On our terms.”
Our terms. The phrase settles into me. Becomes a truth I can hold onto.
“Dawn.” I turn back to the entrance. “We have until dawn to get the survivors somewhere safe. Then—”
“Then we fight.”
I look at her. This woman who refuses to leave anyone behind, who kissed a monster in a cave at the edge of nowhere, who carries the same rage I do and channels it into a force other than destruction.
“Then we fight.”
The hunters are coming. The Matron is waiting. The truth about my origins dangles like bait on a hook designed specifically for me.
But Imara’s hand is still in mine. Dena sleeps peacefully for the first time since her nightmare began. And somewhere behind my ribs, that new sensation burns steady and demanding.
Whatever comes next—hunters, revelations, the Matron’s full fury—they’ll find us ready. They’ll find us free.
And they’ll learn what happens when weapons choose their own targets.