Imara
TWENTY-ONE
The day passes in fragments.
I arrange what contacts I can through the old network—messages left in dead drops, signals that Tomek taught me years ago.
Most of my people are dead or scattered, but a few might still be watching, might still respond.
If they do, they can help smuggle the remaining survivors beyond the territories the Matron can reach.
If they don’t, we’re on our own.
Dena shadows me through the farmstead, asking questions I don’t have answers for.
Where are we going? When can we stop running?
What happened to the other children in the training pens?
I tell her what I can—not much—and distract her with small tasks.
Sorting the edible supplies we scavenged.
Counting our remaining water. Anything to keep her mind occupied.
She falls asleep in the afternoon, curled on a pile of rotted blankets with the button-eyed doll clutched to her chest. I watch her sleep and try not to think about all the ways I could still fail her.
The light shifts. Afternoon bleeds toward evening. The other survivors stir, eat what little we have, settle back into uneasy rest.
Kharvek hasn’t moved from his post.
I cross the room to where he stands. His gaze tracks my approach.
“You need to sleep.”
“I’ll sleep when we’re safe.”
“We’re not going to be safe for a long time. You can’t stay awake forever.”
He grunts. Doesn’t argue. Doesn’t move.
I step closer. Into his space, where his body radiates outward, where I can smell blood and dust and that undertone that belongs only to him. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.” I reach for his arm—the left one, where I noticed him favoring his movements during the march. “Let me see.”
“Imara—”
“Let me see.”
He holds my gaze. That stubbornness I’ve come to expect warring with a new emotion. Then he extends his arm, and I see what he’s been hiding.
The scarification along his forearm is damaged. Not just damaged—torn. The channels that should carry power in clean lines are ragged, the raised tissue split in places where too much magic flowed too fast. Dried blood crusts the wounds. Fresh blood seeps from the deepest tears.
“This happened at the pit.” My voice comes out sharper than I intend. “Three days ago. You’ve been channeling through damaged scars for three days.”
“I’ve been keeping us alive for three days.”
“You’ve been destroying yourself for three days.” I grab his wrist, pull him toward the back room where we found a basin and some stagnant water. “Sit. Now.”
He could resist. Could plant his feet and refuse to budge, and there’s nothing I could do about it. Instead, he follows. Sits on the edge of a broken table. Extends his arm when I reach for it again.
The damage is worse than I thought.
I work in silence at first, cleaning the wounds with what little clean water we have.
The scarification channels are delicate work—I’ve seen them carved during training rituals, watched the precision required to create paths that can carry blood magic without burning out the flesh around them.
What Kharvek has done to himself… it’s a wonder he’s still functioning.
“You knew.” His voice is low. Rough. “In the cave. When you said I took damage. You knew it was this bad.”
“I suspected.” I dip a cloth in water, press it against a particularly ugly tear. He doesn’t move. “I hoped I was wrong.”
“You’re never wrong about blood.”
“No.” I rinse the cloth. Start on the next wound. “I’m not.”
Silence stretches between us. The evening light filters through cracks in the wall, casting long shadows across the room. I can feel him watching me work—that intense focus that makes my skin prickle.
“You’re staring.” The words escape before I can stop them.
“You’re touching.”
My hands still on his arm. The simple statement lands harder than it should—an acknowledgment of what we’ve been dancing around, what neither of us has been willing to name.
“I’m healing.” I force my hands to move again. “It’s different.”
“Is it?”
His free hand rises. Hovers near my face—not touching, just close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from his skin. My breath catches. My hands tremble on his arm.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.” The admission comes out rough. Almost angry. “I’ve never—” He stops. Jaw tight.
“Never what?”
“Wanted what I couldn’t take.” His fingers brush my cheek—barely a touch, there and gone. “Wanted someone.”
My body leans toward him without my permission, drawn by that warmth, that intensity, that raw honesty I’m still not used to hearing from him.
“The kisses,” I manage. “In the garden. The cave. We haven’t—”
“I know.”
“We should talk about—”
“Should we?” His hand drops. Returns to his side. The loss of that almost-touch leaves me colder than it should. “What’s there to say? I want you. You want me. We’re running for our lives from a clan that wants to breed us like livestock. Talking won’t change any of that.”
He’s not wrong. But the bluntness of it still hits differently than I expected.
“So what do we do?”
He looks at me. Really looks—not with the assessment I’ve grown used to, but with a deeper need. A look that makes me feel seen in ways I’m not sure I’m comfortable with.
“I don’t know.” The words cost him. I can see it in the tension of his shoulders, the tightness around his mouth. “I know how to kill. How to break. How to destroy. I don’t know how to—” He gestures between us. “This.”
“Neither do I.” I return to cleaning his wounds. Focus on the work so I don’t have to meet his stare. “The clan didn’t leave room for any of this. Just survival. Waiting. Pretending.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m tired of pretending.”
The confession hangs in the air. I feel exposed—more exposed than when he cornered me in that storage alcove, more exposed than when I offered him my help in the Womb Chamber. This is something else entirely—choosing to be vulnerable when I don’t have to be.
His hand covers mine. Stops my movement. His palm seeps warmth into my skin, and I can feel his heartbeat—quick, strong, not as controlled as he’d like me to believe.
“Imara.”
I look up. His face is close. Closer than I realized. Close enough that I can see the individual scars, the texture of damaged skin, the way his eyes reflect the fading light.
“I don’t know how to do this right.” He lowers his voice. It becomes something private, something meant only for me. “But I want to learn. With you.”
The words crack something open behind my ribs. A need I’ve been refusing to name because naming it makes it real, and real things can be used against you.
“Okay.” The word comes out barely a whisper. “Okay.”
He leans forward. Slow. Giving me time to pull away, to change my mind, to retreat to safer ground.
I don’t retreat.
His lips brush mine—gentle, questioning. This is a new feeling. Something careful. A first attempt at tenderness from someone who was never taught the word.
I kiss him back. Soft. Slow. Let my hand slide up his arm, over his shoulder, to rest against the back of his neck. Feel the shiver that runs through him at the touch.
“Imara.” My name again. A breath against my lips.
“I know.” I pull back just enough to see his face. “I know.”
We stay like that—foreheads touching, breath mingling, the farmstead quiet around us. It’s not resolution. It’s not a plan. It’s just two people admitting they’re in over their heads and choosing to keep going anyway.
When I finally return to treating his wounds, the tension is different. Less like a weapon and more like a promise.
I don’t know what comes next. Neither does he.
But we’re going to find out.