Kharvek
THIRTY-ONE
Combat is the only language I’ve ever been fluent in.
The first wave hits me in a coordinated assault—six bodies from three angles, trying to overwhelm through numbers what they can’t match in raw power. I meet them without hesitation.
The first Guard dies with my hand through his chest, scarification channels splitting open as I drain him dry.
His life-force floods into me—fuel for the fire.
The second catches my elbow across his jaw; bone cracks, and he spins away.
The third comes at me with a blade, and I catch his wrist, redirect the strike into the fourth Guard’s throat.
Behind me, Imara works. I sense her magic—precise, surgical. One Guard stumbles as his leg gives out. Another claws at his eyes as blood vessels burst. She doesn’t kill them. She creates openings.
I kill them.
We move in concert, anticipating each other without words. When a Guard flanks left, I know she’ll disable him before he reaches me. When I overextend, her magic covers my retreat. It’s a dance—violent, bloody dancing, but dancing nonetheless.
Six Guards down in ninety seconds. I’m breathing hard but not spent. Imara’s support flows into me, her will reinforcing mine, pushing back the exhaustion that threatens at the edges.
The remaining hunters fall back, regrouping around Grokh. Only four left, plus the captain. Their faces show what they won’t say—they didn’t expect this. The Matron told them I was damaged, weakened. Easy prey.
She was wrong. Or she was lying.
Grokh steps forward. His own scars flare, not as bright as mine but bright enough. “You and me now. The way it should have been from the start.”
The remaining Guards spread out, forming a perimeter. They won’t interfere. This is between weapons.
“You could walk away.” I’m not sure why I offer. Something about facing the only person who ever shared my training pens. “Take your soldiers. Tell the Matron you found me already dead.”
“I could.” He draws a blade from his belt—ritual iron, designed to disrupt channeling. “But I won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because she made me too.” He settles into a fighting stance. “And I want to know which of us she made better.”
He moves.
Grokh is faster than me.
I knew this—remembered from our training years—but knowing and experiencing are different things.
He’s inside my guard before I can react, blade slicing toward my throat, and only instinct saves me.
I throw myself backward, feel the iron whisper past my skin, counter with a strike he dodges with contemptuous ease.
“Slow.” He circles, blade ready. “The healing must have cost you.”
I don’t waste breath responding. Attack.
We clash in a spray of blood—his, mine, impossible to tell. He’s faster, but I’m stronger. He’s more skilled with the blade, but my channels can do things his can’t. We’re mismatched in ways that make this fight unpredictable.
His blade catches my shoulder. Pain flares. I grab his wrist, try to drain him, but he twists free before I can draw more than a trickle.
“The Matron wants you back.” He feints left, strikes right. I block, barely. “She has plans.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?” Another exchange—blade and fist and power. “She told me things. About your blood. About the harvester’s blood. About what you could create.”
“She can want whatever she wants.” I catch his next strike on my forearm, feel the iron disrupting my channels. “She’s not getting it.”
“She will.” His blade finds my ribs. Slices deep. “She always gets what she wants.”
The iron burns. My magic stutters along the damaged pathways. I can’t draw power—can’t defend—can’t do anything but bleed.
Grokh smiles. Moves in for the kill.
“Down!”
Imara’s voice cuts through the chaos. I drop without thinking—trust her without understanding—and in the space where my body was, a lance of crimson light tears through the air.
It takes Grokh in the chest.
The captain staggers. The light burns through his scarification, disrupting the channels he relies on for speed. He’s not dead—Imara’s magic isn’t built for killing—but he’s wounded now. Slowed. Vulnerable.
I don’t give him time to recover.
I’m on him before he can raise his blade. My hands close around his throat, scarification flaring as I pour power into the grip. He fights—clawing at my arms, trying to break free, trying to use his disrupted channels for one last burst of speed.
It’s not enough.
“Come back.” The words rasp out through blood-flecked lips. “The Matron… will forgive. She always forgives… her children.”
Her children. As if the thing that made us has any right to that word.
“I’m not her child.” I think of Imara. Of mornings wrapped around her. Of the future I’m starting to let myself imagine. “I’m not hers at all anymore.”
I squeeze. Feel cartilage crunch. Feel the life leave him—not through my channels but through simple mechanical force. His body goes limp. His eyes go dark.
I drop him.
Nothing but my own ragged breathing. The remaining Guards have fled—scattered into the wasteland the moment Grokh fell. They know better than to face me alone.
“Kharvek.”
I spin. Imara stands in the farmstead’s doorway, blood on her hands from her own workings, exhaustion carved into her face. She doesn’t hesitate—crosses the killing ground to where I stand, stepping over bodies without looking down.
Her arms wrap around me. Her face presses into my chest. I hold her tight, breathing in the scent of her hair, feeling her heartbeat against my ribs.
“You’re hurt.” Her voice is muffled against my shirt.
“I’ll live.”
“The cut on your ribs—”
“Will heal.” I tip her chin up. Make her look at me. “Thanks to you.”
She raises a hand to my jaw, then my temple—tracing across the blood splatter, the evidence of violence still wet on my skin. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away.
“I was scared.” The admission costs her. “When he cut you. When you couldn’t draw power. I thought—”
I kiss her. Swallow whatever she was going to say. Hold it until we’re both breathless, until the fear fades, until there’s nothing but the two of us and the relief of survival.
“I came back.” I rest my forehead against hers. “Like I promised.”
“You better always come back.” Her hands fist in my shirt. “I’m not done with you yet.”
“No?”
“Not even close.”