Imara
FIFTY-EIGHT
Later—hours later, when the survivors have been organized into groups and plans have been made for morning—I find Kharvek at the crater’s edge.
He’s standing alone. Staring down at the destruction. His transformed scars catch the starlight—the new patterns gleaming pale against his dark skin. He looks different in this light. Softer, somehow. Still dangerous, still massive, still every inch the weapon the Matron created.
But different.
I approach quietly. Slip my hand into his.
“You should be resting.” His voice is low. Rough.
“So should you.” I lean against his arm. “Neither of us is very good at that.”
Silence. The wind blows across the dead fields, carrying the smell of ash and emptiness.
“What happens now?” I ask finally.
“I don’t know.” His fingers intertwine with mine. “I’ve never not known what comes next. There was always a mission. A target. A purpose.”
“And now?”
“Now there’s just… possibility.” He turns to look at me. “I don’t know how to live in possibility.”
“Neither do I.” I rise on my toes. Press a kiss to his scarred jaw. “But we can figure it out. One day at a time.”
“With Dena?”
“If you’re willing.”
He’s quiet. I feel his thoughts through the resonance—the uncertainty, the fear, the fragile hope he’s afraid to acknowledge.
“I don’t know how to be a father.” The admission comes out rough. “I don’t know how to be anything except what they made me.”
“You learned how to be a lover.” I turn to face him fully, hold his gaze. “You learned how to be a partner. You can learn this too.”
“What if I fail?”
“Then you try again. That’s how it works.” I stroke his scarred cheek. “That’s how everything works now. We try. We fail. We try again. No one punishes us for imperfection anymore.”
His expression shifts. The fear doesn’t disappear—I don’t think it will ever fully disappear—but it makes room for determination. Resolve.
The face of a man who’s decided to try.
“Wherever we go”—he pulls me closer—“whatever we build—we do it as one. No more separate missions. No more solo plans. We choose our path and walk it as partners.”
“Partners.” I nod. “I can work with that.”
He pulls me close. Wraps his arms around me. Holds me against his chest while the stars wheel overhead and the dead Vale stretches silent around us.
“I love you.” The words come out quiet. Almost shy. “I don’t say it enough.”
“You show it enough.” I press my ear to his heartbeat. “But I like hearing it too.”
“Then I’ll say it more.” His lips brush my hair. “Every day. Until you’re sick of hearing it.”
“That might take a while.”
“Good.” His arms tighten. “I plan on being around for a while.”
We stand there in the darkness, wrapped in each other, survivors of a war that lasted two centuries. Behind us, the survivors sleep—dreaming of futures they never imagined possible. Ahead of us, the unknown stretches wide and terrifying and full of promise.
The clan is gone. Everything they took from us, finally ours to reclaim.
And in its place, we’ll build a new world. A free world. One that belongs to us.