Page 12 of Fated in A Time of War

KRALL

T he tunnel spills us out into a cavern that doesn’t belong here. For a second I think it’s just another chamber of collapsed ferrocrete and steel, but then I see the carvings—spiraled etchings cut into stone older than this city, older than the war.

A shrine.

Ataxian.

I almost turn us around right then. Every instinct in me screams to stay out.

This place is poison, carved by hands that prayed while mine bled.

But the roof overhead is intact, the angles warped just enough to break sensor sweeps.

We need cover. And I can’t keep moving like this—my side burns every time I take a breath, my blood sticky under the plates.

So I drag her inside.

The place reeks of smoke and wet stone, of ash settled into grooves of long-dead prayers. Broken altars lie crushed under girders, a fresco of saints cracked through the middle so their faces twist and double. Rusted incense burners dangle from chains, one swaying slightly as if stirred by ghosts.

Alice pauses near a slab of stone—half an altar, half rubble. She crouches, touches the edge with her fingertips, and bows her head. Just for a heartbeat.

It makes bile rise in my throat.

I lean against a shattered column, teeth clenched. My hand shakes when I press it to my wound, and that only pisses me off more. This is what I’ve been reduced to—bleeding out in the belly of the enemy’s temple while she whispers to her gods.

“Of course,” I snarl, the words spilling forth. “Figures. Rat runs straight back to the nest.”

She glances up, calm as ever, her hand still resting on the altar. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even bother to argue. Just watches me like she’s measuring how much venom I’ll spit before I choke on it.

I push off the column, stagger closer. I walk over powdered stone, over broken offerings littering the floor.

“You people,” I growl, my voice echoing sharp off the hollow walls.

“Always hiding behind your prayers. Pretend it’s peace, pretend it’s holy—but every time we torch one of your halls we find bombs in the basement.

Caches of rifles under the pews. Your faith’s just another mask for war. ”

Still no answer. Her blue eyes just stay locked on me, too damn calm, too damn steady.

It makes me furious. My words get louder, rougher, spilling hot through clenched teeth.

“You know how many of ours went down because of your ‘sanctuaries’? Because some idiot Vakutan thought mercy was noble, let a convoy pass a hall flying your symbols, and the next day we’re scraping bodies out of the dirt?

That’s what your gods give us. That’s what your prayers buy.

You make war out of worship and then act like we’re the monsters for burning it down. ”

The chamber swallows the echoes, throws them back jagged. My chest heaves, every breath slicing fire through my ribs.

She finally speaks, soft. Not defensive. Not shaken. Just soft.

“You’re wrong.”

Two words. That’s all.

And somehow, they feel heavier than all my shouting.

My fists clench. My vision blurs with rage and exhaustion. I want her to break, to cry, to beg—anything but stand there looking at me like I’m the one on trial in her ruin of a temple.

But she doesn’t.

She just stands, the altar at her back, and meets my fury with silence, like she’s got the patience of a stone saint.

And saints are just statues. Easy to break.

I turn away, pacing, cursing under my breath, the stink of blood and incense clawing at my nose. I hate this place. I hate her calm. I hate that a part of me knows my anger isn’t just at her—it’s at me, at Lakka, at the Alliance that left us in this graveyard.

But I can’t admit that.

So I spit it all at her instead, voice ragged as I jab a finger in her direction:

“Pray all you want, healer. Your gods won’t save you when this war finishes what it started.”

She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t argue. Doesn’t even bother to spit back.

Instead, Alice kneels before the cracked altar, rummages through the dust until she finds a votive lamp—miraculously unbroken, its clay chipped but intact. She cups it in her hands, strikes a spark from some hidden flint, and breathes life into the wick.

The flame sputters, then steadies.

One thin tongue of light, dancing in the dark.

It throws her face into gold and shadow, makes her eyes gleam like cold water catching firelight. She says nothing. Just places the lamp on the ruined altar and lets it burn.

The silence is a knife against my ears.

I pace. My boots grind shards of glass underfoot, the sound sharp and jagged. My breath comes rough. The pain in my side gnaws with every movement, but I keep moving, circling like a beast in a cage too small.

“Don’t play holy with me,” I snarl. My voice comes out harsh, guttural, echoing off the stone walls.

“Don’t you dare. You think I haven’t seen what comes out of places like this?

I’ve dragged charred bodies from beneath shrines just like it.

I’ve watched men bleed out because they hesitated at your symbols.

I’ve—” My throat tightens. The word tears itself out raw.

“I’ve buried my brother because of this war. Because of you. Because of all of you.”

The lamp flickers. She stays silent.

My fists clench and unclench, nails biting into palms. “Say something! Anything! Don’t just sit there with that calm face like I’m some fool raving at shadows!”

But she doesn’t.

She just watches me, her hands folded in her lap now, the light of her tiny flame catching on the silver of that Ataxian acolyte necklace.

It makes me feel mocked, like every ounce of fury I spill is nothing more than smoke in her quiet.

I slam my hand against a wall. Stone dust rains down. My ribs scream, but I barely feel it. “Tell me why you wear it! If you’re not enemy, if you’re not like them—why wear their symbol around your neck? Why flaunt it?”

For a long moment, she says nothing. Just breathes. The flame between us wavers in the draft, making her shadow long and thin against the wall.

At last, she speaks.

“I was raised in it,” she says softly, voice steady, even. “The faith. The vows. The prayers. That necklace? It isn’t a banner. It’s not a battle cry. It’s who I was, once. Who I’m still learning to be without.”

I scoff, a harsh sound, bitter in my throat. “Convenient answer.”

Her gaze doesn’t waver.

“But I don’t fight for it,” she continues, tone sharpening just enough to cut through me. “I don’t fight for gods. Or symbols. Or power. I fight for people. For the ones abandoned in this ruin while soldiers like you and monsters like them burn the world around them.”

Her words fall heavy, like stones dropping into water.

I stare at her, my breath stuck halfway out.

She doesn’t stop.

“For the wounded who can’t walk. For the children choking on air their lungs can’t survive. For the ones the Alliance promised to protect… and left to rot in the dark.”

My chest aches, and it’s not just the wound.

Her calm voice cuts deeper than any scream could. She’s not defending herself. Not justifying or pleading. She’s just laying the truth bare in front of me, like a wound that can’t be stitched shut.

And it hits something raw.

Lakka’s face flashes in my mind. Lakka, who believed every line of Alliance doctrine, every oath of honor, every broadcast about liberation and salvation. Lakka, who died crawling through ash, whispering my name.

I drag my gaze away, cursing under my breath, pacing again just to keep from cracking open right there on the shrine floor.

Her flame burns on the altar, steady and small, and somehow it feels like it’s lighting up every place inside me I’d rather keep dark.

“People,” I mutter, almost spitting the word. “You talk about people like war’s that simple. Like you can pick them up and carry them out of this fire. You think hope’s enough to patch the holes in their bodies? You think?—”

My voice breaks. My jaw locks.

Her eyes stay on me, unwavering. Calm. Patient.

And I hate it.

Because for the first time, I don’t know if I hate her.

I swallow hard, fists trembling at my sides, and growl.

“You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

The flame crackles softly, and in the silence that follows, I almost wish she’d shout.

I retreat.

My boots scrape against the stone as I cross to the far side of the sanctuary, putting distance between myself and her damned little flame, that calm face, those steady eyes. My side throbs, every step dragging fire through my ribs, but I welcome the pain. Pain makes sense. Pain is honest.

Her silence isn’t. Her words aren’t.

I drop down against a slab of broken marble that might’ve been part of a pillar once, back when this place stood tall.

The cold seeps through my armor. I pull my cloak tighter, rough fabric scratching against scales, the smell of smoke and blood still clinging to it.

My hand presses instinctively to my side.

The wound’s stiff, tacky with half-clotted blood, the nanites not enough to do more than keep me breathing.

Across the chamber, Alice kneels near that guttering votive lamp, hands folded loosely in her lap. The glow paints her pale, makes her necklace catch firelight like a blade. She looks small in this ruin, fragile even—but she doesn’t shrink. She doesn’t hide.

And that rattles me more than anything.

I’ve faced mechs the size of towers, mercs who laugh while they gut you, whole regiments charging with nothing but blood in their eyes.

But this woman? She just sits there. Steady.

Calm. Like she’s not bound here with me, like she’s not supposed to be my prisoner, like she hasn’t seen me rage and crack open and bleed all over the ground.

And she hasn’t walked away.

She could’ve tried. Could’ve bolted the second I left her hands free. Could’ve screamed when I turned my back. But she didn’t. She’s just… there. Watching me unravel, watching me fall apart, and not leaving me alone in it.

I hate it. And I crave it.

My eyes flick up to the ceiling, or what’s left of it.

Cracks run through the stone like veins, bits of rebar sticking out at awkward angles.

Ash drifts in the air, glowing faintly in the lamplight.

I imagine it’s stars. A broken sky above a broken temple, and me lying here like some ruined god’s last disciple.

My chest feels tight. Not from the wound. From something deeper.

Because here’s the truth I can’t shake: she’s not a monster. Not a shadow slipping knives into my brother’s back or some zealot hiding bombs under prayer mats. She’s not even afraid of me.

She’s just… a woman. Flesh and blood. Bruised. Breathing. Staring at me like I’m more than just the beast that dragged her through hell.

And that terrifies me.

I drag the cloak tighter, burying my face for a moment, trying to smother it all—the sight of her, the sound of her calm voice still echoing in my skull, the way my rage slid off her like rain against stone.

Because if she’s real—if what she said about fighting for people, not gods, is true—then maybe not everything I was taught holds weight.

Maybe not everyone I’ve killed deserved it.

My gut twists. I shove the thought down, hard.

The Alliance is right. It has to be right.

The Ataxians brought this war, lit the fires, poisoned worlds.

That’s what I was told. That’s what Lakka believed, with every fiber of his soul.

And I swore to follow him, swore to fight beside him, swore to believe with him.

And now he’s gone.

And all I have is her.

I close my eyes. Try to sleep. The cloak scratches. The stone bites at my back. My wound pulses with every heartbeat, thick and heavy. My fingers curl tight around the grip of my rifle, even in rest.

But it’s not the pain keeping me awake. Not the ache in my chest or even the sound of distant tremors rattling the earth.

It’s her.

Her voice, soft as smoke, telling me she fights for people. Her hands, steady as stone, when she worked on my wound. Her eyes, steady and unblinking, refusing to fear me even when I shoved her against walls and called her enemy.

She’s a problem I can’t shoot my way out of.

I grit my teeth, force my breathing slow, but the questions won’t stop. What if she’s telling the truth? What if she’s not my enemy? What if she’s… something else?

Something worse.

Because if she’s not the enemy, then what the hell am I?

I stare at the cracked ceiling until my vision blurs. My heart hammers like war drums. I feel it, sharp and undeniable: something in me’s breaking. Not my body. My faith.

I still believe in the Alliance. I still believe in the mission. I have to. But even though I swore those oaths, I wonder if belief’s enough to keep me standing.

And that thought keeps me awake long after the lamp sputters low, long after Alice closes her eyes.

I don’t sleep well.

Not because of her.

Because of what her existence might mean.