Page 15 of Fated in A Time of War

ALICE

T he silence after a fight is worse than the noise of it.

Blood cools on the tiles, turning slick beneath my boots.

My knife is steady in my hand, but my pulse is a drumbeat in my throat.

Too fast. Too loud. I force my breathing to even out, slow and measured, but the weight of what I’ve done doesn’t ease.

They were scavengers. Killers, yes. Desperate, yes.

But still people. Still with faces and hearts and blood that runs the same color as mine.

I replay it, unbidden—the way the last one crumpled when my blade slipped between his ribs, the way his breath rattled wetly in his chest before silence claimed him.

I swallow hard.

It was necessary. He would have gutted Krall if I hadn’t moved.

I tell myself that. Again and again. Necessary. No choice. But part of me recoils anyway, the part that grew up learning how to heal, not how to sever arteries. My vows were never meant to sanction this. Yet here I am, knife dripping red, alive only because I broke them.

The pipe overhead hisses, a thin trickle leaking from a hairline crack.

I move toward it, kneeling, letting the water run cold over my blade.

It streaks pink, then clear, the steel gleaming once more.

The sound is too loud in the hush that follows violence.

It feels like penance, but not enough. It never will be.

Behind me, Krall crouches over a body, his massive hands working with brutal efficiency.

He strips the dead man’s armor plates, checks them for cracks, and begins fastening one across his own shoulder where his old plating is scored through.

His movements are precise, practiced. There’s no hesitation, no flicker of conscience.

He moves as if this is as natural as breathing—take, survive, move on.

I should understand. This is war. This is what soldiers do. But something about watching him work like that—methodical, unflinching—cuts deeper than I expect. Because he’s good at it. He’s so damned good at it.

And I’m afraid I’m becoming good at it, too.

I close my eyes, drawing in the smell of rust and ash, trying not to gag on the tang of copper thick in the air. My hands tremble for a moment, then I force them still. Control. Patience. I can’t afford to fall apart, not now, not in front of him. Especially not in front of him.

I rise, wiping the last streaks of blood onto my trousers, and cross to the holonet terminal. It stands crooked against the wall, edges warped from heat, but intact. A miracle. Maybe the last miracle left in Tanuki.

I kneel at its base, prying open the access panel with the tip of my knife. The innards are scorched, wires fused in places, but the core lattice still hums faintly beneath my fingers. Not dead. Just sleeping. I can work with that.

“Don’t waste your time,” Krall growls behind me. His voice rumbles low, almost drowned by the drip of water and the creak of settling rubble. “They’ll be back.”

“I know,” I murmur, not looking up. My fingers dance over the wiring, sorting intact from melted, pulling what’s still usable. “That’s why we need this.”

He snorts. “It’ll just light us up like a beacon.”

“Maybe.” I twist a coupling free, sparks spitting against my knuckles. The sting makes me hiss, but I keep going. “Or maybe it buys us a chance. A signal. Something other than waiting for Kru blades to find our throats in the dark.”

Silence stretches. I feel his gaze on me, heavy, like the weight of a loaded rifle pointed between my shoulder blades.

“You didn’t have to kill them,” he says finally, voice sharp.

I freeze. My throat tightens. The words burn worse than the sparks. Slowly, I set my tools down and glance back at him. His eyes are molten in the gloom, unreadable but unyielding.

“Yes, I did,” I whisper. My voice doesn’t shake, though my chest feels like it should. “One of them was on your flank. You’d be bleeding out if I hadn’t.”

He bares his teeth in something that isn’t quite a smile, isn’t quite a snarl. “You sound like me.”

I turn back to the wires, forcing my hands steady as I strip a cable with my blade. “No. I sound like someone who doesn’t want to die in a sewer.”

But he’s right. I do sound like him. And the thought chills me more than the draft sweeping through the cracked walls.

The terminal hums louder, responding to my coaxing. A faint flicker of light pulses across the cracked screen. Alive. Hope, fragile and flickering, but hope all the same.

Krall shifts closer, looming over me, smelling of iron and smoke and blood. His shadow swallows the weak glow of the console. “You really think you can wake it?”

“Yes.” My voice is firm now, anchored. I need to believe it. “I’ve done it before.”

His gaze lingers a heartbeat longer, then he turns away, resuming his work on the armor plates. I hear the scrape of metal, the click of buckles, the low rumble of his breathing.

I don’t ask why it hurts, watching him patch himself up with scavenged armor like it’s second nature. I already know.

Because every plate, every strap, every adjustment reminds me—he was built for this. Made for war. Perfected by it. And maybe, bit by bit, I’m being carved into something like that too.

The thought makes my stomach twist.

But my hands keep working, steady, sure, coaxing life from the dead machine. Because survival doesn’t care about vows or horror or fear. Survival just is.

And if I have to become a little more like him to keep us both breathing, then maybe that’s what fate has demanded.

I whisper a prayer under my breath as I splice the last connection, not for forgiveness. For strength.

The screen flares weakly to life. I let myself breathe a little easier.

The terminal hums beneath my fingers, a ghost waking in fits and starts. Static crawls across the cracked screen, white lines bleeding into jagged green. For a moment, I think it’ll die again, that all my splicing and prayers were wasted effort. Then it catches. The lattice stabilizes.

A single pulse. Then another. Then a ping.

Not Alliance. My stomach drops the instant I read the signature. Kru.

They’re triangulating positions—sweeping Tanuki’s bones with predatory precision. Their grid’s ugly and efficient, blotches of red crawling across the map like infection. And one of those blotches sits too close. Far too close.

“Krall,” I whisper. My voice sounds small even to me.

He looms at my side, shadow cutting across the light. I point to the display. His eyes narrow, molten-gold catching the sickly green glow.

“Not ours,” I murmur. “Not Alliance. Kru.”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t curse. Just studies the map like a hunter sizing up his prey. His silence gnaws at me.

“We need to move,” I press, urgency pushing my words faster. “If they’re sweeping sectors this tight, it’s only a matter of time before?—”

“No.”

The word is flat. Final.

I blink up at him, stunned. “No? Did you not see?—”

“I saw,” he growls, cutting me off. His clawed hand jabs toward the screen, tapping the red blotch with a force that makes the image jitter. “And that’s where we’re going.”

I stare at him, throat tightening. “You’ve lost your mind. That’s a Kru squad with live comms tech and gods know what else in their kit. They’ll shred us.”

His jaw works, muscles flexing under bloodstained scales. “Then we shred them first.”

There’s no hesitation in his tone, no doubt. It’s like watching someone step willingly into fire.

I push back, sharper than I mean to. “This isn’t about survival anymore, is it? You’re thinking bigger. Thinking war.”

His eyes flick to mine, sharp as blades. For a heartbeat, I see it—the fire, the hunger. Not just to live. To strike back. To win.

But I see something else, too. Something quieter.

“Krall,” I say, softer now, almost afraid of the truth spilling from my lips. “You’re not doing this for the Alliance. Not really.”

He bristles. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

I lean closer, refusing to flinch even when his heat presses against me like a furnace. “Don’t I? You want that tech because it might lead to a Coalition command node. Because maybe—just maybe—you can hit them back harder. But it’s not just that.”

His gaze hardens, but he doesn’t look away. That’s how I know I’ve struck the vein.

“You want to keep me alive,” I whisper. “Even if you won’t say it. Even if you won’t admit it to yourself.”

The words hang heavy in the stale air, thicker than the smell of rust and old blood.

For a long moment, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Just stares at me like he’s deciding whether to deny it or tear me apart for speaking it aloud.

He exhales, a rough sound like stone grinding on stone.

“You’re a liability,” he snarls, but the heat in his voice feels hollow. “Dead weight. That’s all.”

“Then leave me here.” My challenge comes out steady, though my heart hammers so hard I swear he can hear it.

His silence answers before his words can.

He doesn’t leave. He won’t.

I bite the inside of my cheek, fighting the strange, dangerous warmth coiling low in my chest. This isn’t safety. This isn’t comfort. It’s something jagged, raw, forged in fire and blood and the madness of survival.

But it’s real.

I turn back to the terminal, fingers brushing over the controls, committing the Kru sweep path to memory. “If we’re going after them,” I say carefully, “then we do it smart. Quiet. No frontal assaults. You may be built like a tank, but even you’ll break under a full squad’s barrage.”

He huffs, a sound between a laugh and a growl. “So the priestess thinks she can teach me how to fight?”

“I think I can keep you alive,” I snap, sharper than I intend. Then, softer: “And myself, too.”

His eyes narrow, but his mouth twitches—just barely. Not a smile. But not far.

The screen flickers again, red blotches crawling closer. Time’s running out.

I power the system down, plunging us back into half-darkness. The sudden quiet is deafening. My pulse fills the void, a steady reminder that I’ve tethered myself to this beast, this broken soldier who terrifies me and draws me closer all the same.

Krall adjusts his rifle, eyes never leaving me. “Gear up. We hunt.”

I swallow hard, fighting the chill running through me. Because I know what he won’t admit.

He’s not hunting for the Alliance.

He’s hunting for me.

The tenement groans with every shift of the wind, steel and concrete bones settling like some old dying beast. We’ve climbed as high as we dare, weaving through collapsed stairwells and broken floors, until finally we settle in what used to be the top floor.

Half of it is gone—sheared off by shelling—but what’s left is enough to hold us. Enough to hide us.

I lie on my back, staring up through a ragged hole in the ceiling. The night sky spills through—torn velvet, stitched with stars. Cold light on a cold night. My breath fogs faint in the dark.

Krall sits nearby, cloak draped heavy over his broad shoulders, rifle resting across his knees. His silhouette looks carved from iron, still and sharp, but I know better. I can feel the restless storm inside him. Even in silence, it bleeds out.

“Do you believe in the Jalshagar?” I ask, voice breaking the hush.

The words feel reckless the moment they’re out. Too direct. Too dangerous. But the question’s been clawing at me since the subway. Since the look in his eyes when everything tilted. Since the memories that weren’t mine.

His head turns slightly, golden eyes glinting faintly in the starlight. Then he snorts, low and derisive. “Fairy tales,” he mutters. “Stories to keep children from wandering off into the dark. I don’t waste breath on that nonsense.”

I hum softly, noncommittal. Not agreeing. Not disagreeing. Just letting the silence settle again.

The wind moans through the broken concrete, rattling rusted pipes. Somewhere far below, a rat scurries through debris, claws scratching faintly like whispers against stone.

I don’t push him. I don’t have to. Because when I glance over, I catch it—the way his eyes linger on me, longer than before. Not by accident. Not just watchfulness. There’s something raw in that gaze, something he hasn’t named. Maybe won’t ever name.

He realizes I’ve caught him and looks away, too fast. Too sharp. Like a man caught with blood on his hands.

And I smile. Small. Secret.

Not because I’ve won anything. Not because he’s softened or broken or anything foolish like that. But because I know. I know.

He’s lying. To himself, if not to me.

I roll onto my side, pulling my thermal blanket tighter around me. The cold bites through, but I hardly notice. My thoughts are warmer than the night.

The Jalshagar isn’t a tale. I feel it in my bones, in the marrow-deep certainty that when our eyes met in that tunnel, something shifted. Fate doesn’t ask permission. Doesn’t wait for belief. It simply is.

There’s still a long road ahead. His walls are high, his anger higher. But the path has shifted. I can see it now, bright as starlight through ruin.

We’re no longer just enemies forced to survive side by side.

We’re something else.

Something inevitable.