Page 19 of Fated in A Time of War

ALICE

I wake with my cheek pressed against him, the thrum of his heart still steady beneath my ear.

For one wild second I think I’m dreaming—that I’ve conjured this heat, this solidity, because the world has stripped everything else from me.

But then my fingers shift, brushing against the rough warmth of his scaled chest, and I know it’s real.

Every rise and fall of his breath pulls me deeper under.

It should terrify me—how fast this has happened, how far I’ve let myself tumble toward him. My captor. My enemy. My undoing.

But it doesn’t.

It feels inevitable. Like gravity. Like the stars above whispering that they’ve been waiting for this moment longer than either of us have been alive.

I let my fingers trace lazy lines across his chest, following the edges where scar tissue interrupts smooth scale. He stirs, not quite awake, but his arm tightens around me unconsciously. The gesture hits me harder than a rifle butt to the ribs. He’s not just holding me. He’s keeping me.

And I’m letting him.

I shift carefully, peeling myself away from the warmth of his body.

He doesn’t stir beyond a grunt, still lost in dreams I’ll never see.

For a moment I linger, staring down at his face softened by sleep.

He looks younger like this. Not the soldier.

Not the weapon. Just a man. A man who’s bled too much, carried too much, and still hasn’t broken.

My throat tightens.

I can’t stay pressed against him forever.

I can’t drown in this and forget the world clawing outside the rusted hull.

So I dress quietly, fingers clumsy with fatigue and the strange ache low in my chest. I smooth down my hair as best I can with filthy hands, tug my boots tight, and crawl out into the Graveworks before I lose my resolve.

The air hits me like a mouthful of dust. Cold, dry, tasting of rust and ash.

The Graveworks sprawl around me in silence—vast heaps of twisted steel, shattered mechs, war machines piled like offerings to dead gods.

The horizon is jagged with skeletal cranes and broken towers.

Nothing moves. Not birds, not drones, not even wind strong enough to rattle the metal bones.

Just ash. Just silence.

I step down from the lip of the tank hull and sink to my knees in the grit.

The ground here is layered with soot and powdered ferrocrete, soft as silt under my fingers.

For a long breath I just kneel there, the silence pressing against me like a weight.

Then I reach out with one finger and begin to carve.

It’s clumsy work—ash doesn’t hold like stone—but I etch the lines anyway, slow and deliberate. A circle. A stroke through it. A curve that blooms outward. The old symbol for mercy. An Ataxian rune taught to children in temple halls before they even knew how to speak.

I whisper the word under my breath. Not for me. Not for him sleeping behind me in the rusted carcass of war.

For the dead and the soldiers turned to husks beneath the wreckage. For the mechs still sprawled like corpses with their weapons frozen in mid-swing. For the families that will never know where their sons and daughters fell. For this poisoned ground that once held life.

“Mercy,” I breathe again, and the ash swallows the sound.

A shiver cuts down my spine, sharp as a blade. I bow my head, not in prayer—not exactly. But in acknowledgment.

I don’t know how long I stay there, kneeling in the silence of the Graveworks with the rune beneath my hand. Long enough for the dust to gather in my lashes. Long enough for my knees to ache from the unforgiving ground.

Long enough to realize that whatever path I thought I was walking before—escape, survival, vengeance—has changed.

Because when I think of moving on, of rising, of walking back into that hollow tank and seeing him awake… my chest doesn’t fill with dread. It doesn’t twist with fear.

It warms.

That’s the most terrifying part.

I wipe my hands on my trousers and press my palm flat against the rune, smudging the edges until it blurs into dust. Mercy doesn’t live in symbols alone. It has to live in choices. And my choices are getting more complicated by the heartbeat.

Behind me, I hear the faint scrape of metal as he shifts inside the hull. My pulse stutters. I don’t turn. Not yet. I just breathe, tasting the rust in the air, listening to the silence press back in.

And I know, the dead are watching.

The crunch of gravel under heavy boots tells me he’s awake before I see him.

I wipe the ash from my palms, smearing the faint remains of the rune until it disappears into dust. By the time Krall steps out of the rusted tank hull, I’m standing again, shoulders squared.

He’s already got his armor plates strapped back on, blood-dark scales hidden beneath alloy.

His rifle hangs low in one clawed hand, casual but never careless.

He doesn’t say a word. Neither do I. The night before hangs between us, fragile and too sharp to touch. If I name it, if I reach for it, it might crack apart like brittle glass. So I keep my mouth shut, and so does he.

But when he strides past, his hand brushes mine. Barely. A whisper of contact, gone in the blink of an eye. My pulse leaps like a startled bird, heat flushing up my neck. He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t slow. Just keeps walking into the wasteland of twisted steel.

That’s enough.

I fall into step beside him, letting the silence stretch a little longer before I speak.

“The shopping complex,” I murmur, voice low so it doesn’t bounce off the wrecks around us.

“It used to sit near the north freight lines. Three levels, open atrium in the middle. Food stalls on the first floor. Tech vendors above. Med dispensers scattered near the back exits. If anything survived the looters, it’ll be there. ”

He grunts, the sound more acknowledgment than agreement. His eyes sweep the horizon, scanning for movement. Always scanning. Always one twitch away from violence.

I crouch and drag a finger through the ash, sketching a crude map in the dirt.

A rectangle, bisected by a line of stalls, side exits marked with rough slashes.

“Here,” I say, tapping one corner. “Service corridor. If the main doors are blocked, we’ll get in through there. I remember the old schematics.”

Krall squats beside me, his bulk casting a shadow over the sketch. He studies it in silence, his jaw working like he’s chewing on words he’ll never say. Finally, he nods once and wipes the drawing away with the back of his gauntlet.

“Good enough,” he mutters.

He rises, and I follow. The two of us moving again, step by step through the Graveworks.

The air here is different. Heavier. Every breath tastes like iron filings, grit scraping my tongue.

The silence is almost unbearable—broken only by the occasional groan of rusted beams settling, or the whisper of ash sliding down a slag heap.

Twisted hulks of mechs loom over us like titans brought low, their limbs bent and broken, their weapons melted into slagged fists.

Some still bear insignias, scorched into metal that refuses to forget.

I trail my fingers across the scarred flank of one fallen walker, feeling the rough gouges where plasma carved it open. The steel is cold, but under my touch, I swear it hums. Not with power—just with memory. I bow my head for a second, whispering a name I’ll never know. Not a prayer. Just respect.

Krall notices. He doesn’t say anything, but I feel the weight of his gaze, hot on my skin like sunlight through shattered glass. It makes me stand straighter. Makes me keep moving.

We weave through heaps of armor plating, past skeletons of engines and cockpits filled with long-dead pilots. Their bones are brittle, fused into seats by the fires that swallowed them. I want to close their eyes. I want to give them rest. But there are too many. Too many dead.

And one very much alive child still waiting for me to bring him hope.

The thought slams into me like a rifle stock. I see his face—thin, pale, eyes too big for his skull. I hear his coughing, the ragged scrape of air through damaged lungs. I feel the tiny weight of his hand clutching mine when I promised I’d come back with medicine.

I almost stumble.

The fantasy of soft mornings and stolen kisses fades like smoke. Reality sharpens its claws in my chest. Survival isn’t just for me. It isn’t even for Krall. It’s for him. For the camp. For all the people who never asked for this war, who were left behind when armies pulled out and banners changed.

Krall pauses ahead of me, his stance shifting as he scans a ridge of twisted beams. My breath hitches. For a moment I think he’s sensed movement, an ambush waiting. But no. He’s just listening. Always listening.

“You’re quiet,” he rumbles without looking back.

I force a crooked smile, though he can’t see it. “I’m thinking.”

“Dangerous habit,” he replies, voice flat.

“Someone has to,” I shoot back. “You’re too busy growling at shadows.”

For the first time, the corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Almost. Then it’s gone, buried under that eternal scowl.

But it’s enough. Like the brush of his hand against mine. Like the memory of his lips the night before. Small things, sharp as glass, cutting into me. Changing me.

I square my shoulders and keep walking. I step over slag and bone. The Graveworks stretch endless before us, a labyrinth of rust and ruin. But in my chest, my heart beats steady.

Not because I believe in survival.

Because I believe in choice. In mercy. In the promise I made to a child who deserves more than ashes.

Krall’s shadow beside me feels less like a captor’s leash now, and more like a shield.

The sound is wrong.

Not footsteps, not wind, not the shift of settling rubble. A grinding, long and low, like two titans dragging their blades across the bones of the earth. My blood ices before my brain even catches up.

Krall freezes ahead of me, his ears twitching, claws flexing once against the grip of his rifle. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. His entire body screams danger.

He jerks his chin toward the right, toward the twisted corpse of a mech half-submerged in slag.

Without hesitation, I follow, scrambling after him.

The stench of rust and oil hits hard as we duck inside its hollowed carcass.

The metal is cold, sharp edges biting at my palms as I crawl in beside him.

We crouch in darkness, shadows draped thick around us. Through a narrow fracture in the hull, I see them.

The Wrecking Kru.

They move in formation, black and red armor cutting a path through the Graveworks like a bleeding wound. Their steps are heavy, synchronized, each thud a hammer against my ribs. I swallow hard, mouth suddenly dry, and then I see him.

Funzil.

His voice isn’t audible from here, but his hands tell the story. Broad, expressive gestures that paint whole speeches in the air as he strides. He’s animated even in enemy territory, like danger is an audience and he’s performing for it.

Beside him, Misha glides. Silent. Predatory. Her head pivots side to side, visor glinting faintly as it scans the wreckage. Her stillness is worse than Funzil’s noise—it feels like she’s listening to my heartbeat, waiting for it to betray me.

My stomach lurches. I can’t breathe. I can’t even blink. Every instinct screams to bolt, to run, to claw my way through the rust and flee into the ash. But that would be suicide.

I reach for the only anchor I have.

Krall.

My fingers clamp around his wrist, tighter than I mean to. His scales are hot under my palm, the steady thrum of blood pulsing beneath them. For a second, I’m certain he’ll shake me off, that he’ll growl at me for breaking cover.

But he doesn’t.

Slowly, he turns his head. His eyes find mine through the shadows.

The nod he gives me is small, sharp. Not comfort, not promise. Just certainty. A warrior’s signal. We wait. We survive.

I try to match his steadiness, but my chest is a riot. The air feels thick, suffocating, clogged with the weight of everything unsaid. My heart doesn’t pound from fear of myself. It pounds for him. Because if they see him—if they recognize what he is—it’s over. Not just for him. For both of us.

The Kru pass close. Too close. Boots crunching ash. Weapons gleaming faintly in the dim light. Their laughter is muffled, jagged, like predators chuckling at a private joke. My nails bite into Krall’s skin. He doesn’t flinch.

Time stretches. Seconds drip like molten metal.

They’re past.

The sound of them recedes into the distance, swallowed by the labyrinth of steel. Only when the last echo dies do I let out the breath I’ve been strangling. It gusts from me in a shiver, fogging the cold metal wall.

We’re alive.

Not because we’ve avoided war. Not because we’ve outsmarted them.

But because we’ve become ghosts inside it.

I lean back against the mech’s ribcage, throat tight, body trembling with the aftershock of adrenaline. Krall is still, listening, his jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the crack like he expects them to return.

I don’t say anything. Not yet. Words would only break the spell, make the moment real when silence is the only shield we’ve got.

But inside me, under the fear and the ash and the blood, something takes root. A truth I can’t deny anymore.

We’re not just surviving.

We’re haunting the war itself. Impossibly, together.