Page 38 of Fated in A Time of War

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 itmight 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.