Page 4 of Fated in A Time of War

And rage.

He moves so fast.

I barely get a word out. “Wait?—!”

His weapon is already drawn. The barrel locked on my chest.

I don’t move. Can’t.

His gun’s still trained on me, barrel steady. Not shaking. Not unsure. This isn’t a warning—it’s a sentence. One twitch, and he’ll pull that trigger. I see it in the taut cords of his arms, in the way his jaw locks under scaled flesh.

But what really freezes me is his eyes.

They aren’t blank, the way killers’ eyes sometimes are. They’re burning. Golden and molten, full of wildfire rage. And locked—deadlocked—on one thing.

My necklace.

My Ataxian acolyte’s pendant dangles just below my chin, glinting in the ruined light. A simple sigil, small and old, worn smooth by years of thumb-press prayer. It’s not much. But it’s everything. My past. My promise. My identity.

He sees it, and that’s when it hits him.

Recognition—but not the kind that brings understanding.

Just fury.

He lets out a sound. It isn’t a word, not exactly—it’s half-snarl, half-sob. Then he’s on me.

I barely register the movement.

The world tilts. My back hits rubble. The wind blasts out of me.

He’s a wall of muscle and heat, all iron grip and wild grief.

My arms are wrenched behind me before I can think to stop it.

My wrists are pulled together and bound tight with something thick and metallic.

His hands work fast—he’s done this before.

It’s instinctual. Efficient. Not cruel. Not yet.

I don’t scream. What would be the point?

I let him do it.

I let him because flailing would earn me nothing but a snapped neck or a smoking hole in my chest. And more than that— he’s not hollow . I saw it. A second ago. In that crater.

His pain is still fresh.

That means there’s still something alive in him.

The moment my wrists lock together, he flips me with a grunt. One knee presses into my lower back. My cheek hits scorched concrete. He tears my breather mask off and tosses it aside.

The air stings going in. Acrid. War-slicked. Every breath tastes like melted circuitry and spilled blood.

Then his hand is at my face. For a half-second I think he might crush my skull.

Instead, he gags me. A thick, foul-smelling strip of cloth pulled tight between my teeth. The knot bites behind my head. It chokes a whimper from me—more shock than fear. My jaw throbs immediately.

He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t ask questions.

I’m the enemy, and that’s enough.

He jerks me upright with one arm. The way he handles me—like I weigh nothing—it’s terrifying.

Not because he’s rough, but because he doesn’t flinch.

Doesn’t hesitate. He lifts me like hauling a pack.

Slings me over one shoulder, my stomach lurching from the sudden inversion.

My bound arms dig into his back armor, and my chest presses against the strap of his field kit.

I hang there, breathless and gagged, facing the broken world upside down.

He doesn’t speak.

Just starts walking.

His boots crunch over debris. Metal. Bone.

Glass. One of them might be mine—I think I lost it in the tackle.

I can’t look. I can only feel the jolting rhythm of his stride, the way each step bounces my ribs, rattles my thoughts loose.

Heat radiates from him, but not comforting.

Like being strapped to a blast furnace that hasn’t figured out it’s supposed to cool down.

The streets blur. Tilt. Twist.

He takes turns at random—or maybe not. Maybe he’s navigating by instinct. Or memory. Or mission protocol.

We pass what’s left of a skytram station, charred clean to the girders. The bodies are just outlines burned into walls, shadows frozen mid-sprint. I close my eyes.

I smell the mech before I hear it again.

That tang of ozone and chemical coolant. Distant, this time, but it prickles my skin all the same. He picks up speed. Shoulders tense.

Is he running from it? Avoiding it? Or leading me straight into something worse?

I let my body go limp, conserving energy. My mind is racing.

Who is this man?

Not just another grunt. That much I know. He wasn’t fighting with a squad, not when I saw him. He was mourning one. His grief had weight, like a collapsed star. His hands were shaking even as he tried to hold the body together. And the way he touched the other soldier… not duty. Not routine.

Family.

Brother, maybe.

He’s hurting. Still in shock. His rage is armor right now—but armor cracks. And when it does, sometimes what’s underneath can be reached.

If I push, he’ll snap my spine. If I scream, he won’t even hear it.

But if I wait …

If I stay still …

If I watch, and learn, and pick the right moment…

Maybe I can talk to what’s left of him before the war finishes turning him into something else.

I breathe shallow through my nose, jaw aching, wrists burning.

He carries me deeper into the ruins.

Into his grief.

Into whatever he’s planning.

I don’t pray.

But I do hold on to one small, stubborn hope:

That somewhere inside this soldier—the monster, the mourner, the beast with blood in his eyes—there’s a man left.

And maybe he’s still capable of listening.