Page 52 of Fated in A Time of War

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.

CHAPTER 17

KRALL

The complex rises out of the Graveworks like a corpse that forgot how to lie down.

A husk of glass and steel, bones jutting out of the ash. The windows are long gone, the air thick with rot and dust, and the walls are choked with graffiti—some crude, some strange and ritualistic, others still painted with the smiling faces of propaganda posters.BUY NOW. TRUST THE ALLIANCE. TOGETHER FOREVER.

Forever didn’t last.