Page 7 of Fated in A Time of War

KRALL

T he sound of the city never really dies, even when the city is dead.

Metal shifts under its own weight. Glass falls somewhere far off.

The wind moans through broken high-rises like a wounded animal.

I wake to it all at once, eyes snapping open, pulse already pounding.

Shallow sleep—barely enough to keep the body going.

The kind that lets every nerve sit on a tripwire.

My hand goes first to the rifle. Warm grip, cold barrel. My thumb brushes the trigger guard while my eyes track the dark corners. Shadows inside the bar lean and stretch with the sway of half-broken walls. Every creak is a potential step. Every sigh of air might be breath.

I check her first. She’s still there, still bound tight, her wrists darkened where the tape bites skin.

Eyes closed, but not sleeping—her breathing’s too steady, too deliberate.

She’s listening same as I am. Her hair catches the thin light slipping in through the cracks, and that damned insignia at her throat glints like a challenge.

The roof above us is more hole than structure, so I step under it, scanning the jagged teeth of the skyline.

No drones or glint of Alliance craft. Just that thick, orange haze drifting between buildings like the air itself is giving up.

My comms rig’s dead. Has been since the mech.

Even if I could get a signal, who would answer?

Not stranded. Abandoned.

I don’t say it out loud. Not to her, not to Lakka—though the words throb in my skull like a bruise.

My brother would’ve told me to hold position, make a safe nest, wait for retrieval.

But retrieval isn’t coming. And if Ataxians are combing these streets—and they will be—sitting still is nothing but slow suicide.

I sling the rifle, move to her. She stirs when I crouch down, but she doesn’t speak. Not until I yank the gag back up into place, cinching it hard enough to make sure she gets the point. “Time to move,” I growl.

She makes a small sound—frustration, maybe—but I ignore it, hauling her up by the elbow. She’s lighter than she looks, but every ounce feels like a chain when I’ve got miles of broken ground to cover.

“Walk,” I tell her, nudging her forward with the muzzle at her spine. She moves, but slow. Always just shy of making me shove her. Always testing.

I keep my rifle trained, my other hand close to the strap on her bindings.

The ruins of Tanuki sprawl out ahead—jagged silhouettes, streets choked with rubble and the scorched remains of anything that once lived here.

The air stinks of old fire and cooked metal.

My boots crunch over glass, and her smaller steps scuff against the grit.

She slows again, and my teeth grit with it. I imagine her breaking for it—imagine the rush of the chase, the slam of my body hitting hers, dragging her back down into the dirt. Something physical to match the storm that’s been building inside since Lakka’s blood hit my hands.

But she doesn’t run. She just keeps that measured pace, every step a little defiance, and it makes me want to shake her until she breaks.

We pass a collapsed storefront, the warped sign still clinging to one hinge.

The painted letters are burned to ghosts, but the shape of the place is familiar enough—bars like this one dotted every block of the city before it fell.

Inside, I can still smell the rot of spilled liquor, the sour tang of mold.

I keep her moving. The sooner we’re out of this sector, the better our odds of making it through the night. But every second, I feel the pull—the urge to make her understand exactly what she’s walking with. Exactly why she should be afraid.

The city stretches out around us like a carcass picked clean.

Tower frames rise like the ribs of some long-dead beast, their glass skin blasted away.

Streets sag inward where shells have punched through the ground, leaving blackened craters wide enough to swallow a troop carrier.

Every step kicks up grit that sticks to my tongue, dry as bone dust.

The sound carries weird here. I can hear fighting miles away—low, echoing thumps of artillery, the sharp spit of pulse fire. Once, a scream rides the wind, torn thin by the distance but still enough to raise the spines along my neck.

My rifle’s always in my hands. Safety off. Muzzle sweeping every shadow, every alley too dark for daylight to touch. I check the upper levels too—snipers love the perches the ruins give them.

But my eyes keep sliding back to her.

Alice moves like she’s counting steps in her head, not hurrying, not dragging.

Her shoulders are straight despite the bindings, her chin high enough to be defiance.

Most prisoners—you can smell the fear on them.

Sweat, shallow breathing, twitchy eyes. She’s not afraid.

Not the way she should be. And I can’t decide if that makes her stupid or dangerous.

It gets under my scales. Makes me feel like I’m the one off-balance.

We push through a block of gutted apartments, then into the yawning belly of what used to be a transport hub. The ceiling’s half gone, daylight bleeding in through the jagged hole where a gunship must’ve punched through. Rows of benches sit twisted, bolted to a floor cracked like a dry riverbed.

I haul her toward the center and stop. My boots scrape against grit. “We’re gonna take five,” I tell her, not because I need the break, but because I want another read on her.

She stands there, wrists bound, breathing steady. Her eyes follow me without flicking away. No flinch when I close the distance.

“What’s your game, necklace?” My voice comes out lower than I mean it to. “You gonna keep pretending you’re just some lost girl?”

Nothing. Just that calm look.

“You’re Ataxian clergy, aren’t you?” I spit the word like it tastes bad. “Out here blessing the troops, whispering about divine victory while your soldiers gut mine.”

Her answer is a single, measured nod. No shame. No apology. Just yes.

I hate that it lands harder than if she’d denied it.

“Figures,” I mutter, stepping back, scanning the rafters as if the acknowledgment might have summoned a kill team. “I knew it the second I saw that trinket.”

The silence stretches between us, heavy and strange.

I think about the old stories, the ones the elders used to tell in the academy dorms. About the jalshagar—soul-bound mates, destined across lifetimes.

It’s the kind of thing you laugh off when you’re sober, joke about when you’re drunk. I’ve never believed it.

I’m not starting now.

She’s the enemy. That’s all that matters.

I tell myself that again, slow and steady, until it sounds true.

The stairs into the subway groan under my weight, the rust and dust crumbling away with every step.

The air down here’s cooler, damp with the stink of mold and old water.

My boots scuff against loose debris—old commuter trash, cracked tiles, a bent data kiosk that looks like it’s been used for target practice.

I keep her ahead of me, muzzle low but ready. The darkness swallows the light fast, the hole above shrinking into nothing but a jagged eye staring down at us.

We reach the platform. My steps echo too loud in the stillness, and my gut’s telling me every shadow could be hiding something with a trigger. I scan the rails, the benches, the dead vending machine toppled in the corner.

Then my boot hits a loose panel.

It skids out from under me, and my shoulder slams into her back. She twists with the impact, and before I know it, I’ve caught her against my chest.

We’re face to face.

Inches apart.

And the whole world tilts.

It’s not the way I look at an enemy, not the way I look at prey. My pulse spikes for no damned reason, and it’s not from the stumble. The space between us feels charged, like the hum before a plasma discharge. My chest feels tight, my head too light.

Her eyes lock on mine—bright, defiant blue—and something yanks at me from the inside.

I see… things.

Not like a dream, not like a memory of mine. These are hers. Flickers, disjointed but sharp enough to cut. The cracked ceiling of an orphanage dorm. The scent of incense in a dark prayer hall. Small hands holding another’s, the tiny body shuddering with fever.

And then it’s gone.

I wrench back with a growl that rips out of me before I can choke it down. My claws flex, itching for something solid to dig into. I shove her forward hard enough that she stumbles.

“Move,” I snap, the word scraping my throat raw.

I don’t want to think about what I just saw. Don’t want to admit I saw anything at all. The jalshagar bond’s a campfire story, a fairy tale for romantics and fools. And it damn sure doesn’t happen with an Ataxian.

But my hands aren’t steady when I pull the tape from my kit. I yank her wrists tighter, feel the edges bite into her skin.

If the universe thinks it’s gonna play games with me, I’ll make sure it regrets it.