Page 8 of Fated in A Time of War

ALICE

T he moment his eyes lock on mine, the floor tilts under my feet.

It isn’t lust. Not even anger. It’s… disorientation. A gut-deep vertigo that drags me somewhere else—somewhen else.

Flashes. Searing and swift.

Fire, not from a warzone but from a hearth, shadows dancing along scaled hands. Laughter—low, warm, and mine though I’ve never heard it before. A flash of teeth in joy, not threat. Then grief, vast and crushing, like a tide I can’t swim against.

Some are mine. Most aren’t. But they all feel like they belong to me.

I gasp, sharp and unguarded, and the sound is swallowed by the damp air of the subway.

He sees something—his eyes narrow, the scales along his jaw shifting—but he says nothing. Just shoves me forward, harder than before. My shoulder smacks the wall, stone dust coating my lips with a dry, bitter taste.

Good. The more predictable he is, the easier this will be.

I stumble, catch myself, and keep moving. The tape around my wrists bites deeper, the adhesive tugging at my skin. I don’t fight it. Not yet. Not until I know what’s playing out here.

Because I know now.

Jalshagar.

The word drops into my mind like a stone into still water, ripples spreading outward. The old stories whispered in the acolyte halls weren’t lies. They weren’t propaganda to keep us clinging to fairytales. The bond is real.

And worse—it’s him.

The weapon of the enemy. The soldier who tied my hands and dragged me from the ruins like war spoils.

The horror cuts deep, almost clean. My vows, my life’s work, every prayer and choice—this bond laughs at them, as if fate itself enjoys cruelty.

But beneath the horror… clarity.

Fate doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t wait for you to be ready, or for the sides of a war to agree on the terms. It just is.

I don’t speak. Not now. Not here. He wouldn’t hear me—not with that much rage still boiling under his scales.

Instead, I walk where he herds me, letting him think he’s in control. The truth is, every step forward now is just as much mine as his.

The train car groans with every shift of metal, like it resents holding us.

We’re buried deep—layers of concrete, brick, and steel piled above, muting the distant war into a low, constant thrum. Krall chose this place well. Hidden. Defensible. Cold.

He doesn’t say a word. Just crouches near the far end of the car, rifle across his knees, eyes flicking between the shadows and me. Every glance is sharp enough to slice. Every grunt is a sentence he’s not bothering to speak.

I make a show of settling in against the wall, the fusion tape biting at my wrists. My breathing stays steady, my face calm. It’s an act—inside, my mind’s a flicker of maps and routes, counting exits, tallying hazards. I can’t run yet, but knowing how will matter later.

The air tastes of rust and damp stone. Somewhere close, water drips in a slow, uneven rhythm. My stomach growls. His doesn’t.

I could tell him now. Could lean forward and drop the word jalshagar between us like a grenade.

But the way his eyes burned back in the subway tells me the blast would tear us both apart. Not yet.

Instead, I test the waters.

“Lakka,” I say quietly, tasting the name. “That was your brother.”

The air between us thickens. He doesn’t answer. His jaw works once, twice, then stills.

I let the silence stretch before I fill it again, my voice even softer. “I had a brother once. Lost him to the siege on Gur. Didn’t even get to bury him.”

Nothing. Just the slow curl of his fingers around his rifle grip.

I watch the way his shoulders shift, the tension rolling under that scaled hide. He’s not ignoring me—he’s holding something back. That’s a start.

So I give him something more.

“There’s a boy back at camp,” I murmur. “Not more than ten. He’s dying. Bio-reactive exposure. I know the medicine that will save him. That’s why I was out there.”

His eyes cut to mine, linger half a second too long. Still guarded. Still angry. But not blind anymore.

The faint buzz cuts through the train car’s damp silence like a mosquito in a still room. I feel it before I hear it—subtle, bone-deep, the kind of vibration that’s too precise to be random.

Krall freezes. His whole body shifts into that predatory stillness I’ve seen in soldiers on high alert. His rifle comes up without a sound. “Quiet,” he growls, just above a whisper. It’s not a request.

I already know what it is before the whir sharpens—metallic, constant, too refined to be scrap tech and too deliberate to be wildlife.

My pulse picks up even though my face stays calm.

Too high-pitched for an Alliance recon drone, too steady for Ataxian models.

I swallow against the sudden dryness in my throat. The Kru.

Through a jagged split in the rusted hull, I catch a glimpse of black and red plating against the gray rubble beyond.

It’s the kind of paint you can’t mistake—predatory, arrogant, meant to be seen even in shadows.

My breath fogs in the cold, and I shift my weight, chains rasping softly against my chafed wrists.

Krall edges toward the gap, shoulders hunched, movements precise. He’s scanning the arcs, watching for its sweep pattern.

But he’s too close to its heat sensor. I know it before the thought finishes forming. My training might be for healing, but I’ve lived long enough in war zones to know machines meant for killing.

“XR-37,” I breathe, my voice barely more than the hum of the drone itself.

His head whips toward me, a silent snarl etched in the furrow of his brow.

“Hybrid optics,” I continue, keeping my tone level, unhurried. “Sweep leaves a half-second blind spot on the dorsal quadrant.”

Krall’s expression doesn’t soften, but his eyes sharpen. “You’re guessing.”

I shake my head once. “If you breathe during the stall, it won’t catch the heat bloom. You’ve got maybe—” I glance at the shifting light on the rubble outside, “—five seconds before it’s over you.”

For a heartbeat, I think he’ll tell me to shut up. Then, without another word, he shifts his stance exactly as I said, flattening against the darker paneling and adjusting his angle toward the gap.

The drone hum swells, the vibration settling into my ribs. Its light sweeps across the rubble like a lighthouse beam on a dead shore. Krall stays rigid, his breathing slow and measured. I match it without thinking, counting the cycles of the lens.

It hovers. Lingers longer than I like. My jaw aches from clenching. I know it’s measuring something—an anomaly in its scan radius. My heart kicks harder, the sound of it loud to my own ears.

And then it happens—just as I said—it dips, hesitates for that sliver of time that feels like a lifetime.

We don’t breathe.

It glides forward, smooth as a shark in dark water, and the sound begins to fade. My shoulders loosen an inch.

No flare of light or targeting chirp. Just the drone shrinking into the distance until the night swallows its hum.

Krall’s exhale is barely audible, a slow push of air through his nose. Not relief exactly. Something closer to acknowledgment. He steps back from the gap, still keeping his rifle angled toward the sound’s last direction.

He doesn’t say thank you. Of course he doesn’t. But the look he gives me isn’t the razor-edged suspicion I’ve been getting since he grabbed me—it’s cooler, more assessing.

I hold his gaze, refusing to drop mine.

“You knew the model,” he says finally. Not a question.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I let the silence stretch just enough to be deliberate. “Knowing keeps you alive.”

His jaw flexes, the scar along his cheek twitching with it. He turns away before I can read more in his expression.

He crosses back to where I’m sitting, pulls a roll of fusion tape from his belt. I brace myself for the usual rough yank of my arms behind me, the cutting edge of adhesive against already raw skin.

Instead, he binds my wrists in front.

It’s not comfort. Not trust. But it’s a choice—small, deliberate, and in this dead city, deliberate choices matter. It means he noticed, even if he’ll never give me the dignity of saying so.

I flex my fingers slowly, feeling the circulation return faster. It’s dangerous to see this as progress. Dangerous to hope. But I mark the shift all the same.

He sits back down across from me, rifle still within reach, eyes never fully leaving me. The space between us feels… different now. Not safer. Just less predictable.

I don’t thank him. Not yet.

But I don’t forget either.