Page 93 of Fated in A Time of War

Not a soul stirs in the trees. No birds. No vermin. Just the wind, slithering low through the brush, dragging smoke behind it like a funeral train. The tower’s still burning behind us, staining the sky a dull orange. We don’t look back. Neither of us says a word.

Alice holds my arm like she might break if she lets go. Her fingers, smudged with ash, clutch my bicep tight. I keep my pace slow, steady, trying not to limp. My ribs grind every time I breathe, and there’s a gash along my flank that hasn’t stopped bleeding. Doesn’t matter. If she can walk, so can I.

When the camp finally crests into view, my gut goes cold.

Or what’s left of the camp.

The walls—those patchwork defenses of metal and sweat and desperation—are gone. Flattened. Twisted beams and burnt fabric flutter in the breeze. Where the north trench once zigzagged through the ground, there’s a crater the size of a dropship impact zone. Glassed earth, still warm, still smoking.

Orbital strike.

That’s what did this.

Not a battle. Not a fight.

Execution.

I feel Alice slow beside me, her breath catching sharp in her throat. Her hand tightens on my arm. I place mine over hers.

We move forward together, past blackened scaffolds, broken stretchers, and splintered crates. The med tent’s gone. The command post? Just a scorch mark. Every step feels like a punch to the chest.

Then I see it.

A coat.

Small. Torn. Burned around the hem, but I recognize the faded orange dye. It belonged to the boy who gave me that rusted screwdriver three days ago. He’d been missing his front teeth, smiled like he didn’t know how to be afraid.

Alice sees it too.

She lets go of my arm, steps forward slowly, like approaching a ghost. Her hands hover over the fabric, fingers trembling. Then she sinks to her knees.

There’s no blood. No bodies. Just remnants. A boot. A shattered communicator. Scorch lines where people used to stand.

The Kru didn’t just want to destroy the tower.

They wanted to make sure we had nothing left to come back to.

Alice bows her head.

Her lips move—no sound, just breath and rhythm. I know the cadence. I’ve heard it before, long ago, in Ataxian temples lit by blue flame and sand-baked incense. She’s praying.

I don’t know the words. Don’t need to. The weight of them is in her shoulders, in the way she curls forward like the air’s too heavy to carry. I kneel beside her.

We stay like that for a while. In the middle of wreckage, heads bowed, the wind howling soft through the ruins.

At last, she speaks.

“They were just—trying to live,” she says, voice cracking. “They weren’t fighters. Most of them didn’t even want to choose a side.”

I don’t know what to say. No words fit.

“They didn’t have to die like this.”

She turns to me, eyes red and wet and furious.

“This wasn’t a battle. It was a message.”

I nod once. “I know.”