Page 26 of Ravaged By the Reaper

AMARA

There’s a strange kind of quiet on the Widowmaker when the raids go right.

No alarms. No blood. Just the low thrum of engines, the hiss of recirculated air, and the occasional rattle of gear settling in its racks. And in that hush, I find a different kind of noise—the kind that lives under my ribs. A soundless ache. Constant. Coiled.

Respect. Power. Freedom. I fought like hell for all of it. And I got it.

So why does it feel like I’m bleeding from somewhere invisible?

I stare out the narrow viewport of the observation deck, watching stars blur past like tears we never earned. Haktron is below, training new recruits—shouts echoing faintly through the steel bones of the ship. They listen to him like he’s a god. Because he is.

He tells them stories with his fists. I tell them stories with negotiations.

We win.

But something’s missing.

My hands twitch, restless. I clench and unclench my fingers like I’m trying to find something that was once there. A softness. A rhythm. I haven’t touched a piano in months. Haven’t danced. Haven’t recited poetry in the dark to an audience of one. Haven’t even played my lyre.

God, my lyre.

That old wooden thing—half-cracked, with strings replaced a dozen times—used to sit in my quarters like a relic. I’d pluck out sonatas until the walls softened and I could hear myself again.

I left it behind in Alliance space. Like I left the rest of her behind—the girl who knew melodies better than war strategy. The girl who blushed. The girl who still believed art could shift the world.

I press a palm to the cold glass, exhale. My breath fogs the viewport. Fades.

The ache deepens.

I hear the hatch open behind me but don’t turn. His presence is unmistakable. Heat and metal. Ozone and storm. Haktron fills a room just by breathing.

“You’ve been up here awhile,” he says.

“I needed air.”

“This ship doesn’t have any good air,” he mutters. “Just recycled tension.”

I huff a laugh. It’s not joyful. “Better than recycled dreams.”

He’s silent a beat. Then, footsteps. Heavy. Intentional. He stops beside me, and we stare out together.

“What dreams?” he asks.

“The ones that didn’t make it past the first kill.”

He tilts his head. “Talk to me.”

I hesitate, fingers flexing against the glass. “Do you know the first song I ever played in public?”

“No.”

I smile, small and bitter. “Debussy. Clair de Lune. I was twelve. My fingers shook so badly, I thought I’d botch it.”

He waits.

“But I didn’t. I played it perfectly. Every note. And when I finished, there was this silence—not like this ship’s silence. Not cold. Not afraid. Just… still. Full.”

“And you miss that.”

“Every damn day.”

I turn to face him. “I know what we’re doing matters. I believe in it. In us. But sometimes, I wake up, and I don’t recognize the hands I used to make art with. They’re weapons now.”

He cups my jaw, thumb brushing my cheekbone. “Weapons can create, too.”

“Not the kind I’ve been wielding.”

He pulls me in close, voice rough. “Then let’s make something different.”

“I don’t even know who that girl is anymore.”

“You’re her. And more. You're the girl who stared down Malem Karag and made him blink.”

I bury my face against his chest, inhaling sweat, steel, and something warm beneath it all.

“I just… I don’t want to lose myself in being strong,” I whisper.

“You won’t,” he murmurs. “I won’t let you.”

I believe him. And still, the ache remains.

After he leaves, I go to the storage compartment tucked behind engineering. Not many people come here—it smells like dust and neglect and old coolant. But in the far corner, under a thermal tarp, I find it.

My lyre.

Scratched. Slightly out of tune. But real.

I sit cross-legged on the floor and pull it into my lap. My fingers find the strings on instinct. A gentle pluck. Then another. I start slow—half a melody, then a lullaby I half-remember from training days. My throat tightens, but I keep going.

The notes wobble. Then settle.

And something inside me unlocks.

I don’t cry. But I feel the weight ease.

I play until my fingers hurt. Until the ache becomes a song again.

Because maybe that’s what I lost—not the girl who played the lyre, but the courage to remember her.

And maybe that’s what I’m finding now.

I find the room by accident.

It’s buried two decks below the medbay—half-forgotten, half-consumed by old crates and oxidized lockers. Smells like dust and spilled lubricant. A cracked viewscreen flickers weakly in the corner. Most would walk past it. Hell, I nearly did.

But something about it feels… untouched.

So I claim it.

It takes hours to clear the clutter, days to make it mine.

I salvage soft lights from broken dormitories, string them around exposed pipes until the shadows soften.

I pull old datapads from the archives—ancient Earth poetry, forgotten sonatas, even a battered volume of Neruda.

I drag in an old piano from the wrecked rec hall, piece by goddamn piece.

And when I sit on the makeshift cushion and pluck my lyre again, it feels like breathing sweet, clean air.

This isn’t about war. Or survival. Or power.

It’s about remembering who I was before I became what I had to be.

One night, I’m playing when the door hisses open.

I don’t stop. I don’t even look up. The melody is low, aching—an echo of the loneliness that never quite left me. My fingers dance over silver strings, each note a confession I don’t know how to speak aloud.

But I feel him.

Haktron doesn’t say a word. Just steps inside, silent as shadow.

He watches me play.

And gods, he listens.

Not like a man used to command. Not like a warrior gauging weakness. He listens like someone trying to memorize the sound of something rare.

When the last note fades, I set the lyre down. My hands tremble slightly.

He steps closer. Still wordless.

“This was supposed to be who I was,” I say. My voice catches on the words. “Music. Literature. Quiet things that didn’t draw blood.”

He kneels beside me, brows knit.

“I trained to entertain, not survive. I was a Companion, not a killer.”

He says nothing.

I pull my knees up to my chest. “I was alone at the Academy. The other girls… they were polished mirrors. I was always a crack.”

He leans forward slightly, face carved from quiet tension.

“I made myself useful,” I continue. “I smiled, flirted, studied. Played the perfect role. And then I met you. And suddenly, everything that made me valuable didn’t matter.”

He stiffens, just a bit.

“I don’t mean that in anger,” I murmur. “You never asked me to change. You just... survived in a world that had no use for softness. And I followed.”

Still, he holds his silence.

“I don’t regret it,” I say. “I chose this. But I still wake up afraid that I’ve erased something I can’t get back.”

His voice, when it comes, is gravel-soft. “You haven’t.”

I look up. He’s closer now. Knees touching mine.

“You’re more now,” he says simply.

My throat tightens. “Sometimes I miss being less.”

He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t offer comfort where there is none.

Instead, he opens his arms.

I go to him.

Not as a diplomat. Not as a warrior. Not even as his jalshagar.

Just… me.

He holds me like I’m breakable. Like he knows this isn’t about lust or dominance or even devotion. It’s about grounding. About remembering who I am in the spaces between war.

We lie down on the faded cushions. He doesn’t kiss me. Doesn’t strip away the armor or chase the heat. He just pulls me against his chest and breathes with me.

In. Out. In. Out.

Like a rhythm we’d forgotten.

That night, we don’t make love.

We heal.

Together.