Page 32 of Fated in A Time of War
We trade information in short bursts, the way soldiers do when there’s no room for wasted words. Patrols. Supply caches. The tunnels below us, the risks of collapse.
But beneath the surface, something else is happening. The rhythm of it. Call and response. My words fit into the spaces between his like stones stacking into a wall. Not harmony, not yet, but cadence.
For the first time, I feel the faintest ease.
I take a breath, test the water. “We could try the comms tower again.”
His eyes snap up, hard as glass.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Too risky.” He leans forward, elbows digging into his knees. “They’ll triangulate the signal. Kru, Ataxian, maybe even Alliance scavvers. We light ourselves up, we’re done.”
I search his face. “But what if command?—”
“They won’t come.” His words cut sharp, final. He drags a hand over his jaw, the sound of scales rasping against stubble. “War doesn’t need me anymore.”
The way he says it—it isn’t anger. It’s worse. It’s hollow.
I want to answer, want to push, but I don’t. Not yet. His eyes are too raw, the weight in his voice too heavy.
So instead, I soften the angle. Shift the ground beneath him.
“What was your brother like?”
For a heartbeat, I think he hasn’t heard me. His face stays locked, a stone mask. His gaze flicks past me, to the shadows in the corner, to the cracked ceiling above. Anywhere but me.
I don’t move. I don’t repeat the question. I just sit, quiet, waiting.
His jaw clenches. “Why?”
I meet his stare. “Because I saw what you did. The way you tried to save him. The way you…” My throat tightens but I force it out. “…the way you screamed. That wasn’t duty. That was love.”
The silence between us hums like a live wire.
His hands curl into fists, knuckles pale against his dark skin. His breath comes heavier, slower.
“Lakka was… stubborn. Smiled too much for a soldier. Thought every fight was worth something. Thought we were building more than rubble.” He lets out a bitter laugh, sharp and empty. “He believed so hard it pissed me off.”
He stops, eyes narrowing like he’s realized he’s said too much.
I swallow, keeping my voice soft. “He sounds… good.”
Krall’s glare cuts through me. “He’s dead. Good doesn’t matter.”
I don’t flinch. I let the words hang.
The lamp flickers between us, shadows dancing across his scaled jaw. For the first time, I don’t see just the soldier or the beast. I see a man trying to hold together pieces too sharp to grip without bleeding.
And I wonder—not for the first time—if fate didn’t drag us together to destroy us both… but to keep us from falling apart.
At first, he goes stiff, like I’ve asked him to tear open a wound he’s sewn shut with barbed wire. His jaw flexes, eyes flick toward the ground, away from me. I think maybe he’ll snarl, maybe he’ll tell me to shut up and keep my Ataxian mouth closed.
But then he exhales. A long, ragged sound.
“Lakka,” he mutters, almost too quiet for me to catch. “He had this haircut… gods, it was ridiculous. Cropped short at the front, left long at the back. Said it was regulation length but ‘expressive.’ Looked like a half-molted bird.”
