Page 51 of Fated in A Time of War
“The shopping complex,” I murmur, voice low so it doesn’t bounce off the wrecks around us. “It used to sit near the north freight lines. Three levels, open atrium in the middle. Food stalls on the first floor. Tech vendors above. Med dispensers scattered near the back exits. If anything survived the looters, it’ll be there.”
He grunts, the sound more acknowledgment than agreement. His eyes sweep the horizon, scanning for movement. Always scanning. Always one twitch away from violence.
I crouch and drag a finger through the ash, sketching a crude map in the dirt. A rectangle, bisected by a line of stalls, side exits marked with rough slashes. “Here,” I say, tapping one corner. “Service corridor. If the main doors are blocked, we’ll get in through there. I remember the old schematics.”
Krall squats beside me, his bulk casting a shadow over the sketch. He studies it in silence, his jaw working like he’s chewing on words he’ll never say. Finally, he nods once and wipes the drawing away with the back of his gauntlet.
“Good enough,” he mutters.
He rises, and I follow. The two of us moving again, step by step through the Graveworks.
The air here is different. Heavier. Every breath tastes like iron filings, grit scraping my tongue. The silence is almostunbearable—broken only by the occasional groan of rusted beams settling, or the whisper of ash sliding down a slag heap. Twisted hulks of mechs loom over us like titans brought low, their limbs bent and broken, their weapons melted into slagged fists. Some still bear insignias, scorched into metal that refuses to forget.
I trail my fingers across the scarred flank of one fallen walker, feeling the rough gouges where plasma carved it open. The steel is cold, but under my touch, I swear it hums. Not with power—just with memory. I bow my head for a second, whispering a name I’ll never know. Not a prayer. Just respect.
Krall notices. He doesn’t say anything, but I feel the weight of his gaze, hot on my skin like sunlight through shattered glass. It makes me stand straighter. Makes me keep moving.
We weave through heaps of armor plating, past skeletons of engines and cockpits filled with long-dead pilots. Their bones are brittle, fused into seats by the fires that swallowed them. I want to close their eyes. I want to give them rest. But there are too many. Too many dead.
And one very much alive child still waiting for me to bring him hope.
The thought slams into me like a rifle stock. I see his face—thin, pale, eyes too big for his skull. I hear his coughing, the ragged scrape of air through damaged lungs. I feel the tiny weight of his hand clutching mine when I promised I’d come back with medicine.
I almost stumble.
The fantasy of soft mornings and stolen kisses fades like smoke. Reality sharpens its claws in my chest. Survival isn’t just for me. It isn’t even for Krall. It’s for him. For the camp. For all the people who never asked for this war, who were left behind when armies pulled out and banners changed.
Krall pauses ahead of me, his stance shifting as he scans a ridge of twisted beams. My breath hitches. For a moment I think he’s sensed movement, an ambush waiting. But no. He’s just listening. Always listening.
“You’re quiet,” he rumbles without looking back.
I force a crooked smile, though he can’t see it. “I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous habit,” he replies, voice flat.
“Someone has to,” I shoot back. “You’re too busy growling at shadows.”
For the first time, the corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Almost. Then it’s gone, buried under that eternal scowl.
But it’s enough. Like the brush of his hand against mine. Like the memory of his lips the night before. Small things, sharp as glass, cutting into me. Changing me.
I square my shoulders and keep walking. I step over slag and bone. The Graveworks stretch endless before us, a labyrinth of rust and ruin. But in my chest, my heart beats steady.
Not because I believe in survival.
Because I believe in choice. In mercy. In the promise I made to a child who deserves more than ashes.
Krall’s shadow beside me feels less like a captor’s leash now, and more like a shield.
The sound is wrong.
Not footsteps, not wind, not the shift of settling rubble. A grinding, long and low, like two titans dragging their blades across the bones of the earth. My blood ices before my brain even catches up.
Krall freezes ahead of me, his ears twitching, claws flexing once against the grip of his rifle. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. His entire body screams danger.
He jerks his chin toward the right, toward the twisted corpse of a mech half-submerged in slag. Without hesitation, I follow, scrambling after him. The stench of rust and oil hits hard as weduck inside its hollowed carcass. The metal is cold, sharp edges biting at my palms as I crawl in beside him.
We crouch in darkness, shadows draped thick around us. Through a narrow fracture in the hull, I see them.
