Page 63 of Fated in A Time of War
Just something half-visible people pretend not to see. Whispers follow me like smoke trails—kids ducking behind curtain-flaps, old women gripping charms tight enough to draw blood, men tightening their hands on weapon grips that wouldn’t even scratch my scales. No one meets my eyes unless they’re daring me to blink first.
I don’t blink.
Alice does what she can. She walks beside me, visible, loud, her voice sharp when someone spits too close or mutters too loud. She burns through this place like a flare, her heat dragging all the attention off me. I appreciate it.
But I don’t need it.
They’re afraid. That’s fair. Hell, I’d be afraid too if I saw me walk in from the ash. Even without a rifle in hand or blood on my claws, I’m not someone you trust near your wounded.
And still, I help.
I stack metal where the barricade’s sagging from the last rain. I lift half a collapsed wall so two teenagers can dig out a cot frame someone left behind. I carry a man who lost a leg to an infection the medics couldn’t stop and I don’t drop him, even when his stump leaks through the wrap and the smell turns my stomach.
I don’t smile.
I don’t joke, like I used to, before my hands remembered what warmth felt like.
I just… work.
No one thanks me. That’s fine. I wouldn’t know what to do with the words anyway. But they stop flinching as hard. They let me pass without reaching for weapons. That’s something.
The sun burns low—though you wouldn’t know it. The sky’s the color of rusted steel, thick with particulate haze. It filters the light into something bruised and blood-colored. I taste it in my throat, gritty and hot, as I step out of the supply tent with my arms full of ration crates.
Voices echo across the open yard—shouting, then laughter. Real laughter. Not the sharp, desperate kind that comes when someone’s cracked from stress. The kind that sounds like it remembers what joy was. I follow the sound without thinking.
And I stop dead at the threshold of the medical shelter.
She’s awake.
The child—the one Alice saved with shaking hands and too much hope—is sitting upright. Her skin’s still waxy, her cheeks hollow, but her eyes are open. Alert. Alive.
Alice is crouched beside the cot, one hand on the girl’s shoulder, the other cupping her tiny fingers like they’re made of glass. She’s smiling. Not just her mouth—her whole face, her whole self. It’s like watching sunrise crack through years of night.
I stay at the edge of the room. I don’t belong inside. My boots are still crusted with mud and blood, and I can’t scrub the stench of war out of my armor. I stand in the doorway like a shadow with a pulse.
The girl says something I can’t hear. Alice nods, brushing a strand of hair from the kid’s forehead, her thumb trembling just a little. She catches it fast, like she’s afraid anyone saw.
She doesn’t see me. That’s fine.
I see her.
I see what this moment means to her—the way her shoulders sag like she’s finally let go of a weight she didn’t realize she’d been carrying. I see the way her eyes shine, not with tears but with something deeper. Something close to peace.
And for a second, I let myself imagine this is what redemption feels like.
Not forgiveness. I’ll never get that. Not from them, not from her, not even from myself.
But maybe this is what it looks like. A kid breathing. A friend smiling. A silence that doesn’t choke.
The crates in my arms feel lighter when I turn away.
CHAPTER 20
ALICE
The camp feels different now.
It’s quieter, for one. That’s the first thing I notice as I move through the infirmary, boots muffled by warped vinyl flooring and years of grime. The low murmurs of conversation carry softer now, voices laced with something that almost sounds like hope. But it’s the kind that comes with conditions. The kind that flinches when you reach for it too fast.
