Page 91 of Ravaged By the Reaper
My blade—Bloodfont—hangs heavy at my hip, still humming from the last re-sharpening. It doesn’t need to be drawn. Not yet. My silence is blade enough.
A shadow follows me. Not physical—mental. Emotional. It'sher. Always her. The way she walked aboard this ship like it owed her something. The way her chin lifted when Panaka sneered. The way her collar gleamed like defiance forged in fire.
They think I gave it to her.
They don’t know sheearnedit.
I step into the training hall. Sparring mats. Steel walls. The scent of sweat and ambition. A pair of recruits lock blades, clumsy but fierce. One stumbles. The other lunges. I stop him mid-strike with a look alone.
They freeze. Breathe hard. Bow shallowly.
I keep walking.
Because that’s the lesson today: discipline. Not rage. Not bloodlust. But purpose.
Amarais purpose.
I hear them ask questions behind my back. And I simply let them.
Because when the time comes, when the next war bleeds into the void and survival hangs on one thread of loyalty or loss, they’ll remember who I am.
And they’ll rememberwho she is to me.
She’s not a weapon or a weakness.
She’smine.
Not in the crude, possessive way they imagine. Not in chains or demands or stolen freedom.
But in the way gravity claims a planet. In the way fire claims air.
She doesn’tfollowme.
Shestands besideme.
I round the corner to the main deck, passing the mural of old campaigns—the ones carved into the metal, not painted. Reaper victories, etched in blood and flame. Names of worlds we took. Names of commanders we broke.
Someday, maybe hers will be up there too.
Or maybe mine will be beside hers.
I pause at the viewport overlooking the stars.
Space stretches endless and cruel, cold and blinding. But all I can see isher—the way she stood in the middle of a summit and broke Malem withwords. No plasma. No blade. Just fire behind her eyes and steel beneath her skin.
“Sir,” someone calls behind me.
I don’t turn.
“What?”
A young recruit—Talen, I think—steps up, helmet tucked under his arm. “Permission to speak freely.”
“Denied,” I mutter.
He speaks anyway. Foolish. Brave.
“It’s about the human. Amara.”
