Only stares. Cold. Appraising.
The kind you give corpses before they hit the ground.
We follow the perimeter toward the command tent. What’s left of it. Canvas frayed. One side scorched from a fire someone clearly didn’t bother putting out fast enough. No guards posted. No salutes. Just eyes tracking us, shifting behind cracked visors.
When Kanapa steps out, he doesn’t greet us.
His armor’s been cleaned, but not well—ridges still dark with soot and something darker. His pauldrons are freshly polished, but his face is haggard. Eyes too wide. Toobright.Like someone lit a match behind his skull and forgot to blow it out.
“Took your time,” he says, voice like dry metal scraping concrete.
Amy doesn’t answer. I nod once, slow. “We got caught in the canyon ambush. Flanked, then cut off.”
Kanapa’s lip twitches. “And yet… here you are.”
That’s not a welcome. That’s a warning.
I glance behind him. The rest of the squad is scattered—hunched near fires, weapons in laps, not cleaning them, just holding. Waiting. Like they know something’s coming and they don’t want to be surprised again.
Amy shifts closer to me. Her fingers hook around the edge of my vambrace. I feel her heartbeat through the touch—fast and steady, like a war drum under skin.
Kanapa follows her gaze toward the far end of the camp.
There, beneath a stretched tarp, penned in with makeshift barriers—are the civilians.
Ataxians. Families. Elders. Two kids clinging to the legs of someone who might be their father. Hard to tell under the bruises. They’re quiet. Too quiet. Even the children don’t cry.
I smell them before I see them. Sweat, fear, and copper.
Kanapa exhales, eyes narrowed. “Vermin.”
Amy stiffens.
He doesn’t notice—or doesn’t care. “We cleared a nest ten klicks west. Thought we got them all. These stragglers crawled out after the fire.”
I grit my teeth. “They’re not combatants.”
“Neither are rats until they bite.” His eyes flick to me. “You look like shit, Darun.”
“Been busy.”
“You’ve gone soft.”
Amy tenses at my side. I can feel the tension coiling in her spine, like a spring waiting for a snap.
Kanapa smiles. It’s all teeth. “Maybe I should remind you what war is.”
I step forward. Just one step.
He doesn’t move.
“You want to talk, we do it in private,” I growl. “Not in front of her.”
He snorts, dismissive. “So now she gets your leash, is that it?”
“Now,” I say, voice dropping, “I don’t feel like making a scene.”
But Iwill.And he knows it.
