Chapter 10 Vokar
VOKAR
The night air tastes of damp earth and distant rain. I sit on the ground outside the compound — a patch of rough soil, wild weeds, and broken rock. The wind shifts, carrying the scent of pine sap and mist from the forest on Storder, mixing with the iron tang of my own blood-and-fear memories.
My fingers dig into the dirt. I twist handfuls between my palms, watching granules spill through bone-studded fingers. Clack, clack — the sound soft in the quiet night. The soil crumbles, dust rising in pinpricks around me like ashes from a burnt-out pyre.
I strip the layers of the world down to earth. That’s what I do. I conquer. I raze. I build and rebuild. Planets of ash. Moons of ruin. Fortresses strung across star systems. Armies behind me. Death beneath me.
But I don’t know how to build something gentle. Something human.
That word — gentle — tastes foreign on my tongue.
A soft step behind me. A creak. Old bone-spur joints.
“Warlord.”
I don’t look up. Not yet.
“Yorta.”
He sits a few feet away. Gravel shifts under his armor. The smell of boneplate polish and recycled metal wafts faintly.
“Stop that,” he says quietly. “Tearing the land like it’s your enemy.”
I grip another handful of dirt. I tighten until knuckles whiten.
“Don’t.” I don’t raise my voice — I don’t need to. My calm is sharper than any blade.
Yorta bows his head. I can tell he wants to say more — advise, console, scold. But he waits. As always, he waits.
Good. Let him. Suggestions are cheap. Blood and bone weigh more.
When he finally stands, he casts me a glance. Not pity. Respect. War-worn, hard-won respect.
“Parfi wants to speak with you,” he says.
The name tastes like moss-water and old bark. Parfi — the soft-spoken sage among the harsh lines of war and strategy.
I nod once, without turning.
He departs into the night. The wind picks up, carrying the distant chirp of forest creatures and the hush of leaves brushing in the dark.
I gather another handful of dirt. Let it splay between my fingers.
I remember what Parfi said earlier — in that glow-lit chamber, in her quiet voice, like wind over old stones: You built a fortress around yourself. You’ll need to dismantle it, brick by brick, if you want her to come inside.
A fortress.
It’s a fitting description.
I remember the battles. The sieges. The crack of bone under steel. The roar of broken worlds. I remember how I felt — invincible. Immortal. The stars bowed when I walked.
But in the darkness of that room — after she walked away — I felt mortal. Fragile. Exposed.
That’s a lesson I don’t teach easily.
But sitting here now, under this moonless sky, I realize: maybe there’s more honor in letting walls fall than building new ones with blood.
It begins with dirt.
I dig another handful, then another. Unclench. I let the earth sift through my claws. The scent: wet soil, decay, life. I inhale deeply. It grounds me. Reminds me I’m made of bone and flesh — not just bone and war.
A soft rustle of undergrowth. Then another sound: a faint humming light. The comm-link I keep even here for emergencies. Its panel glows — a soft teal. Parfi.
I tap the holopad open, wiping mud and soil from its surface. The light casts faint reflections on my face — red eyes dim in the holopad’s glow.
“Warlord,” Parfi’s tone filters through: soft, even, as if she tends to saplings instead of warlords. “I’ve been waiting.”
I lean back on my heels, dust motes drifting in the dim radiance.
“You spoke once,” I say flatly. “Of dismantling bricks. Changing walls. I don’t know how to do that.”
She doesn’t laugh. I know her enough to sense weight in silence.
“Walls are built of fears, of grief, of blood-stained memories. They keep the hurt out — or bury it. But walls die. They crumble. They can shelter or suffocate.”
Her words taste like fresh rain on rock.
“Tell me,” I say. “How do I unbuild them?”
From her side, a soft inhale. A movement I can’t see through the comm but can hear in the crackle of static.
“First,” she says slowly, “you need to make space. In your mind. In your fortress. Let dirt fill the cracks so you can plant new seeds — not bones. Not weaponry. Seeds.”
I look down at the dirt in my hands again. Palms cupped. Fingers stained.
“Seeds,” I echo.
“Seeds of trust. Of safety. Of time.”
“Time,” I murmur.
“All great walls are built or dismantled in time,” Parfi says. “Let her see your foundation shift. Let her sense the change in the ground beneath her feet.”
I close my eyes. Let the cold air gather in my lungs. Let the ache in my ribs settle.
“You still think about her,” she says quietly. “Every breath. Every man who’d kneel, every moon you’d burn — you think of her. Don’t lie to me.”
I don’t answer. The soil slips through my fingers again, scraped, powdered.
“Good,” she says. “Then show her that. Not with words. With silence. With protection. With patience. With honor.”
Silence stretches over the holopad, then cuts out with the final hiss of the connection.
I lower the pad. Lay it next to me in the dirt. It’s cracked — the glass spidered from a misstep during a raid. But it still works. Still speaks. Its light still burns. Maybe like me.
Maybe it’s time to rebuild.
I stand. Soil falls from my claws in little cascades. I look over the dark stretch of land — the compound lights dim in the distance, the hum of building activity far, far away.
And in that space — empty, open, quiet — I taste possibility.
I shift my shoulders. Bone-plates rattle softly.
I whisper to the earth beneath me:
"I claim you, world. Not with war. But with life. Begin."
The soil around us still trembles from some distant quake — or maybe it’s just the settling of old wounds.
I lift a hand over my ribs, where scars run long and deep.
"And I claim what is mine. In time."
I walk away from the field. Not fast. Not recklessly. But sure.
Because I know now: conquering planets was never the point.
Saving what I cherish — that is the battle I choose now.
The next morning the compound smells of solder fumes, recycled air, and stale coffee.
I don’t go to my quarters right away. Instead I walk among the half-built greenhouses near the ash-plain outside the main living ring.
The sky is a dull gray swirl overhead, and the air tastes of damp moss and distant storm-clouds.
I find one of the Solari — the ones from the forest moon, with pale skin and eyes like washed-out jade. Their name is Trelis. I learned long ago that their advice often comes wrapped in quiet patience — something my bone-plated heart knows little about.
Trelis is kneeling next to a shallow trench, setting small roots of a fast-sprout herb into oxygen-rich soil. She looks up when I approach. Her eyes flick once — no surprise, no fear, just calm acceptance.
“Warlord,” she says softly. “You came for counsel?”
I nod. The leather straps of my belt hiss as I shift. The smell of dirt and sap — sweet, organic — lifts in little waves around us. I hate missing this smell when I’m armored; it’s too gentle.
Trelis wipes a smear of earth from her hand, then offers it to me — an old courtesy. I sniff. The scent is alive: loam, root-bark, rain-soaked rock. Hard soil turned soft.
“Human affection,” she says. “They don’t speak in threats or iron. Not always. To win trust… you give space. And small gestures. Warm drink at the end of a shift. Something soft to wrap around cold skin. Shelter when they wake.(refuge) Provisions. Safety.”
“Small,” I repeat. The word is awkward in my mouth. I’m big. I’m built to give orders. To conquer. Not to coddle.
“Small means less danger,” she says. “Less fear. Less shock to their bones. Some human women—especially those who survived loss—need gentle first. Not the earthquake.”
I stare at the budding herb in her fingers. Tiny green sprout, fragile leaves shining.
“Show me,” I say.
She nods. “Observe. Then learn.”
Later, my boots echo hollow in empty corridors.
I carry a rust-stained thermos — human coffee, dark, hot.
I learned from a soldier’s ration recipe how to make it strong enough to chase away cold, but not bitter.
I fill it just before the convocation shift ends, when the corridors still hum with air-recycling and the last alarms flicker off.
I don’t bring it to her. That would be too direct. Too possessive. Instead — I slip it beside the water‐dispenser at the break-room door. The hiss of the auto-slide is the only warning. I don’t watch. I walk away before I hear her.
I don’t have to hide. My armor clanks enough to announce me if someone glances over. I make no effort to soften that sound. I want her to feel safe without needing to see me. I want the gesture to be invisible.
Hours later, I catch the faint scent of coffee in the corridors. I close my eyes. Warm, bitter, real. Like rain after ash. For a moment I think I hear her laugh — soft, uncertain — like the tremor after a thunder-clap subsides.
Hope flickers. Small. Dangerous. But burning.
The cloak comes next.
I’ve had cloaks made before — heavy bone-plated wind-covers for raid runs.
This one I carve myself. I order soft insulated sheeting — rare on Storder — and tailor it small.
Tight. Human-sized. I wrap it in faded cloth and leave it on her bunk.
I don’t knock. I don’t announce. I just place it there, like a silent offering.
The smell of metal lingers on the cloak — faint, smoky, the tang of quarry-dust and bone-grind. I imagine it wrapping around her — warmth, softness, protection. Not armor. Not dominance. Shelter.
The next day, I pass the bunk while Slates run their rounds.
I don’t enter. I just glance at the bed.
The cloak is gone. Folded. Neat. I can’t see her — not from the corridor — but I smell something new on the air: faint vanilla and laundry-soap, not the stale recycling of shipboards.
A soft sign she used it, maybe pressed it close, maybe just recognized that someone thought of her.
I taste bitter pride on my tongue. Quiet. Sharp.
Someone once told me: for a Reaper, hope is the most dangerous emotion.
Maybe. But if hope is a blade, this one is sharpened on memories — not hate.
I return to the greenhouses that night. The Solari fires flicker inside the glass domes. Seeds sprout in neatly organized rows. The air is humid, smells of moss and leaf-rot and life. I gather a handful of wild-flower pods — soft purple blossoms, delicate.
I carry them in my gauntlet—bone spurs clinking softly.
I leave them in the small locker outside her quarters, with a note crudely scrawled on scrap plastisteel: “For cold nights. — V.”
I don’t wait to see if she takes them. I walk away.
But I feel the absence of steel over my spine. The ache of waiting.
And that ache is new.
Some time later, I sit alone on the steps of the compound, overlooking the faint glow of Storder’s forests. Wind whispers over the ridges. The smell of pine and rain, of earth and distant thunder.
The scar along my cheek itches — a reminder of battles fought, beasts slain, moons conquered. The bone-spurs on my arms clink quietly as I flex my fingers.
I lift one hand, smear soil across the scars — old dried sweat and dust, nothing more. I close my eyes and murmur to the darkness:
She is mine.
But this time, it’s not a claim.
It’s a promise.
To tear down the walls I built — brick by brutal bone-forged brick — and build something new. Fragile. Soft. Alive.
I don’t know if she’ll step across that threshold. I don’t know if she’ll stay after the war finishes, after the next raid, after the next cold morning when the ghosts of screams still echo in my head.
But for once — I’m not sure I care.
Because for the first time in a long time, I want more than conquest.
I want belonging.
I want her.
And I’m learning.
I’m learning that the greatest siege I’ll ever wage is on my own heart.
But I’m ready.