Chapter 13 - Bella
BELLA
If I had credit for every time I nearly broke my damn neck on this climb, I could buy myself a whole new spine.
The mountain is vicious—every step either crumbles under my boot or stabs sharp shale straight through the thin soles. The air thins fast, burning cold in my lungs, while the wind cuts so sharp it feels like knives pressing through the seams of my jacket.
“Tell me again why we couldn’t just teleport, beam, or miracle our way up here?” I mutter, teeth chattering despite my best attempt at bravado.
Kage doesn’t answer. He’s a mountain himself, moving solid and steady beside me like gravity bends to him instead of the other way around. No stumble, no complaint, not even a twitch of irritation. Just… relentless.
“Sadist,” I grumble under my breath. “Mountain fetish, confirmed.”
His head tips slightly, frills twitching. “I heard that.”
I grin through chapped lips, even though my thighs are screaming. “Good. Just make sure your hearing hasn’t gone with your sense of humor.”
No response. Just the crunch of his claws in the scree.
Still, every time I think about sitting down and refusing to move, I glance sideways at him.
He doesn’t look back, doesn’t encourage me, doesn’t offer a hand.
But there’s something about his steadiness, the way his silhouette cuts against the jagged skyline, that drags me forward.
Like if he can keep going, then so can I.
So I do.
We make camp that night in a crevice beneath what’s left of a solar array.
The panels hang cracked and rusted, glass glittering in the moonlight.
Kage builds a shield wall of broken plating against the wind, while I huddle closer to the makeshift heater we jury-rig out of salvaged batteries.
The glow is weak, but the warmth seeps into my frozen fingers all the same.
I surprise myself when I talk first. “I lost a man, once. Early on.”
Kage glances at me, silver eyes gleaming in the dim light. He doesn’t interrupt, just waits.
I pick at the corner of my ration bar, chewing slow. “He was Alliance. Prisoner. They dumped him on us, told us to patch him up before interrogation. I was green, stupid. I misread the vitals. Gave him the wrong compound.”
The memory scrapes raw. The screaming, the seizures, the look in his eyes right before they went glassy.
“He died,” I say, flat. “On my table. Because I screwed up.”
Kage doesn’t rush to fill the silence. He just stares at me, heavy and unblinking.
“You learned.”
I blink. “That’s it?”
“You learned,” he repeats. “Most do not. They fail, and they keep failing. You did not.”
It’s not comfort. Not forgiveness. Just truth. And somehow, it feels heavier. Realer. My chest loosens a fraction.
“Thanks, I guess,” I mutter, pulling my jacket tighter.
Kage doesn’t respond, but his gaze lingers. Long enough that I feel it on my skin even after I roll onto my side, pretending to sleep.
The next morning, frost crusts the rocks, crunching under our boots. My breath fogs in thick clouds. Kage raises his head suddenly, nostrils flaring.
“What?” I whisper, half-panicked.
“Heat signatures,” he says, voice low. His frills tremble. “Faint, but there.”
I tap my wrist console, cycling through readings until a flicker appears: residual power, buried deep.
“Seismic shift,” I murmur. “Door moving.”
The bunker. We’re close.
But before I can celebrate, the world erupts in a metallic screech.
Shapes drop from the ridge above—scavenger drones, six of them, claws sparking against stone. Their bodies twitch, half-meat and half-metal, eyes glowing red like angry coals.
“Company,” I hiss, yanking my sidearm free.
Kage roars, a sound that vibrates straight through my ribs, and charges. He’s a storm of black and silver, claws rending steel apart like paper. Sparks shower the rocks, and the air fills with the stench of burning oil and blood.
I move with him, and the terrifying part? It feels natural. My med-laser isn’t meant as a weapon, but when I flick it wide and sear straight through a drone’s joint, it topples screaming. Kage follows, tearing it in half.
“Left!” I shout.
He pivots instantly, his tail whipping one drone into the canyon wall while I fire point-blank into another’s chest. Metal shrieks, fluids spray hot across my face. I gag on the stink, but I don’t stop.
By the time the last one collapses in a twitching heap, we’re both panting, bloodied, standing shoulder to shoulder. My hands shake, adrenaline singing in my veins. Kage is bleeding again, ichor slick over his side, but his eyes are bright, alive in a way I’ve never seen before.
We look at each other, breathing hard, and for a second I can’t tell if the pounding in my chest is mine or his.
The bunker looms up ahead, half-buried in the mountain face. Its doors are slabs of steel, scarred by centuries but still sealed tight.
Kage staggers forward, lifts one blood-slick fist, and pounds. The clang echoes through the cliffs.
“Please,” he mutters, low, almost to himself. Then louder: “Open!”
I hold my breath.
The door grinds, metal screaming against stone. A seam cracks open, light spilling into the gray dawn.
An old Grolgath male stares out, frills dulled with age but eyes wide and sharp. His gaze locks on Kage.
“Kage?” His voice breaks.
Kage goes still. Then, in a whisper, “Gake?”
The man nods once. “You took your sweet time, boy.”
My knees nearly give. My throat aches with the pressure of tears I can’t shed. Against all odds—against everything—we found them.