Page 127 of Under the Iron Sky

Soraya almost smiled at that. “When you say ‘foresaw’ …”

Emelda looked up from the ring. “Hmm? Oh, she was a seer. Ramapheal’s best, actually. Great woman. Varena used to say …” Emelda blew out a breath. “Sorry I keep bringing her up. I just miss her. She was never the same after she went on that mission above.”

“What mission?” Soraya found herself asking. Surely this leaf had to be done now? Was Emelda holding it there longer as an excuse to talk about this?

“She got trapped above for three days. We were all beside ourselves with worry, thought she was dead. The helmets are infused with magic to protect them when they go above, but they don’t last forever.”

They, not we, Soraya noticed. Did that mean Emelda never went to the surface? Ever?

“Turns out she just got stuck at an old checkpoint that’d been caved in the entire time, but it changed her. She was always so calm before. Never let anything bother her. She was skittish when she got back, always sneaking off and never wanted to be near anyone. I hoped she’d pull herself out of it if we left her to it. She looked like she was getting better for a while, then one day she went on a mission above and she lost it, started attacking our soldiers, saying they were blind. It took seven guards to restrain her, can you believe that? Seven. They managed to get her below, but she was just … gone. The Ancient One had to do what he did. She was a danger to everyone like that, herself included.”

Soraya thought of those flashes she’d seen in Ikarus’s mind and wondered how she’d fare if she was made to watch the same thing happen to Theron or Raina. “You care a lot for Ikarus.”

Emelda seemed surprised Soraya would even ask such a thing. “Of course I do. We may not be blood, but he is my family in every way that counts.” She placed her free hand over her heart. “Malakai, Aeris, Ikarus, and me … Golla and Serone—even though the thing hates everyone who isn’t Ikarus—we are family. We protect one another. Surely you know what that’s like?”

Soraya used to.

Finally, Emelda removed the leaf and examined it. “No poison,” she said. “All healed.”

Thank the Gods.

Soraya stood, quickly casting her eyes to the temple again when her back was to Emelda. Still normal as far as she could see. It had to be nearly time for the attack now, right?

Emelda was dabbing her eyes when Soraya turned around. She noticed Soraya’s gaze, then laughed softly and tipped her face toward the ceiling, blinking rapidly. “Oh this is so silly of me. And to ruin my makeup? Whatever will they all think if I go out in public looking like this?”

“There’s more to life than merely being pretty, you know.” Soraya didn’t know why she said it, but she felt like Emelda needed to hear it.

“For people like you, perhaps. But for me … That’s all I’m good at.” A sad sort of twinkle entered her eyes, making them shine like a dimming sunset. “But I am very good at it.”

She stood and turned to leave, wings shimmering, and something about the sadness in her eyes had Soraya being foolish. Had her reaching out to grab the fairy’s elbow, hold her there. “Why did you tell me all of that? About Ikarus and your sister?”

Emelda stared at her sadly, tears burning her eyes. “Because I want you to know that he wasn’t supposed to be this cold. There were times when we were children that he really wanted to be something else, but because of the war he didn’t have a choice. Because I think you ought to know the kind of man he is beneath that helmet.” Emelda’s throat worked, and her voice broke when she spoke again. “I think you should know that everything he’s ever done has been for us. Me, Malakai, Aeris—and Varena, once. His mother and father when they were still alive too. I’m not ignorant. I know Ikarus has done some awful things since the start of the war. He’s sacrificed so much for us. He thinks he’s damned himself straight to hell and that he doesn’t have a soul anymore, but I don’t believe that. Everything he’s done has been to protect us, and I refuse to believe anyone who could sacrifice everything they are and ever could be to protect their family could ever truly be soulless.”

Soraya opened her mouth to reply, to say that she was starting to see that there was more to this man than the horns on his head, but paused when the fairy coughed into her hand.

Emelda took a gasping breath, thick blood sliding down her fingers and the back of her hand.

She coughed again. Again.

And did not stop.

42

“Are you all right?”

Ikarus blinked away from a pair of green eyes and found himself sitting at a war table in one of the highest burrows. He scanned the room. How had he … Ah, yes. That was it. A group of Irons had brought him the blueprints of the Astro Temple when he’d arrived, the map of the planet that was carved into the table barely visible beneath all the sheets of blue paper with silver and gold markings.

“Ikarus,” Aeris said again, taking on that very stern expression that Ikarus had hated since they were children. “Are you all right?”

He wasn’t, but he mastered the riot in his head enough to say, “I’m fine.” He rubbed his temples, forcing himself to blink down at the papers again. The words scribbled into the margins might’ve been in the common tongue, but Ikarus felt like he was staring at some foreign language from another planet. He’d thought he’d understood the principle of Light and its manipulation, but seeing it all laid out in charts and scribbles and drawings of gears and heights and the precise thickness of goldinium that was needed for effective transference made his head hurt. How the human could keep all this inside her brain for multiple machines and weapons without it exploding, he had no idea.

And there he went again. Gods, what was wrong with him?! She was everywhere these days: his home, his assignments, wandering through his mind so freely he couldn’t even sit around a war table without her dragging him right back. Not a thread of his life that she was not willing to leave alone and pry apart.

She does not burn the way you thought she would, does she?

No, she didn’t. It felt like each new memory he uncovered, each day he spent with her, unraveled some thread of what he thought he knew as absolute fact—that the humans were monsters. That they wanted him and all his kind dead, not because of some war but because they just did, because they thought they were better, that his kind didn’t deserve to exist.

“All right,” he said, forcing his attention back to the task at hand. “So there are no soft spots in this thing as far as we can tell.”