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But it was Aeris who asked the question on everyone’s lips. The one even Ikarus didn’t dare to speak, as though that might make it real. “Why?”

Malakai’s eyes hardened to stone. “Because Ramapheal killed Varena.”

“Because he didn’t have a choice,” Ikarus cut in, his tone scathing. “Getting trapped above affected her more than any of us wanted to admit. It drove her mad and—”

Now it was Emelda’s turn to cut Ikarus off. “He was lying!”

Ikarus closed his eyes for a beat, seemingly needing to gather himself before saying, his voice much softer now, “Mel—”

“Oh don’t ‘Mel’ me!” Emelda snapped. “Varena learned something she shouldn’t have, and Ramapheal had her executed to silence her.”

Ikarus narrowed his eyes. “Silence her about what?”

Emelda weathered that glare and replied, teeth bared, “He killed her to keep her from telling everyone we can breathe Vordellian air.”

Aeris was suddenly seething. “That’s not possible.”

Across the room, Ikarus stiffened. He turned to meet Soraya’s eyes over his shoulder.

Emelda’s dusty pink eyes skittered between them, noticing that look. “You know, don’t you?”

When Ikarus said nothing, Soraya answered, “After the attack today, I bound him in Links and took his helmet off.”

While Emelda’s eyes widened with surprise, Malakai choked on a laugh.

Clearly not amused, Aeris snapped, “How long has this been going on?”

Emelda and Malakai shared a look. Seemed to have some silent conversation before Emelda drew a deep breath, and began, “It started after the anniversary of Varena’s death. You two had been assigned to go on a raid above, so Malakai and I decided to drown our sorrows at the Pitt. I took a turn when we got back.”

Shocked as he might’ve been, Aeris straightened at this.

“I was fine,” Emelda quickly amended. And then to Soraya, “I know some of us can memory walk, but it hit me that night that if anything ever happened to Ikarus, I might never see my sister again. I started panicking that I might forget what she looked like, and whenever I tried to picture her face that night, all I could see was her standing on that podium with a gag in her mouth.” She rubbed a hand over her sternum. “My own sister—over twenty years of memories and moments together, and all I could recall was her face all bloodied up right before she died.”

Malakai took her hand, squeezing softly. Soraya swore she felt echoes of it wrapping around her own heart.

Because death was cruel like that, wasn’t it? Shared laughs, secret smiles in the dead of night, no matter how vivid or filled with love the moment was at the time, it could all be erased with the swing of an ax, tainting every moment red.

Emelda wiped her eyes. “We were in mine and Aeris’s bedroom at the time. I was standing in our bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. I just wanted to see her, and when I couldn’t I got so angry that I smashed the mirror with my hand—and found Varena’s journal hidden behind it.”

“We couldn’t believe it at first,” Malakai cut in, his brown eyes burning with an intensity Soraya had never seen before. “Varena had never been one for writing her feelings down—but this was more of a confessional. She’d written about what happened when she went missing. There was no old checkpoint, and her helmet was damaged when she got trapped above. She said she waited for death to come but it never did, and eventually she took her helmet off completely and nothing happened. She made her way back to Belvador, but something seemed off about Ramapheal when she was taken to see him, so she made up the story about the cave-in. She started to run experiments when she was on raids. Shutting herself in a room of whatever area we were attacking and taking her helmet off, but no matter how many times she did it, she was always fine.”

“So what happened during her final mission?” Soraya asked, not understanding how turning on Dar’rak soldiers mid-assignment fit in with this tale in Varena’s journals.

Emelda looked down at her fingers, twisting the opal ring. Her sister’s ring. “Over the next few weeks, she continued gathering evidence. She started making transcripts of his speeches, noting all the people who went above and didn’t come back. We don’t know exactly what happened that day, but we think she thought Ramapheal was starting to suspect she knew more than she was letting on. We think she feared it was only a matter of time before he searched her memories and saw what had happened above, so she panicked and tried to show the truth to as many people as possible while there were so many witnesses.”

Aeris looked like he might throw up. “She wasn’t attacking our soldiers that day. She was trying to tear their helmets off so they’d see the air wasn’t poisonous.”

Emelda nodded. Her eyes gleamed with silver. “And that’s why Ramapheal killed her. She knew too much, and he couldn’t risk anyone else finding out. We can only assume the reason we weren’t all executed with her was because he saw in her memories that she hadn’t told us.”

Throughout this, Ikarus had gone nerve-bitingly quiet. Soraya watched him stride over to the fire. He put his back to everyone, resting a hand on either side of the hearth, and stared into the flames, listening to everything.

“This can’t be right,” Aeris was saying. “We’ve all seen what happens when our helmets are ripped away. Those people didn’t just drop dead for no reason.”

Malakai cocked a brow. “You mean the very public executions that Ramapheal always attends, no matter what? Think about it, have you ever been to an execution above where he hasn’t been there himself?”

Aeris was quiet for long enough that Soraya asked, “You think it’s him killing them with his magic?”

Malakai snapped his fingers in her direction. “Exactly. His magic is blood. He can pop a person’s chest wide open with barely a thought. Making someone look like they’re suffocating is nothing to him.”