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“Human leave now?”
Soraya tore her eyes from the spot Ikarus had just disappeared to where Golla was peering up at her, his mouth drooping in the corners.
“I don’t know.” She should. With everyone so reeling, this was a hell of a chance to escape but after everything she’d just learned …
Emelda crossed the room toward her, hand in hand with Aeris. Her gaze slipped to the weapons and guns now strapped to Soraya’s body. “Are you planning on staying with us?”
“Am I allowed to leave?” Soraya countered.
Emelda gave a sad smile. “I wish I could say you are free to go, but with how valuable you are to the Ancient One …”
“He’ll kill you all if I escape? Ikarus was ready to throw me out half an hour ago.”
Emelda tutted. “That’s because he’s reckless and impulsive when he’s angry.”
“I could just kill you all and make a run for it.” She certainly had more than enough weapons to try.
When Aeris’s gold eyes shimmered, Emelda stepped between them. “No, no, no, there’ll be none of that,” she said sweetly, gently pushing Aeris toward where Malakai was pouring brown-colored whisky from a decanter by the fireplace.When he was safely on the other side of the room with a glass in his hand, she said to Soraya, “I know this situation is … less than ideal for you, and I know you’d love to go back to your base—but you have just as much cause to hate Ramapheal as we do. Think of the damage you could do down here if you stay here, with us.”
She took Soraya’s hands, careful to avoid the spikes on her knuckle-dusters, and squeezed softly.
Soraya wanted to tell her that she didn’t think there was even a home left for her above anymore, not after what she’d done today, but she couldn’t force the words out.
Emelda squeezed her hands again, smiling grimly as if she knew that, too, and said, “But for that to happen I imagine you and Ikarus will have quite a few things you need to sort out first.”
Ikarus. Soraya’s blood screamed just hearing his name. He’d put her under the Hex. He’d made her attack Raina …
Wings tucking in tight, Emelda called over a shoulder, “Golla, do you know where Ikarus went?”
The tiny creature beamed. “Yes. To same place he always goes when too much in his head.”
Stones were suddenly wrapping around her, sealing her in what she could only describe as a cocoon of smooth stone, and the world went black. She felt the vague sensation of moving, and just as she was about to throw up, the rocks cleared, and she was lying in the middle of a dead forest.
“I did not enjoy that,” Soraya panted, glaring at the golem as he shrank back into the floor with a small salute.
Groaning while she waited for the nausea to pass, she glanced around. Thick empty branches were all around her, the leaves long since shriveled and decayed, as well as small rock sculptures that resembled slender women with suns and stars between their shoulders instead of heads.
He’d brought her to Endoril. The Forest of Stars just outside where she used to meet Ma’varea.
Standing, Soraya turned on the spot, squinting through the rows of bare branches to the outline of the observatory in the distance. Something winked at her from the base of the nearest tree. A back plate from a piece of Dar’rak armor. It was heavier than it looked when she turned it over, and on the other side, lines of daggers in red sheaths, in the shape of a pair of folded wings.
A discarded chest plate lay a few feet away, then an obsidian gauntlet several feet from that.
Soraya followed each piece as they’d been torn off his body, as though he couldn’t bear the feel of them on his skin a moment longer, all the way to the observatory.
Ikarus stood at the cliff edge, helmet still on, looking out at the calm silvery sea.
She watched the muscles in his back tremble, watched his shoulders rise and fall beneath his loose-fitting black shirt, moving faster and faster until he grasped his helmet by a horn. Soraya’s heart stopped, and she felt as though the head of every statue behind her turned to watch as Ikarus yanked the grotesque bit of metal off his face and stilled.
Soraya counted the seconds.
Sixty.
Eighty.
Ninety-five.
His fingers did twitch a little around the one-hundred-and-ten mark.
