Page 32 of Under the Iron Sky

The glow was gone. Shards of dull glass from sunflowers long since dead were all over the floor, and Dar’rak soldiers mounted on stalkers stood in the same places the queen’s guard once had, saliva dripping down the reins in their too-large mouths. There were no golden mountains in the distance behind the cracked pews, no Emerald Sea, and the colorful robes in the pews had been replaced with a horde of monsters wearing black spiked armor, all of them with hearts as dead as the people they’d slaughtered when they’d taken over this once peaceful place.

It was so cold down here, and everywhere she looked there seemed to be a steady rise of thin red steam, like she was standing in the middle of a bathhouse.

Something on her right moved, disturbing the steam. Soraya tried to twist toward it, but a hand was suddenly wrapped around the back of her neck and she was being pushed into a low bow. The floor was cold as ice against her forehead.

From this position, she could see the corner of the first row of pews, meaning they couldn’t have been more than eight feet away from where the throne used to be. The throne was still there when she was allowed to straighten. A broad figure sat atop it, but Soraya couldn’t tear her eyes away from what hung above.

All flesh and muscle had peeled away, but there was no doubt in Soraya’s mind that the skeleton hanging by its wrists between two pillars, arms spread wide and legs dangling uselessly beneath, was Aleena. Her gown was torn and bleached of color. She hadn’t been wearing her crown the day she’d died but it was there now, as rotted and green as everything else above. Broken glass roots from the first Sunflower were wrapped around her neck and protruding through her arms and ribs.

Soraya made herself look at the monster responsible.

Ramapheal needed no introductions. Even if he wasn’t sitting on Aleena’s throne, Soraya would know who he was. Only a creature as old and cruel as him could make the very air in this room skitter away in fear. She could feel his magic from all the way over here, curling at his sides like a tidal wave ready to crash and devour at a moment’s notice.

Instead of armor, he wore a long tailored robe with fitted sleeves and black detailing around the angular collar, the material so deep a red it reminded Soraya of a freshly slit throat. Ten curved onyx talons glittered at the ends of his hands, one on the end of each finger, each one connected to a dark iron chain on the back of his hand that wrapped around his wrists.

She was surprised to find him wearing a jaggedly cut headpiece instead of a crown, the sharp iron warped to hold a large piece of scarlet crystal that’d been finely sculpted to look like a bleeding crescent moon impaled on black spikes. She recognized it as the same red insignia that was carved into the chest plate of every Dar’rak soldier’s armor.

Ramapheal drummed those iron claws against the armrest of Aleena’s throne, the worn metal glinting in low light from the tall flaming lanterns that weren’t there before the invasion, steadily chipping away at what little remained of the queen’s legacy. As though having her hanging from the ceiling for all eternity by the very thing she’d created to help her people prosper wasn’t punishment enough for what she’d done to him.

“My Demon.” Ramapheal’s voice was quiet and rasping, a whisper of midnight in the morning light. “What have you brought me?”

“A gift,” the Demon answered. The magic in his helmet distorted his voice into something unnaturally low and deep. Something monstrous.

Ramapheal cocked his head to the side. Although he was much older than Aleena had ever been, his features were unburdened by time. If Soraya didn’t know who he was, she’d probably have thought he was no older than fifty. His skin was white as death, and she must’ve hit her head harder than she thought during the crash, because she could’ve sworn his elbow-length black hair was swaying softly like he was underwater. “I can see that. Who is she?”

Before the Demon could answer, someone shouted, “You let them go!”

Soraya couldn’t see his face, but she swore she heard the Demon grind his teeth.

A fairy stormed across the throne room, his black robes billowing beneath his large mothlike wings like an angry storm cloud. “You fucking idiot! You let the humans get away with all that Light! You don’t deserve the horns on your head, you useless—” He stopped in front of the Demon, raising a pale hand as though he was going to jab a long finger—

He stopped speaking. The silence only lasted a second before something splashed onto the floor by his boots, followed by a sickening sort of gargling sound.

The fairy stepped back, his hands frantically clutching at his neck in an attempt to stop the blood spilling out of his throat in rivulets. He collapsed, spluttering like his mouth was full of water he was desperately trying to get out, and rolled onto his back to stare up at the Demon, at the dagger hovering in the air over his shoulder, dripping with blood.

The look on Ramapheal’s face threatened to empty Soraya’s stomach. The Demon had just sliced open the throat of one of his other generals right in front of him, and he was laughing.

And he wasn’t the only one. Sinister chuckles echoed throughout the throne room. A symphony of death if she’d ever heard it. An opera of inhumanity.

Soraya kept her face impassive, but a chill wracked through her body. If they killed their own so easily, so without remorse, then what were they going to do to her?

When Ramapheal stopped laughing, the room fell silent with him. “You never were one for second warnings, were you?”

The Demon grabbed the dagger still hovering by his armored shoulder and bent down to wipe it on the fairy’s wing before letting it go, where it gently floated up into the air to disappear behind his back. “No. I suppose not.”

“And that is why you are so valuable to me, and why you have earned your place by my side, over other, more pitiful generals.” Shaking his head, Ramapheal tutted at the fairy choking on the floor. “Such a disappointment. Never mind. Emris?”

Another fairy with long black hair shot to his feet and immediately bowed his head to his master like a well-trained pet. “Yes, Ancient One.”

“Would you be so kind as to take your brother to a healer before he bleeds out on my floor?”

“Of course, Ancient One.” Emris made quick work of peeling his still gargling brother off the floor and took flight, those powerful wings quickly carrying him away.

Soraya wondered if Ramapheal even expected the fairy to survive—or if he cared. Probably didn’t. Probably had fifty others eager to jump into his grave. They likely would’ve stabbed him too if given the chance. There probably wasn’t much order among the ranks. She imagined they were always at one another’s throats like dogs in a fighting pit, all mauling one another for the chance of a shinier collar.

Ramapheal turned toward the Demon. There was no white in his eyes. They were depthless black except for a thin circle of red that Soraya assumed were his irises. “Is it true what Oberon said? Did you deliberately let the humans escape?”

“I did.” There was no emotion in the Demon’s voice. “But only to acquire something more valuable.”