Page 40 of Under the Iron Sky

Agony shot through the top of her skull. Soraya ground her teeth, breathing in, in, not caring that this red vapor was burning her throat and lungs, only that Ikarus was getting in, inching closer to her memories when she needed to lock them away and hide them somewhere he’d never find them. Some place where the suns still burned and the world wasn’t all rot and rust and her people still had the tools they needed to fight back.

Surprise flickered at the end of the blade in her mind, and then it was gone.

Panting, Soraya cracked an eye open, not to grimy black stone as she’d expected but glorious white steel and gold. It looked just like any of the hallways on the upper levels of Aleena’s palace, the right side one open balcony sectioned off by a balustrade covered in winding glass roots and flowers, but where there should have been open archways on the left that led to ballrooms and kitchens, there was a golden metal door. The same door, copied again and again, all the way down this corridor.

Ikarus stepped beside her. “How did you learn how to shield your mind?”

Was that what she was doing? Honestly, Soraya had no idea. She’d just wanted to keep him away from her memories—and then the door had been there. She hadn’t a clue how, but he seemed surprised, so she ran with it.

“We learned it from you.” And when Ikarus whipped his head toward her, she added sweetly, “What? Do you think our hostages are the only ones that squeal during interrogation?”

They were. The Vordellians had captured countless Dar’rak since the invasion, and none of them ever breathed a word. It didn’t matter that they’d suffocate within a few minutes of removing their helmets, the threat was apparently enough to ensure all Ramapheal’s soldiers had kill switches built into their helmets that they could activate if they were captured, burying their secrets with them.

Scowling, Ikarus strode toward the door. When he was standing in front of it, he lifted one foot and brought it down in a punishing kick. Nothing happened. He did it again, smashing his boot against the iron so forcefully it gave an ear-splitting screech, but the door did not open.

Soraya smiled.

12

Lying on a set of steps leading into the old library, Theron searched his memories and tried very hard to remember a time when Commander Tollmere was not a raging bitch.

He was struggling.

He’d been here for a while now, armored jacket open, empty bottle of that piss-poor liquor they called whisky nowadays clutched in a hand, and staring at the fading mural painted on the library ceiling.

He’d lost count of the number of soldiers and medics and general busybodies that’d passed him, all staring at first. Now they just stepped over and wove around him without a second glance.

That was good, though, he reminded himself. The last thing he wanted to do right now was explain why he was here. Or the poison whirling around in his head.

Groaning, he ran a hand over his face, scratching at the coarse hair across his jaw. Around and around, his conversation with their good commander went in his head.

It’d started with a small battle debrief that quickly descended into chaos when Noreen had, one, declared that he’d been promoted to Alpha and would be leading every mission for this base from now on, and two, didn’t seem at all bothered that the only reason he’d ascended to such a position was because her daughter was no longer here to do the job herself.

You don’t seem to be in a great rush to find her, Theron had snapped. To which their good commander had looked up from her map of gold and rock and replied, Why would I waste valuable resources to retrieve a lost asset when we barely have enough power to keep our generators going? With any luck, she’s already dead.

A lost asset. As though she was a broken sunrifle. A great advantage once, but not worth the time and effort it’d take to repair—or in her case, rescue.

It was those three words that’d made Theron flip that war table their commander loved so much. That’d had him reaching for her neck—to do what, he had no fucking idea—only that he was lost to the icy haze that was his rage and she was the reason.

It’d taken three guards to restrain him—and a not-so-hollow threat from Noreen to throw him in a holding cell without food or water to persuade Jinx to release her fangs from around her second-in-command’s throat. He’d gone straight to the makeshift barracks after, putting as much distance between him and the commander as possible.

It was too happy up there. Everyone was laughing and celebrating and drinking from barrels of expired ale because yes—yes, the mission into the Fresurn Mountains had been a success and they weren’t going to starve in a month or two.

Theron had barely lasted half an hour before he’d started to feel like he was choking on all that cheer and merriment and he’d retreated back down here. It was wrong to remind them that this mission was technically a failure, that they’d probably lost half the Light they’d gained up there, but how could their worlds be so happy right now when there was a hole in his?

He’d lost Soraya. She might’ve thought she’d distanced herself from him and the people here, but her absence was everywhere he looked. In the halls they used to walk through side by side after battle debriefs, in the weapons he carried, each repaired again and again by her hand. Even staring up at this mural of Vordell, it wasn’t Aleena’s face he saw beneath that gold-and-opal crown warding off a hoard of thick black smoke.

Shame was a festering wound in his chest. He should have fought harder. Should have planned quicker, shot her wings before she’d got his and sacrificed himself instead. He rubbed the palm of his hand over his sternum, over the ache now stabbing away there.

He didn’t know what they were anymore, he and Soraya. He’d tried to ask, to see if maybe she’d wanted to try again, to be more than this war and Noreen and all the battle plans were filing her into—and then she’d been captured.

He blinked up at the ceiling. The party upstairs had gone quiet hours ago, so he assumed it must’ve been the next day.

He stayed where he was.

When Jinx yowled by his side, he ran a hand over the back of her head, his alternative to an ash-stick whenever his nerves got the better of him. He did feel slightly better when she purred against his palm—but not nearly as good as a smoke would make him feel. Gods above, why had he decided to quit?

People flowed around him like water in a stream around a rock. It was a good while later before someone nudged his foot with enough force for Theron to pull his attention away from the green eyes haunting the ceiling.