Page 47 of Under the Iron Sky

She’d gotten a few good kicks in on the first two days, but he’d soon begun pinning her to the wall or floor with his magic before entering her cell. Coward.

He visited multiple times a day, often lingering in her head for hours at a time until Soraya was sure her skull was going to split apart. She was always left a panting, sweating mess afterward, vision swimming when the dungeon and then Ikarus slowly re-formed around her before he would disappear with an angry crack.

It hurt like hell each time, but her doors held, so she took it as a win. Although she could do without the headaches that lingered afterward.

Soraya wished she had a way to contact Ma’varea—or at the very least, that Ikarus’s castle wasn’t in the middle of bloody nowhere. At least if he lived in the main kingdom of Belvador, among all those other buildings she’d seen surrounding Aleena’s castle she might’ve been close enough to Ma’varea that he could’ve attempted to break her out.

Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference. The thought churned in her stomach like rotten food. Maybe he knew exactly where she was, and deemed it wasn’t worth the risk to break her out.

You’re just a soldier. And soldiers can be easily replaced.

Soraya was under no illusion that the world would stop turning just because she’d been captured. Ma’varea would’ve likely gone to the next meeting as planned and Noreen would’ve sent someone in her place, but after two years, surely she’d left enough of an impression on him to wonder where she was?

She found ways to entertain herself when she was alone: firstly by pulling the chain hanging from the ceiling to activate some sort of archaic shower system in the stones above—always fully clothed—and once she’d washed the grime of this place away, she’d exercise. Shadow boxing, crunches, calisthenics. Never pushing herself too far, but just enough to keep her mind and body sharp in case an unexpected opportunity to escape suddenly struck.

One never came, but she could dream.

Imagining all the ways she was going to kill Ikarus after their blood connection was severed helped her get through the days. Telling him each one in great detail helped even more.

She ate meals from silver trays that seemed to appear out of nowhere, always when her back was turned. She’d only picked at them the first day, but when one of her doors had rattled in its frame after her second day without proper nourishment, she began clearing the plates. Even if the strength of her mental shields weren’t directly linked to her physical body, she didn’t dare chance it—not with so much at stake.

The food wasn’t bad, just … different: strange concoctions of meat with purple mashed potatoes, chicken stew with crackers floating on the surface, and sandwiches with large pieces of fruit shoved in the middle, like they’d been made by an excited toddler who’d been allowed in the kitchen for the first time and was just slapping all of their favorite things together.

The magical barrier on her window preventing her from escaping didn’t obscure her view or block any sounds from outside, so Soraya spent a lot of time sitting on the ledge carving out a map of her surroundings in her mind and listening to this strange world. She’d get out of here eventually, might as well learn all she could while she was here.

As far as she could tell, the dungeon was in the middle of the castle, giving her an unobstructed view of all the windows and balconies on the east and west wing that curved in and around the back of the grounds in a crescent moon shape.

Below was a stone courtyard in place of a traditional garden, lit by candles in glass boxes suspended twenty feet in the air by thin iron poles like ancient streetlights. It ended in a sheer drop to suns only knew where, and past that, endless rock.

Raina had always said Belvador was likely a much larger terrain than they’d explored, but the vast expanse of underground mountain ranges stretching far beyond what Soraya could see left her nerves shredded.

It wasn’t just bases and war camps and barracks down here but an entire world just as big as her own, hidden right below their feet all this time.

There was a water fountain at the far end of the courtyard built around the statue of a dancing fairy, and an iron table with several chairs and a long bench below Soraya’s window. Numerous dark-trunked trees stood proud from massive iron planters, as well as several flowerbeds full of black- and red- and green-petaled flowers that Soraya had never seen before, all of which were tended by a fairy with long blue-black hair.

She wasn’t a servant as far as Soraya could tell—not unless servants down here wore beautiful floor-length gowns with plunging backs and did their hair in elaborate styles that were much more suitable to a gala or state dinner.

The first time Soraya had noticed the fairy, who she’d quickly learned through her eavesdropping was named Emelda, she hadn’t been able to look away, not only because there were enough sparkling jewels on her long-sleeved amethyst gown to keep a small island population alive, or that her four dragonfly-like wings, each one probably five feet in length, looked so out of place down here, shining like long strips of gold and pink chiffon, but because she was never alone.

Emelda wasn’t the only other person who clearly lived here.

A dark-skinned man spent most mornings escorting her through the courtyard, holding a wicker basket that she filled with cuttings. Soraya had thought there was something off about his eyes the first time she’d seen him, and her suspicions were confirmed the following day when she saw him disappear from Emelda’s side, seeming to vanish into nothing, and reappear with a glass of water for her moments later.

This man was an Ethereal.

Soraya was sure the two were involved, seeing as the Ethereal seemed to find every excuse to slip his hand into hers—but then there was that other man. Equally handsome with short black curly hair, and enough brightly colored tattoos covering his neck and hands to make the art dealers of old green with envy. Dar’rak as far as she could tell, although she’d seen no hint of what his power might be. Soraya had spotted the two of them together more than once now, often sat on the hip-height stone ring bordering the water fountain for hours on end.

Soraya made no effort to keep hidden—because what was the point? It wasn’t like she had anywhere to go, and if they lived here too, they likely were well aware of her presence anyway.

The other inhabitants only ever discussed trivial things: what they were having for dinner, what Emelda was going to wear the next time she visited the Pitt—whatever that was—or what plants needed pruning or watering that day. None of them ever glanced Soraya’s way, as though making a point of not looking at her window.

Any time she didn’t spend training or spying or eating were reserved for organizing her memories. She still had absolutely no idea how she’d been able to “shield her mind” as Ikarus had said, but each time he tried to search her memories, Soraya imagined that same hallway, pictured all of her memories locked behind those thick golden doors—and then there she’d appear, standing side by side with Ikarus, an army of gold and steel doors before them.

It made no sense, but if it worked, it worked, and she wasn’t about to question her only flaming torch in this pit of darkness.

So far the doors were holding strong, but who knew how long that was going to last given Ikarus’s mounting frustration—though she quite enjoyed watching his patience begin to fray.

He’d met his match with her it seemed, and oh wasn’t that fucking fantastic.