Page 64 of Under the Iron Sky

The bases where the Vordellians were keeping their pieces of the Arch.

Soraya wished she didn’t know where they were. If someone gave her a scalpel right now she’d gladly dig the locations out of her head just so Ikarus couldn’t get near them.

She wanted to scream. She was no good at things like this. Being trapped without any weapons or devices made her feel like a declawed cat that’d been left to fend for itself.

She had to keep Ikarus away. Had to keep him out. There were too many people depending on her.

He’d done this, Ikarus and his kind. Monsters, all of them. No wonder Aleena had banished them all to this hellscape.

Soraya replayed the memory of the invasion. It made her feel sick hearing those screams again, seeing all that blood.

She made herself look. Forced herself to watch again and again and relive those screams until they were living scars inside her skull, reminding herself of what had already been taken and everything they still had to lose.

She could not let Ikarus break her.

She thought of glittering gold walls and people packed into glass lobbies. She thought of all those people who’d been gathered around her at the fire dish on Lumination Day, all of them laughing and loved and alive.

Thought of everything that’d been lost—and everything they still stood to lose, should she let Ikarus find their pieces of the Arch.

Ramapheal could not be allowed to reunite the Arch. If the Dar’rak could breathe Vordellian air again, it would be all over for her people. Unrestricted by the need to return to Belvador, they’d swarm what remained of Vordell and destroy until there was nothing left.

Soraya paced her cell again, anger mounting like a rising storm in her blood.

There had to be more she could do. She’d reorganized her mind to the point of obsession, but as the days went on, she was struggling to pull up any more happy memories to use as a shield—although why she was surprised, she didn’t know. The war had been going on since she was a child, of course it’d swallowed up most of her life; of course it’d eaten all those years that should’ve been spent playing with dolls and learning about boys, and replaced them with battles and where best to shoot to stop a heart.

She fucking hated this. Hated him so much she couldn’t breathe just picturing his face. He’d seen the aftermath of the invasion yesterday. Then the poor excuse for a funeral they’d given her father tonight. So what would he see tomorrow?

That meeting in the first safe house they’d fled to? Where all the heads of Vordell that remained had gathered around that ridiculously large table and holographic map of the planet with all the secret bases so clearly marked?

No. She had to pack up that information, place it somewhere far, far away in the back of her mind, and lock it up tight. For Theron and Deimos. For Raina and Twiigs and Jinx. For everyone still fighting.

But what to sacrifice instead? The hours her mother had spent whittling her down into a weapon, where battle strategies were littered across the wall like pieces of art? The days spent drilling new recruits, giving Ikarus a fresh set of targets to hunt down and torture for information?

From this point on, almost every memory she had would give him something. A piece of her? Fine, take it. She was long past surrendering her body and soul to the cause—but everyone else? Never.

Screaming, Soraya kicked the dinner tray. It skittered across the room, clattering against the far wall with a crash.

Soraya’s body went still at the sound that came from that shadowed corner the tray had collided with.

Did that wall just … groan? No. She must’ve been going mad. Yeah. That was it. These searches through her mind must’ve been turning her brain to mush, because there was no way—

Ah—there it was again!

Swallowing hard, Soraya squinted into the shadows, right as a small creature stepped forward, rubbing a paw made of rocks over its nose.

She’d never seen a golem this small. The black rocks that were its body were arranged into a shape that vaguely resembled a cat-sized lizard, but even standing on its hind legs, the top of its head barely grazed Soraya’s knees, like a child’s caricature of the giant monsters she’d previously fought that were as tall as houses and could change their shape as easily as shrugging on a new coat.

She’d never forget Theron’s guttural Get down the last time they’d encountered one mid-mission, how easily it’d picked up one of their tanks in its enormous hand, all the Light from their weapons bouncing off it like rain against a boulder, and squeezed. She could still hear the sound of that tank cracking like an egg—and the screams of those trapped inside that’d quickly cut off into a horrendous squelch.

Soraya shook the thought away before her breakfast could make a reappearance.

This golem, though … It couldn’t have looked further from that.

They’re all the same. She could hear Noreen’s voice so clearly, she might as well have been standing in the dungeon with her. Dar’rak, fairies, stalkers. They’re all monsters who want only one thing, to stand on our bones.

There was another voice in the back of her mind, albeit as tiny as the creature now staring up at her, screaming that she should take the thing apart and be done with it. It was small now, yes, but it would grow.

Moving slowly so the thing didn’t catch on to her intentions, Soraya brought her right foot back, shoving away that part of her that was now chanting wrong wrong wrong as she braced a hand on the wall for balance—