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Soraya passed the shiver that ran down her spine off as a chill from his cold cheek. She understood why he’d insisted on sitting behind her—she’d more than proven that she absolutely could not be trusted to be within range of the knives on his back—but did he have to be so damn close?

Soraya shifted forward, trying to put some much-needed space between them, but all it did was nudge her elbow into his stomach and trap her between the front of the saddle and his hips.

If this bothered Ikarus, he didn’t show it. “We’re approaching Illieck, but we need to go through spider territory to get there.”

“Serone isn’t a fan, I take it?”

“To put it lightly.”

Silvery webs shone in the distance. There were just a few at first, sparse threads every few hundred feet, most of them broken and waving gently back and forth, the light from all the red crystals making some of them look like dangling intestines.

More soon followed, getting thicker and larger the farther they flew, until it almost looked like they were flying beneath red clouds and Soraya’s stomach was clenching each time she peered into one of those thick webs, looking for a set of long spindly legs, and even Serone was tucking her wings in to soar a good fifty feet below the cave ceiling and anything that might be skittering among those webs.

Soraya didn’t let her mind wander to what manner of creature a dragon this size might want to avoid, but the tension rippling from the beast was unmistakable. She could feel it beneath her thighs, each growl that slipped between its massive fangs vibrating against her skin like the hum of an engine.

Ikarus kept his hand pressed against the dragon’s neck, occasionally tapping a ringed finger against her scales in a gesture Soraya assumed was meant to soothe the beast. He was wearing an extra one today, a little opal set on a thin band around his pinkie finger.

Eventually, they made it through the thickest of the webs, although that did little to quell the dread settling in Soraya’s bones as the first buildings began to emerge.

They were starkly different from the others she’d seen. She couldn’t say she cared for the ones outside Aleena’s palace or even Ikarus’s castle, but she’d at least been able to appreciate that each of them had been intricately carved to resemble castle-like structures from another time, with finely carved arching windows and detailed balustrades and communal areas clearly marked by tall iron sconces or clusters of burning candles or firepits and garden-like areas filled with dark-petaled plants.

She couldn’t say the same for this Illieck. Although vaguely in line with one another, none of the buildings seemed to be level and no two were the same size. They were almost … burrowlike. As though whatever sizable creature had dug them had done so in a hurry before quickly moving on to the next, then the next, next, until there were hundreds upon hundreds of them.

Turn after turn, there didn’t seem to be a wall spared, all stacked atop one another and so unlike the many high-rise apartment buildings that’d once stood tall and proud in the suns’ light in Vordell.

Soraya felt sick looking at them. She’d known Ramapheal’s army was vast, but seeing it laid out so plainly here churned her stomach.

“What is this place?” Her voice was much hoarser than she’d intended.

“This is Illieck. It means ‘the Hive’ in my tongue.”

That made sense, Soraya certainly felt like she was flying through a beehive made of stone and bark. Trees stripped of leaves soon began to emerge, then thick vines with red thorns, then black flowers with petals as big as a person, more and more of them appearing until they were flying over what Soraya could only describe as a sunken forest.

Sprouts of dark moss clung to the floor and around each burrow, and streams of water cascaded over the tops of large rock structures and even some of the burrows to create subterranean waterfalls that met in black swamp-like rivers on the floor, the sound of running water echoing through the cave to vibrate inside Soraya’s skull.

While the many buildings in Belvador had been connected to one another with bridges carved from stone, everything was joined here by walkways of dark wooden roots, some as thin as Soraya’s thighs, while others were thicker than a jet’s wing and made from dozens of dried branches that twisted around and around as though the only solace they could get was from hugging one another.

Not that anyone here seemed to need them. There didn’t seem to be a creature alive down here that didn’t have wings.

Some of the fairies Soraya saw sported dragonfly-like wings like Emelda’s, and although there was a small number that had colorful butterfly-esque equivalents, the majority had large moth-like wings that made Soraya’s teeth feel fuzzy just looking at them.

The Vordellians had never worked out why the fairies’ wings seemed to differ between these three variations—it seemed like a silly thing to waste time and resources pondering given they all died the same—but different bloodlines or clans had always been the preferred theory.

It took flying around one more bend for Soraya to realize why they were here. For her to see the thing that absolutely did not belong in this world of black rock and swirling red vapor.

Perhaps one of the most recognizable structures on the planet, the Astro Temple had been as much a pillar of Vordell as Aleena’s palace or any of the three sun statues.

Soraya’s heart sank a little seeing it here now, even if it was a cold metal shell of itself now that the protective program had been activated, covering the entire building and all its glass panels in thick, near-impenetrable steel.

Beneath all that, though … It’d been a thing to behold once upon a time. A beautiful, tall fortress made entirely from panes of colored sunpanels that, at night, reflected that power right back to cast such beautiful lights and constellations in the surrounding sky that people would travel from all over the planet to see it, even just once.

But its beauty was also its biggest weakness, and because of all that glass, it’d been written off as a potential base or stronghold early in the war—not because it didn’t have the defensive capabilities, but because of the near ridiculous amount of Light required to keep those metal shields up.

When they landed, Ikarus slid off Serone’s back, then held his hand out to Soraya—which she kicked away in favor of dismounting herself. Her landing wasn’t nearly as graceful as his, but she didn’t fall flat on her face, so she took it as a win.

Ikarus grabbed her arm the moment her boots touched the ground. “I know what you’re thinking,” he whispered, pulling her in close, “but we’re in fairy territory now. All manner of dark creatures lurk within those burrows, so it would not be wise to stray from my side.”

The truth, given that there seemed to be a set of wings or fangs no matter which direction she looked, most of which knew exactly who she was if their darkening expressions were to be believed, and as much as she wanted to wilt down like so many of the roots around her under all those eyes, Soraya forced her chin high, forced her face into a calm, defiant mask she really didn’t feel, and let him lead her into one of the larger burrows on the ground.