Page 92 of Under the Iron Sky

The darkness inside was enough to make Soraya swallow. Her boots should’ve crunched with every step, but they didn’t. Even her heart, which she was absolutely sure was beating up one hell of a storm right now, didn’t make a sound, as though this place were some ancient, hungry beast, gorging on every sight and sound here before it inevitably swallowed her whole.

Had it not been for the hand wrapped around her bicep, Soraya might’ve thought it’d already taken her.

Ikarus pulled her to a stop several minutes later. His chest shifted against her spine. Air whooshed beside her ear, and a door cracked open in front of her, floating in the darkness as though it was the only thing left at the end of the universe.

Ikarus pushed her inside. “Your new cell,” he said, just as the air shifted again, and the door swung closed with a soft click.

The room was incredibly bare. A circular chandelier hung from chains on the thickly vined ceiling, white wax dripping from the candles burning atop it to collect in the circular tray beneath. The same shriveled vines and roots outside were here too, weaving around the chandelier, between the trunk-like legs of the double bed, the leather armchair in the corner, spreading across each wall like cracks in a broken mirror.

Feeling Ikarus watching her every move, Soraya kept that placid expression fixed onto her face and peered into the wooden door beside the bed to find a small bathroom area with a dark stone sink, a round mirror, and what she assumed was a designated shower area judging by the black chain dangling in the far corner and the bottles on the alcoved shelves beside it.

“Not exactly a castle, is it,” she said, glancing out the circular window above the privy. Too small to climb out of. Damn it.

Ikarus’s answering scoff was deep and gruff. “I would’ve thought this would feel like a palace in comparison to the dungeon.”

It was, not that she’d admit that.

Chin high, she strode onto the open balcony area—although, could it be called a balcony if there was just an open hole rather than a window, and no balustrade or railings of any kind to stop someone from flinging themselves from it?

Soraya hadn’t realized they’d gone several floors up until she looked over the edge. “Surely you’re not so stupid as to believe a …”—five, six, seven—“eight-story drop is going to stop me from escaping?”

Her skin prickled, and when she looked over her shoulder Ikarus was leaning against the nearby wall, arms folded across his chest. “If you want to try and escape again …” He made a sweeping motion to the sheer drop, to the countless burrows all around. “Be my guest.”

He clearly had something in place to stop her, but, not to be outdone, Soraya held his stare and stepped toward the drop.

Ikarus’s eyes didn’t narrow an inch. Hmm.

Soraya took another step, then another, another, her brow furrowing when she came to the very edge of the balcony and he still hadn’t come after her.

Still watching him for any reaction, Soraya slowly reached out a hand—ah, there it was. She ran the tips of her fingers over the shield’s surface, stirring tendrils of pale red light where her skin met his magic.

Ikarus loosened a dramatic sigh. “I had hoped you were going to take a chance and run face first into it. Oh well.”

Soraya responded by showing him her favorite finger, still running her other hand over the barrier to test any potential soft spots. She didn’t find any. It was cold, just like the one in the castle. Her fingers tingled when she pulled her hand away. “I assume there’s one of these on the door as well?”

“There is.”

She’d thought as much. Although where the hell she’d go even if she did manage to escape was beyond her. To the right were just endless burrows like this one, and to the left, trees, a swamp, more burrows, more trees, and then the Astro Temple.

Divided into three sections with the main temple in the large spire in the middle, then the smaller east and west bunker, the Astro Temple had been a place of worship some two hundred years ago until the people of Vordell had slowly turned away from the old Gods and found technology and the power of the suns. The temple would’ve likely been knocked to the ground decades ago in favor of a hotel or shopping center, but some billionaire named Zandro had liked the look of it, bought it, spent suns knew how much of his inheritance renovating the place, then filled it with his own private collection of art that the public could enjoy at their pleasure—for a price, of course.

It’d been abandoned long ago as far as Soraya knew. Ramapheal clearly wanted it badly, considering it was one of only two buildings he’d sunk since the invasion. But why?

The question scraped against the inside of Soraya’s skull as she watched a group of moth-winged fairies rip some roots off a nearby tree and throw them at the temple. The metal plates pulsed with Light where the attack landed. The shield held—but for how long?

“What are they doing?”

“Trying to get inside,” Ikarus replied.

Soraya slid an eye toward him. “I can see that, thanks,” she snapped sarcastically. “Why?”

“Why do you think?”

Dread coiled across her chest, pulling it tight, but she kept her expression blank.

They thought a piece of the Arch was in there. That was the only explanation. Why else would Ramapheal go to so much trouble sinking it?

Surely Noreen wouldn’t have been so stupid as to move a piece there given that the building had been in the middle of the Mansian Lake—and had dried up and become spider territory in the last decade.