Page 96 of Under the Iron Sky

They scuffled for another few seconds, each of their movements awkward and clumsy like a baby doe just learning to walk, until Soraya flipped Theron onto his back and took the bit of cloth for herself.

Grinning, she whirled around and held it above her head. “I win!”

“That’s not fair!” Theron groaned from where he was still sprawled on the ground. “You tripped me!” He got to his feet, turning his face away to hide his pout, and went to examine the rune carved into the wall a few feet away with the same angry frown he used to regard their geography homework with. “Are these the switch things your mum was telling us about? The ones that seal the cracks so none of our air can get down here?”

“Yes,” Soraya answered in a quiet voice. Coming to stand behind him, she scanned the newly re-formed ceiling, frowning at the pale line of rock where the crack into their world used to be. “They must’ve sealed this one off a while ago. Mum says they glow red when they’re active, and have two-minute timers built into them that flare so the Dar’rak know when they need to put their helmets on or put the shield up again.” A fifteen-second warning, they’d later learned, though Soraya had never seen it in action.

Scoffing, Theron smiled and jabbed Soraya playfully with an elbow. “Dare you to touch it.”

Young Soraya gaped at him. “Did you not hear a word I just said?”

“Come on. It probably doesn’t even have any magic in it.”

“No,” Soraya scolded. “And we really need to get back.”

He masked it quickly, but Ikarus’s brows knitted together when Theron grinned and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her off the ground, and began inching her closer to the rune, all while young Soraya batted his arms, giggling hysterically and demanding he put her down.

By the wall, Soraya couldn’t help but smile with them. Being around Theron used to be as easy as breathing. For the longest time, she’d thought that he’d always be in her life—that they’d always be like this, laughing and playing with each other without a care in the world.

It made sense that Noreen was the one to change that.

Her expression was so hard it might as well have been cut from any of the jagged rock around her. She stepped out of the vapor, her spine perfectly straight and hair combed into that too tight braid that Soraya had come to resent. “War is funny to the two of you, is it?”

Soraya watched Theron and her younger double immediately break apart, both of them blushing like the innocents they were but the question, simple and cutting as it was, churned in Soraya’s stomach like sour milk. Even now, she found herself stiffening, and her sudden intake of breath was loud enough for Ikarus to ask, “What’s wrong?”

Soraya couldn’t answer. Every muscle in her body had turned to ice. There was only one time her mother had ever said those words to her. Which meant that this was … Oh Gods …

Panic was a lit match in her chest, residual sparks flying across her blood. Soraya all but sprinted back to the still open door that’d brought them here—

Ikarus caught her arm before she could reach it. “What’s the matter with you?” he snapped, dragging her back.

“Let me go!” Soraya tried to pry his hand away, but his fingers were like stone. “I can’t be here! Let me go, please!” Her voice broke on the last word. Ikarus’s fingers fell away.

She charged forward, not caring if he followed or stayed, just that she got the fuck out of here—

The door slammed shut. Then disappeared into nothing.

“No! Come back!”

The door did not, and Soraya turned around just in time to hear her mother say, “You want to fight in this war? You want to help us restore our world to what it once was?”

The enthusiastic nod her younger self gave in answer made Soraya’s chest ache. The poor thing had no idea what was about to happen.

Noreen raised her right arm, her armor seeming to gleam in the vapor, and said something into her bracer.

Footsteps, then another Vordellian soldier dragged forward a Dar’rak man in tattered robes.

He couldn’t have been older than twenty. Pale. With greasy dark green hair that almost looked black as it pooled right down to his chin and, now that she’d seen Ikarus’s father, Soraya wondered if that rotting bit of flesh by the side of his mouth wasn’t from a battle but a sign of the Bane beginning to take hold.

Soraya watched her younger self stare at the man. Watched her mother hand her a small gun, painted black, no hint of rotting green or bronze yet, and command, “Shoot it.”

Young Soraya’s gaze snapped to her mother’s. The fear on her face was enough to make even Ikarus tense. “What?”

Noreen’s eyes were unfeeling husks as she pointed to the man now watching them with nothing but terror in those sickly eyes. “Shoot it.”

Seeing Soraya’s hesitation, the man started to beg. “Please. I am no soldier. I have not harmed anyone. I … have a family.”

Young Soraya looked at the gun, then the man again. “I can’t.”