Page 113 of Under the Iron Sky

“Probably in our room resting—do not call him,” Emelda snapped when Aeris looked at the stone wall as though debating summoning him. “The poor thing is exhausted.”

Aeris’s mouth pressed into a tight line, and he surprised Soraya when he didn’t argue back. “I still don’t like the thought of you being here alone with a human.”

Before Emelda could reply, something tightened around Soraya’s wrists. She bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from making a sound, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Aeris’s brow flickered, his expression hardening for the briefest moment before his head snapped in Soraya’s direction. He made to approach her, but Emelda laid a hand on his chest. “I can handle a little human,” she said, tossing Soraya a small smirk. “Go,” she urged Aeris. “The Ancient One doesn’t like to be kept waiting—and she couldn’t hurt me even if she wanted to.”

Like tugging on a leash, Emelda curled her fingers and the thing around Soraya’s wrists tightened again. Vines—that were clearly under Emelda’s control and had peeled themselves out of the wall behind the bed to wrap around her wrists like a set of handcuffs, pinning her arms by her sides.

Aeris’s eyes raked over Soraya, seeming to wage some internal war. He made his way toward her, the slowness of his approach doing nothing to diminish the violence that seemed to radiate off his very being.

She instinctively tried to shift into a defensive position, hissing when those thorns dug into her wrists, trapping her in place.

When Aeris leaned over her, every shadow in the room seemed to follow him. “Make no mistake, human,” he sneered, the viciousness in his tone enough to form an anxious knot in her stomach. “My wife means more to me than you could ever know. If anything happens to her, if you so much as harm a hair on her head, I will torture you in ways even your sadistic mind could not begin to comprehend. Do I make myself clear?”

Soraya nodded, because what else could she do, bound as she was? She hated the thought of surrendering to a creature like this, but given how his presence seemed to suck all the air out of the room and had every shadow eagerly awaiting his order to tear her apart, she stayed quiet. This was not someone she wanted to mess with—at least not until she had a gun in her hand.

His warning effectively delivered, Aeris stalked back across the room, where he placed a lingering kiss on Emelda’s cheek, seeming to savor every second of contact, then vanished into nothing.

Emelda stared longingly at the space where he’d disappeared, her smile morphing into something like cold curiosity when she tilted her head to study Soraya, surveying her the way one would appraise a new dress or pair of shoes. “You know who I am.” Her tone was nothing but sweet, but Soraya’s spine still stiffened.

With that dazzling smile, pink-painted lips, and elegant posture, Emelda might’ve looked as pretty and delicate as the flowers in her hair, but that meant nothing down here. She was still part of this monstrous world, and although fairies might not have possessed the mind-bending power of the Ethereals or the Dar’rak, they were far from defenseless.

“Should I?” Soraya asked, feigning indifference.

Emelda’s full lips twitched into an almost smile. “Are we pretending that you don’t spend hours every day skulking about in windows and balconies spying on people?” Scoffing, she pulled a silver-and-blue hipflask from one of the pockets of her dress and took a deep swig. “All right then, let’s get this over with, shall we,” she said, slipping the flask back into her dress. “I have somewhere to be.”

Moving with the grace of someone who’d spent a lifetime dancing in long skirts and heels high enough to touch the stars, Emelda picked a leather satchel off the floor and strode across the room, the gossamer skirts of her dress shimmering like a third set of wings, and plopped down on the edge of the bed beside Soraya, close enough for her skirts to brush against the back of her hand.

Soraya couldn’t help being a little taken aback with her brazenness. Granted, she could barely move her wrists an inch, but only a fool would willingly sit so close to their enemy.

If Emelda noticed Soraya’s discomfort, she didn’t comment on it. “Do you remember what happened to you?” she asked, flipping the satchel open with bony fingers.

Soraya watched her remove several vials of shimmering liquid before answering, “I was bitten by a fairy.”

“Yes, and a bloody nasty one at that. It’s not a common gift among my kind, but all of Morana’s minions secrete a special type of venom that’s incredibly poisonous. Luckily, Ikarus was able to get you to me quick enough to start treatment, otherwise you’d have been spider food days ago.”

Oh, what a lovely thought. “Has anyone ever told you your bedside manner is shit for a healer?”

Emelda scoffed faintly. Up this close, the pink and gold freckles across her cheeks and nose looked like shining stars. “Fairies don’t have the magic for healing. I’m just good with plants. Your fever broke last night, so you should be over the worst of it now.”

The vines twisted up Soraya’s arms when she tried to shift. All right, no moving at all then. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Two days.”

Soraya wrestled her expression into neutrality, but relief swept through her. She still had three days to recover properly before Ma’varea came for her. Thank the suns.

When Emelda raised her hand, one of the branches threaded through her hair suddenly bloomed with dark purple and red flowers. She plucked a leaf from one, tipping a few drops of shimmering silver liquid onto it before holding it out in front of Soraya. “This is going to sterilize the wound.” She didn’t give Soraya a chance to reply or refuse before pushing the sodden leaf against her skin.

It stung like hell, not that Emelda seemed to care. She left it there for several seconds, then held it to the candlelight for inspection.

Soraya watched her examine the leaf. She was a slight thing, lovely but leaning toward too frail with sharp collarbones that looked near ready to burst through the pale skin of her chest. Not that that meant anything, or that it would stop her from commanding these vines to break Soraya’s wrists if she felt like it.

Emelda had to be related to the fairy Soraya had seen in Ikarus’s memory, the one that’d had her wings hacked off in front of that large crowd. It was like looking at a pair of statues of the same woman rendered by two different artists. They had the same thin, sharp features, the same arch in their dark brows and heart-shaped lips. There were differences, of course. The other fairy had been taller and slightly thicker built, their hairlines were on opposite sides, and Emelda’s eyes bordered on being just the right side of being too large for her face whereas the other fairy’s were smaller and oval-shaped.

Sisters, perhaps? Cousins at least.

Soraya itched to ask about her. To learn what she’d done to warrant such a death. Who she was to Malakai and Aeris and even Ikarus to draw such a reaction from each of them.