Page 4 of Under the Iron Sky

Rocks moved somewhere in the darkness. “Arden!” Metal or no, Bertok’s voice trembled just as much as any human’s. “I’ve found her!”

A blink, and warm hands were cupping her face. “Shhh, you’re all right,” her father hushed, suddenly hovering above her. “You’re gonna be fine.” His voice was calm and smooth, but his expression … Something was wrong. “Bertok,” he said, eyes briefly flashing to look behind him. “How are we looking?”

“The pillar is stuck. It may be best if we switch places.”

Her father’s face slipped away, but before Soraya could mourn his loss, Bertok was there, nuzzling his head into her reaching palm. She hadn’t realized how badly she was trembling until the sound of her rings rattling against his head echoed around the room.

It took several deep breaths and some very careful maneuvering before her father could lift the large chunk of stone enough for Soraya to move. She’d barely dragged herself from beneath it when a horrible growling noise cut through the darkened room, and all three of them turned to see … What was that thing? Vaguely reptilian in shape, the creature was the size of a small horse with thin limbs that looked much too long for its body, each curving in unnatural angles like a doll that’d been taken apart and put back together the wrong way. Its scales were black as night, and its six eyes, three on either side of its thin head, blazed like blood moons.

The creature sniffed, its spiked tail sending stones clattering behind it, then lunged. Bertok leaped to meet it, but one swipe of the lizard’s massive claws, and he was shredded in half.

Soraya screamed as both parts of his body crashed to the floor, his head rolling to a stop by her sandals.

She watched the light slowly drain from his eyes, feeling like someone had cut her heart right out of her chest as it dimmed, dimmed, then went out.

Bertok, the familiar who’d been by her side since birth, who slept in her room each night and sang to her whenever she had a nightmare, was … dead.

The creature loosened a growl, opening its mouth to show row upon row of needle-like fangs—until a ray of Light shot through the room and burned a hole right through its skull.

It flopped to the ground, legs twitching, then went still.

Soraya’s father knelt in front of her, and she was faintly aware of pressure on the side of her leg, then her ribs, her arms. He looked so scared. Just like Bertok had been.

Oh, Bertok. Soraya’s eyes slid back to his severed head on their own accord. Her father was speaking, but she couldn’t focus on anything other than Bertok’s unmoving head. That thing had killed him so easily, like it was swatting away a fly.

“Don’t look at him.” Father cupped her cheeks and gently tried to turn her face in the other direction.

Soraya couldn’t look away. Not when Bertok’s mouth was still twisted open like that, forever trapped in a scream, oil creeping toward her like black blood.

“Hey, hey. Sweetheart, look at me.” Soraya did. There were scratches all over his face and armor. “Everything’s going to be okay. I’m going to put you on my back, and you’re going to hold on tight, all right? There are some very scary things out there, and I might need to tell you to run.” He kissed her temple. “And if I do, you will run. You will not think about me or anyone else. You will run like hell and not stop until you can’t hear those creatures anymore. Do you understand?”

Soraya thought she nodded, but she wasn’t sure if her body followed through. It must have, though, because the next thing she knew she was on his back, her arms and legs wrapped around his neck and waist, and he was running.

It was hard to believe this was the same palace she’d walked through earlier. The screams were everywhere. Above her. Below. In the walls. High-pitched wails of agony that seemed to go on and on. What had to be done to a person to make them wail like that?

Soraya didn’t want to know.

She thought burying her face between her father’s shoulders might drown them out, but it did no good.

Fires blazed all around. Thick smoke scratched her lungs each time she drew a breath, and blood covered the floor like pints of spilled paint. Screaming civilians sprinted down the halls with them—and they were not alone.

It was like every fairy tale her parents read to her at night had stepped right out of their books—but they were all wrong.

Instead of being half horse, the centaurs had spider-like lower bodies, and the fairies were not the tiny delicate creatures with pink wings like the ones painted on her bedroom wall, but horrible, man-sized creatures with massive gray, moth-like wings that swarmed the halls in packs of three or four, working together to snatch people off the ground and fly them up toward the ceiling, only to rip them apart.

Aleena’s guard tried to push them back, firing arrows and slashing swords and spears made of pure burning yellow Light. Many of the creatures fell with a hiss or snarl, but there were just so many.

More of those lizard creatures prowled the halls, lunging and tearing at any Vordellian or familiar brave enough to fight back, while golems made of red mist and black rocks as big as doors squashed and smashed everyone within their reach.

There were people fighting among the creatures too. They wore the same helmets and spiked black armor as the fairies and half-spiders, but they were much swifter, moving through the golden lights like poisonous smoke on a breeze.

Soraya thought she’d imagined it when she saw a window in the corridor shatter at the brush of one of those people’s hands, but then she saw that same soldier flick their wrist. Saw shards of broken glass slowly lift off the floor like they were being pulled up by invisible strings.

The soldier thrust their hand forward, and the glass flew through the air, impaling all of those trying to flee.

These people had magic.

Keeping low, Soraya’s father slipped through a door at the end of the corridor and stepped into a stone spiral staircase left from the old palace before Aleena’s reign.