Page 3 of Under the Iron Sky

Every head in the room followed Aleena’s gaze, then all eyes were on the children. On Soraya.

It was time.

Soraya drew a deep breath, ignoring the trembling in her knees, and strode into the center of the room just like she had a hundred times during rehearsals, her stage for the next hour.

“In the beginning,” Soraya said slowly, doing a fantastic job of hiding the fear she felt burrowing through her chest, “there was only darkness. In the beginning, there was nothing but—”

Aleena coughed suddenly, the sound loud and sharp enough to make every muscle in Soraya still. She was fairly confident she hadn’t messed up already, but what was she supposed to do now? Continue as though she hadn’t heard? Start again?

She glanced at her mother, who nodded. “In the beginning, there was—”

The queen coughed again. A loud, guttural noise that sounded like her very soul was trying to claw its way out of her throat—and this time, it didn’t stop.

Everyone in the room froze when the ancient queen ripped away both masks and spluttered into her hand.

Mother touched Aleena’s arm. “Your Grace, are you all right?”

But Aleena wasn’t looking at her. She was staring at her own hand. At the thick blood seeping between her thin, wrinkled fingers.

“No,” Aleena cried. Arms trembling, she clawed at the armrest of her chair until she was screaming at the marble floor, now speckled with her blood. “No,” she cried again between coughs, each new word dragging more blood up her throat until her dress and chair were saturated with it. “You cannot have them! I … will not … let you!”

People and familiars started whispering to one another.

Kneeling beside the queen, Mother had gone very still. Soraya might’ve thought she’d turned to stone had Aleena not grabbed her arm. Her razor-sharp eyes softened just a touch as she beheld the choking queen, as if seeing not the long years of service or countless ways she’d advanced her people and kingdom, not the pillar of strength for every person under her protection, but the old woman she’d become.

Thank you, the look that passed between them seemed to say. For all of it.

Pain briefly rippled across Mother’s face—then it was gone, and her expression slipped back into that cold mask as she pried Aleena’s hand away, ignoring the old woman’s shrieks of pain, and stood.

“The sun is going down!” Mother roared to the guards stationed around the room, then to the cameras. “The sun is going down! Arm yourselves!”

Every guard did. All at once, low swishes and clinks swept through the room. Some drew the sunrifles strapped across their backs, the sleek white-and-gold weapons glowing yellow the moment they were armed while others readied bows, drawing the strings back to conjure arrows of pure Light from within the weapons themselves.

“I … I am so … sorry.” Aleena heaved, pleading with the cameras. “Please … All of you … F-forgive … me. And … may the Gods … have mercy on you all.”

She fell back against the chair, and as the mighty queen took her last breath, as the body that’d ushered in the golden age of this planet finally succumbed to the moment she’d been fighting off for so many years, the earth began to shake.

An earthquake tore through Vordell with the force of stars colliding. Everyone scrambled for something to cling to. The stone pillars began to fall, golden roots cracking and shattering until they could not bear the great Sunflower’s weight and it came barreling down.

As quickly as it’d started, the earthquake stopped—but too late. The lotus crashed against the marble floor, cracks skittering across it like spiderwebs.

Bertok leaped forward, but the floor was already gone, and Soraya was falling.

2

Someone was shouting Soraya’s name. At least, she thought it was her name. It was hard to tell through the ringing in her ears.

“Soraya,” the voice shouted again. “Baby, where are you?”

Was that … her father? Soraya opened her eyes, but she couldn’t see anything through the thick smoke swirling in front of her.

She coughed and blinked again and again, trying to force the room into focus. She’d fallen into one of the dining halls. Furniture and tapestries lay in ruin around her, as well as large chunks of rubble from the throne room above and—

Bile rose in her throat. Bodies.

Soraya screamed, panic crashing over her like an angry wave. She braced her hands on the floor and pushed to stand—

Something was on top of her. She scrambled desperately to push it off but it was too big. Too heavy. Too—Oh Gods, she couldn’t breathe. “Daddy, I—”