Page 5 of Under the Iron Sky

Mother was already inside. Thick blood dripped from one of her shoulder guards, trails of it sliding down her tanned arms to pool around the top of her bracers. Aleena’s two remaining great-granddaughters were behind her. Both held young children in their arms, and all of their white wrap dresses were splattered with blood.

A shield of golden Light was coming out of her mother’s left bracer, her sunrifle gripped in her other hand. “There’s a hovercraft on the way. We need to get back to the throne room for evacuation.”

Father took off up the staircase, Mother and the princesses right behind him.

As they climbed, Soraya snuck a peek over her father’s shoulder. Her mother’s armor looked a little worse for wear, and there was a nasty slash across her cheek that was oozing blood—

Without warning, Mother suddenly whipped her rifle to the right, just as one of those lizard creatures jumped from a shadowy alcove.

The princesses screamed, and Soraya’s mother thrust her weapon into the creature’s path before its claws could tear the women apart. Together, Mother and the creature slammed into the wall. Metal slid against stone, residual sparks lighting the staircase in orange for the briefest moment before she spun the weapon around and fired.

The lizard fell with a thunk.

“Noreen,” Father said. He sounded about as shaken as Soraya felt. “Are you—”

“No time,” Mother panted, her face eerily calm despite how close she’d just been to getting eaten. “We need to keep moving.” She stepped over the creature, and then they were off again.

They seemed to be climbing forever before they reached the throne room. The floor was cracked in half and all but three of the pillars were gone. Shards of the giant Sunflower were scattered among the ruins, now as useless as ordinary glass.

Aleena was still hunched over in her chair, oblivious to the slaughter going on around her.

The screams were so much worse out here.

People ran through the streets below while fighter jets fought in the open air, shooting down fairies with wings of varying color and shape and—those massive winged reptiles attacking the crafts were dragons, weren’t they? They were just as monstrous as any of the other creatures, and Soraya couldn’t help but sob as she watched one with dark purple scales make a low pass over the palace gates. A wall of fire exploded from its mouth, and all those people that’d been waving flags there all morning were just … burned to ash.

“Noreen,” Father said as they rushed onto the narrow observation deck overlooking the southern district of Lumirel where Aleena used to make speeches, anxiously drumming his boot against the floor. “Where’s the hovercraft?”

“I don’t know.” Mother tapped her bracer, extinguishing the shield in favor of several holographic charts. She flicked through them quickly, then squinted up at the sky. “They should be here by now.” She turned around, mouth half open as though about to speak, before her face suddenly contorted with horror. “Arden—”

Pain flared across Soraya’s shoulder and elbow as she hit the ground, all of it forgotten when she saw the thing pinning her father to the deck a few feet away.

Blood sprayed. Soraya’s father screamed, and the creature had just spat a shredded chunk of his arm across the deck and was diving in for another bite, when a loud boom filled the air, and its scaled body collapsed on the ground.

When Soraya turned, the tip of her mother’s sunrifle was smoking. She shifted the barrel, aiming for something behind Soraya, before her eyes widened and she glanced at the side of the weapon. “Shit, that damn mutt in the staircase must’ve damaged it.” She met Soraya’s gaze. “Shoot it.”

Soraya didn’t realize what her mother meant until she turned around and saw the child standing in the ruined throne room.

A boy, she thought, although she couldn’t be sure with that ghoulish iron helmet covering his face. He couldn’t have been much older than she was. He wore the same black spiked armor as his kin, the crest of an upside down bleeding crescent moon carved into the chest plate.

The boy stared at the ground, and she followed his gaze to the sunrifle laid at her feet. It must’ve slipped out of her father’s holster when that creature had attacked him.

It was in Soraya’s palm before she’d even thought to move. The gun was heavy, but she managed to lift it with both hands and swing it toward the boy the same moment he raised a hand toward her.

Nothing happened. One heartbeat passed. Two. Three. Soraya’s arm wobbled terribly.

So did the boy’s.

“What are you waiting for?” Mother shouted. “Shoot it!”

Soraya tried. Her finger curled around the trigger, and her entire body felt like a harp string that’d been pulled too tight. She tried to press down—

But this little boy had done nothing to her. He hadn’t attacked, and he seemed just as afraid of Soraya and her family as they were of him.

She lowered the sunrifle.

The boy watched the weapon fall to her side. He looked back to her face, and seemed to be lowering his arm before a large man in similar armor suddenly stormed across the throne room and threw out a hand.

A chunk of a stone pillar shot forward, veering straight for the princesses with enough force to shatter bones—