Page 76 of Under the Iron Sky

Hands trembling, Soraya removed the rest of the tools and laid them by her thigh in the order she’d need them like she’d seen Raina do so many times. First the silver spray bottle of disinfectant, then a set of long metallic tweezers, and finally a staple gun to seal the wounds shut.

But to start …

She grabbed the skroll left sitting in the case, a thin tube of metal no longer than the spine of a book, and held it over Ikarus’s slow-moving chest. The push of a button, and a holographic scan of his chest lit up the dark space, illuminating the tools and the dragon’s scales with sapphire hues, followed by a secondary red chart depicting the injuries that had Soraya’s heart thumping against her rib cage.

Luckily all of the shrapnel had missed his essential organs—but there was that one close to his heart … Sweat broke out across her forehead just looking at it.

Raina would start there, but Soraya had never done this before. She might’ve stapled up the odd soldier mid-mission, but she only knew enough to get people home so the real medics could take over. She didn’t know if she could do this. What if she—

No. Not thinking like that. She’d practice on the others first, and tackle that one when she was more familiar with the procedure.

Deciding to start with the smallest injury just below his collarbone, she sprayed the area with disinfectant, then the tweezers. Gods, she wished her fingers would stop trembling. She closed her eyes, drawing a deep breath.

Then slid the tweezers into the first wound.

Ikarus screamed. His back bowed off the stones beneath him, his features contorting in agony. The dragon snarled, and Soraya tried not to flinch when it snapped its fangs by her face.

“Oh, give it a rest, would you? I can’t work with you hovering over me like that!”

The dragon didn’t move, but when no flames shot out of its mouth, she took it as a sign that she was spared from being cooked alive for the moment.

It took some twisting, but soon enough the tweezers brushed against something sharp and pointed. A shard of metal.

Soraya started to pull.

Ikarus bowed forward again. She shoved him back down with her free hand, fingers splayed across the hard planes of his stomach to keep him still, and did her best to ignore his screams when she started to pull again.

Blood pounded in her ears.

Come on …

Almost …

Oh, how she could’ve screamed with relief when the shard finally popped free.

Below her, Ikarus’s screams gave way to ragged pants.

One hand on his stomach, she stapled the wound back together, rivulets of warm blood oozing between her fingers, and started on the next wound.

It was much easier now she knew what she was doing, her movements as mechanical as when she was rearming weapons or fixing broken sunrifles in her workshop.

Sterilize. Pull. Staple.

Sterilize. Pull. Staple.

“Shhhh,” she whispered when Ikarus started to writhe beneath her hand as she began on the fourth piece—just as he had been through every one. “I know it hurts. It’ll be over soon.”

Sweat drenched her forehead by the time she was stapling the fourth wound closed, wiry curls sticking to her face. She could really do with her hair needle right now.

Ikarus was covered in it as well. He’d quieted a little while ago, the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath her palm the only sign that he was still alive.

He looked so different, lying like that. Without that perpetual scowl that was perfectly molded onto his face, there was a softness to his features, in the curve of his jaw. She might’ve even thought him handsome, had he been anything other than what he was.

Soraya closed the burn laceration left from her scythe, then stared down at the final wound, noticing for the first time the silver chain hung just below the scar by his collarbone. Two rings were threaded through the thin metal, one a thick plain silver band, the other an elegant partner with a large, clear diamond that looked like a tear falling onto his chest.

A chest that was not moving.

Soraya’s spine went rigid. “Demon?”