Page 42 of Iridian

He could probably tell from my tone of voice alone that that was bullshit, but he said, “Same. Look at me.” I did. It was almost three in the afternoon and the sun was still high up in the sky and he looked really,reallygood in it, but he still looked better in the dark.

A silly thing to notice in this situation.

“We’re together just like before,” Taland whispered.

The Iris Roe. The Devil’s Regah chamber. Madeline’s office while the Council themselves were trying to find a reason to end me.

We were together.

Some of the panic and the fear faded. “Together,” I said.

“And we’re going to walk out of here just like we always do.”

“Like always,” I repeated, the words giving me life.

“Just another fight we gotta win.”

Taland winked at me. Impossible not to smile.

“There,” Helen said, taking our attention to the screen of her tablet as she held it up. “He’s there. And he’s not alone.”

Every drop of blood in my veins froze when I saw the short video that drone had captured, that replayed over and over again because it was only four seconds long. But in it we could see perfectly fine what was going on down that road that snaked around the foundation of the first and smallest mountain and went to the other side.

A hole in the ground, like a large bowl in the valley between the mountains, possibly a hundred feet wide, with escalators and all kinds of tools and woods and metals about, like it was a construction site. Grey rocks and dirt everywhere, and the ground was dug all around the edges of the mountain farthest to the left made of yellowish and light grey rocks, with a few trees growing on the sides as if by accident, and with a landing that extended right over that valley, wide enough to fit several people.

Right now, though, only one was standing on top of it, on his knees doing something I couldn’t even see because the moment he noticed the drone in the sky, he jumped to his feet and raised his hand toward it, and white flames burst out of his skin just before the magic reached the camera.

The video started again.

This time, Radock pressed pause, and he moved the video forward and back so we could see everything that was happening clearly—Hill on that landing, kneeling in front of what could have beeneggs,with three pieces of paper in front of him. He had been chanting before he saw the drone and stopped to attack it.

But Hill wasn’t the only one on the rocky walls of the mountain or in that bowl-like valley below. Soldiers dressed in white were everywhere with machine guns in their hands as they walked around the excavators and the piles of dirt on all sides.

Halfway up the mountain where Hill was, Alejandro Ammiz sat on the rocks with one leg over the other, looking around with a cigar burning between his lips.

“Is that…a skeleton?” someone asked—could have been Aurelia.

My stomach turned as I followed her shaking finger moving closer and closer to the screen to point at the shade behind the mountain right across from where Hill was.

Indeed, that was a skeleton standing—and it wasn’t the only one.

Memories from the book in Madeline’s office spun in my mind as I took in the three rows of skeletons, which I was sure continued deeper behind the mountain where we couldn’t see. Actual skeletons standing on bony legs, wearing armor and helmets over their skulls, swords strapped to their hips, as still as statues.

Every hair on my body stood at attention when I realized what they were.

“He’s found them,” George said reluctantly as he looked down at his own tablet. “The soldiers who are stationed nearby can see all—thirty skeletons so far, all wearing armor.”

“The Delaetus Army is truly here,” Helen said, as if she was more fascinated bythatfact than anything else.

Surreal.

The others were already talking, and I half heard them, though most of my attention remained on Hill.

“We have soldiers surrounding them on all sides. They will take care of David’s help, while we take care of him,” Helen continued.

“As you can see, he already has the vessels, I imagine for all thirty of them, if there aren’t more,” Radock said. “We have to stop him before he uses those vessels.”

“What the hell can he do with those? Are theyeggs, is that it?” Seth asked before I could because I had no clue how the hell a soul vessel worked, either.

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