“You’ve been wounded, but help is coming.” Iris glanced up again, watching as Keegan helped a few nurses lift a wounded soldier onto a stretcher. And then she caught a glimpse of Marisol’s red dress as she assisted a doctor in a white coat with another wounded soldier. There was Attie, racing up the hill to give aid to a nurse who was shouting for it, and Roman, a few paces away, tenderly wiping the grime and blood from a soldier’s face.
She hadn’t been expecting this.
Iris had expected a siege or an assault. She had expected gunfire in the streets and the flash of grenades. She hadn’t believed that Dacre would send his eithrals and his bombs.
A war with the gods is not what you expect it to be.
“My legs,” the soldier rasped.
Iris tightened her grip on the girl’s hand. “The doctors and nurses are coming. Hold on, just a moment longer. They’re almost here to us.” But a barricade and countless bodies lay between them and the medical help, who were methodically making their way down the street.
“She’s losing too much blood,” Roman whispered in her ear.
Iris turned to find him kneeling next to her, his gaze on the girl’s mangled leg. Roman eased closer to the soldier, removing his belt to cinch it tightly on her left thigh.
A chill raced up Iris’s spine. Her hands and feet suddenly felt cold again. She worried she was descending into shock.
“I’m going to see if I can get a stretcher for her,” Iris said, rising. “Will you stay beside her, Kitt?”
Roman’s lips parted, as if he wanted to argue. She knew his thoughts, the reason why he was frowning. He didn’t want any sort of distance to come between them. But the soldier groaned and began to thrash, and he quickly gave her his attention, talking to her in a soothing tone. Reaching for her hand to help her through the waves of pain.
Iris turned and stumbled up the hill. She needed a stretcher. A plank of wood would even work. Anything that she and Roman could use to carry the soldier to the infirmary.
Should she search the rubble for something? Should she pull a board free from the barricade? She paused before it, rife with uncertainty even as her thoughts roared at her to hurry.
At the corner of her eye, a wounded soldier was bowed over, weeping for his mother. His agony pierced Iris, and she decided she would take a board of wood from the barricade. There was no time for her to chase down the nurses or the doctors, who were already overwhelmed. There was no time to find a stretcher. She began to claw at the structure, determined to work a plank free.
She didn’t feel the shadows or the cold that rippled through the smoke. She was so intent on liberating this piece of wood that she failed to realize that the wind had ceased and frost had spangled the cobblestones at her feet.
“Down, down, down!”
The command cut through the mire and the chaos like a blade.
Iris froze, lifting her eyes to the churning sky. At first she thought the clouds were moving. A thunderstorm was building. But then she saw the wings, long and pronged, transparent in the fading light. She saw the monstrous white bodies emerge as they flew closer, nearly upon the town.
She had never seen an eithral before. She had never been this close to one. Even as she had once lain sprawled in the field with Roman, she had never been so close as to taste the rot and death in their pinions. To feel the beat of their wings.
“Down and steady!” The command came again. It was Keegan’s voice, hoarse and frayed and yet powerful enough to knock everyone’s sense back into place.
Iris turned, frantically searching for Roman.
She found him five paces away, standing frozen, but it was evident he had been coming to her. Wounded soldiers and rubble lay between them. There was no clear path, and his eyes were wide, his face pale. He had never appeared so afraid, and Iris had to resist the temptation to run to him.
Don’t move, Iris, he mouthed to her.
She drew a deep breath. Her hands twitched at her sides as the creatures flew closer. Any minute now. Any minute, and they would be overhead.
“Mum,” the soldier beside her moaned, rocking on his heels. “Mum!”
Iris glanced at him with alarm. So did Roman, a vein pulsing at his temple.
“You must be quiet,” she said to the soldier. “You must stop moving.”
“I need to find my mum,” the boy wept, beginning to crawl over the ruin. “I need to go home.”
“Stay down!” Iris cried, but he wasn’t listening. She could see her breath; she could feel her heart pounding in her ears. “Please stop moving!”
A shadow of wings spilled over her. The stench of decay stole through the chilled air.
This is the end, Iris thought. She looked at Roman, five paces away.
He was so close, and yet too far to reach.
She imagined their future. All the things she wanted to do with him. Experience with him. All the things she would never taste now.
“Kitt,” she whispered. And she didn’t think he could hear her, but she hoped he could feel the force of such a whisper in his chest. How deep her love was for him.
Something small and shiny was falling from the clouds. But Iris didn’t let its descent draw her eyes from Roman.
She held his steady gaze, waiting for the bomb to hit the ground between them.
{41}
Your Hand in Mine
She saw her nan. It was Iris’s birthday—the hottest day of summer. The windows were thrown open, the ice cream had left a sticky spot on the kitchen floor, and her grandmother was smiling as she brought her typewriter to Iris.
“Is this really for me?” Iris cried, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She was so excited it felt like her heart might burst.
“It is,” Nan said in her raspy voice, dropping a kiss in her hair. “Write me a story, Iris.”
She saw her brother. Forest was with her at the riverbank, cupping something small in his hands. This was one of their favorite places in Oath; it almost felt as if they were no longer in the city, but deep into the countryside. The rush of the currents masked the clamor of the busy streets.
“Close your eyes and hold out your hands, Little Flower,” he said.
“Why?” Iris asked, but it was no surprise. She always asked why. And she knew she asked too many questions, but she was often filled with doubt.
Forest, knowing her well, smiled. “Trust me.”
She did trust him. He was like a god to her, and she closed her eyes and held out her hands, dirty from exploring the moss and the river rocks. He set something cool and slimy on her palm.
“All right, take a look,” he said.
She opened her eyes to see a snail. She laughed, delighted, and Forest tapped her on the nose.
“What will you name it, Little Flower?”
“How about Morgie?”
She saw her mother. Sometimes Aster worked late at the Revel Diner, and Forest would walk Iris there after school, taking her for dinner.
She sat at the bar, watching her mother deliver plates and drinks to customers. Iris had her notebook open before her, desperate to write a story. For some reason, the words were like ice.
“Working on a new assignment, Iris?” her mother asked, setting down a glass of lemonade before her.
“No, I have all of my schoolwork complete for the day,” Iris said with a sigh. “I’m trying to write a story for Nan, but I don’t know what it should be about.”