Under the Iron Sky

by A. T. Emerald

Genres: Fantasy; Dark Fantasy; General Fiction; Romance; Science Fiction Romance

Synopsis

A fallen empire. A warrior determined to protect her people. And the masked soldier who captures her behind enemy lines. This is the first novel in a dark, seductive, and all-consuming trilogy where hope is fickle but the fight is never over.

This deluxe hardcover features a reversible dust jacket, a foil-stamped book case, and stunningly designed endpapers!

Vordell was beautiful once. Its people lived in harmony, and their civilization flourished as they learned to harness and control the power of Light.

Then the darkness came.

The Iron Sky unfolded dark clouds across the land, thick enough to choke out the light of the suns. The ground cracked, releasing vicious creatures and evil magic-wielding soldiers. The Dar’rak—an enemy long believed to be buried and forgotten—returned to claim the world above.

Soraya Tollmere has spent most of her life on the front lines of the brutal war that followed. Now a high-ranking commander, she knows loss better than anyone.

By day, she leads troops across ruined landscapes and guides covert teams through enemy territory. By night, she meets with a Dar’rak defector who has kept humanity alive with his steady stream of secrets.

On a mission to investigate his latest lead—one that could turn the tide of the war—Soraya is captured by the Demon, the Dar’rak’s most feared soldier, his true identity unknown.

His orders are simple: Break the human commander and uncover where the humans are keeping a weapon that could win them the war. But as he gets to know the fierce warrior, the lines between interrogator and enemy, prisoner and ally, begin to blur.

Devastating truths surface and loyalties shatter, forcing Soraya to decide who to trust in a world where Light is dying—and where her greatest enemy may be her only salvation.

Release date: October 13, 2026

Publisher: Dell

Print pages: 512

Sample

1

At the very mature age of eleven, there was a great deal that Soraya Tollmere did not know: why there were three suns in the sky but only one moon, why the ocean was blue on one side of the planet but green on the other, and why anything with leaves had a tendency to die whenever she breathed in their general direction.

One thing she did know, however, was that she was in a lot of trouble.

"Are you angry with me?"

Her mother clearly was, given that she was braiding and twisting Soraya's long golden curls like she was wrestling an angry snake.

Soraya shuffled her weight from one foot to the other, not daring to meet her mother's eyes in the full-length mirror they were standing in front of. Most people gave Noreen a wide berth on a good day. The sight of her white-and-gold Queensguard armor was usually enough to deter most people's gazes, never mind those emerald sea-green eyes that people said cut like a whip.

"Yes," Mother snapped, the word almost as rough as her fingers. "I know you and Kaemon's son don't get along, but of all the days you could've gotten up to your tricks, why today? It's the Solar Jubilee. You know how important this is. Marking-"

"One hundred and seventy-five years on the throne," Soraya interrupted in a bored tone. "The first one in history—so only the best will do for the great Queen Aleena Savros, the most beloved ruler in all Vordellian history, blah, blah, blah—I know."

The entire planet had been abuzz with excitement for weeks now. There were going to be parties on every street, fireworks, feasts and dancing until the early hours—all of it ushered in by a charming play performed by the children from the city's largest academy depicting their queen's rise to power.

A performance for which Soraya had been chosen to play said beloved queen.

Which seemed highly unlikely now, given the mess she'd found herself in.

A shame really, considering she was already in full costume. The dress was the most beautiful thing Soraya had ever seen. Sleeveless like most of the clothes in Vordell given the constant heat, the gown was cut just above her collarbone and had so many pearls sewn into the bodice it felt like she was wearing armor. She liked the flowing cape the best, so pale it was nearly translucent and embroidered with dozens of diamonds on pieces of golden string so expertly laid it looked like the seamstresses had plucked each constellation out of the sky and stitched them into the fabric.

All Soraya needed was the famous spiked golden crown, perfectly crafted to look like the rays of a rising sun, and she'd be the younger double of Aleena on her coronation day.

In the mirror, the metal fox that'd been lounging on her bed all morning, warming the white-and-gold plates that made up his body in the sunlight streaming in through the open balcony doors, cracked open an eye.

Varying from tiny metal insects that pollinated the planet's flowers to huge aquatic beasts that hunted fish for the ports and markets, familiars were a common sight on Vordell. Almost every household had one. Most kept them as companions or used them to carry messages—and then there were models like Bertok who'd been with the Tollmere family for so long he was practically a third parent. Although Soraya would never say that to his face. He was rather touchy about his age. Typical old man.

Bertok didn't say a word, but the slow unfurling and retracting of his claws against her purple bedsheets was about as subtle as a guillotine.

Shut up, child—before you make this worse.

Mother tracked the movement, her black hair, braided into a tight crown across her skull, shimmered like a raven's wings as she said to the guard stationed by Soraya's door, "Leave."

The guard blanched. "Sorry, ma'am, but I'm under strict orders to—" He'd clearly had more to say, but one look from those famous green eyes had him scurrying out the door. Funny, Soraya had the same eyes, but no one ever seemed to scamper away from her like a wounded dog. She'd have to work on that.

Finally alone, her mother asked, "And breaking that little boy's nose couldn't wait until tomorrow because . . . ?"

"He's not so little." Vander was six months older than her, if they were really getting into it. And a good six inches taller, but that hardly seemed to be helping her case.

"And I didn't break anything," Soraya added a touch defensively. Not exactly a lie—she'd been in here all morning getting ready so she hadn't technically laid a hand on Vander, and had made sure the gears and springs she'd carefully wired together and hidden in the sleeve of his costume yesterday-designed to whip out and slam into his face when he slipped it on this morning—were all scrap metal she'd collected around the palace and couldn't be traced back to her.

Hadn't stopped him from running right to his highbrow father and pointing the finger at her, though. Stupid snitch. She predicted plenty of stitches in his future.

Soraya braved a glance in the mirror. Mother pinned one braid in a loop at the back of Soraya's skull, her face hard as granite, and was almost halfway through the next braid before she asked, demanded really, "What happened?"

Soraya fiddled with the gold rings she'd been given for today's performance, twisting one of the rubies back and forth. Well, it wasn't as though she could make this any worse, was it?

"When we were in rehearsals yesterday," she explained slowly, "Vander stole some scissors from the boys who were doing the props. Raina kept telling him that someone would get hurt if he didn't put them down, and then when she wasn't looking he . . ."

"He what?"

Soraya loosened a long breath. "He cut her braid off." And she'd had such lovely hair too, long and brilliant red, like a sea of rubies falling right down her back. It was barely past her shoulders now. Soraya's nostrils flared with anger just thinking about it. "And then he started running around the classroom with her braid in his hand and I just . . ."

"You wanted to make him pay."

"Yes." Soraya's throat was impossibly tight. Tears pricked her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but they fell before she could stop them.

"I'm sorry," she started to sob. "I know this performance means a lot to you, and now Vander's dad is going to tell Aleena what I did and—I didn't mean to disappoint you."

Mother sighed, fingers softening slightly. "Do you know why we call Aleena the 'Light Bringer'?"

Soraya managed a shaky nod. "B-because before her reign, Vordell was c-covered in darkness. We were struggling to move forward, and . . . it was Aleena's idea to harvest the power of the three suns to use as a power source."

As she spoke, her eyes drifted to the purple glass flowers that wound around the doorway of her balcony. According to every grown-up Soraya had ever met, sun panels were just about the greatest invention since, well, ever. They looked like a sheet of pretty glass, but they converted sunlight into Light which they used to power everything: buildings, weapons, transport—even Bertok had been created with a jolt of it.

At first they'd only been fitted to large buildings, but as the technology advanced, they did too.

It'd been about ninety years since someone had thought to fashion them into glass flowers. Sunflowers were everywhere now, on rooftops, winding around buildings and bridges and monorail tracks, covering the planet in such beautiful variations of flowers and colors that the capital city was now commonly referred to as The Garden rather than its given name, Lumirel.

Soraya watched her mother finish the second braid, then flip open the box on the vanity table to reveal a beautiful gold crown laid atop a purple cushion.

"Aleena fought off the dark," Mother said, carefully removing the crown with both hands. "Before her reign, our world was cold and dull and terrible—just as my life was before I had you." Pride shone in her green eyes as she lowered the crown onto Soraya's head. "That was why I was so excited when you got the part, darling. Not because I wanted to lord it over Kaemon or any of the council members, but because you—" She wrapped her arms around Soraya, the sword carved into the back of her metal handguard resting perfectly over Soraya's heart, and pulled her into a tight embrace. "You are my Light. You are all the best parts of me and your father without any of our flaws. There is nothing you could ever do to disappoint me."

More tears slid down Soraya's face, but she didn't mind these ones. She smiled at her mother in the mirror, at the golden arms wrapped around her shoulders that always seemed to make everything better.

Behind them, Bertok's ears twitched. He raised his head, the gears in his mouth whirling softly as he yawned. "The ceremony is about to start. Are you both ready?"

They said their goodbyes, and Bertok escorted Soraya through the palace halls to a glass elevator. When the doors slid closed, Soraya leaned her head against the glass, watching as everyone on the streets below slowly disappeared. First the crowd that'd been gathered by the palace gates since the early hours waving white-and-gold flags, then the formation of arrow-shaped golden fighter jets in the courtyard readying for the aerial procession that was to close the opening ceremony.