Exclusive Preview: The Buzzy New Romantasy the Internet Can’t Stop Talking About

If you’re part of the book community, you know there’s so much book news happening at any given moment that it takes a lot for an announcement to actually stop you in your tracks. But the second I started seeing Under the Iron Sky popping up all over my timeline, I knew I was face-to-face with my next romantasy obsession. Set against a fallen empire and following a warrior captured by a masked soldier behind enemy lines, the trilogy promises to be dark, seductive, and completely addictive.

Under the Iron Sky publishes October 13, but if waiting a full week feels like torture, we have just the thing to tide you over until you can finally get your hands on a copy. Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from the dystopian novel your book club won’t be able to stop talking about.

What is Under the Iron Sky about?

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.

Exclusive excerpt from Under the Iron Sky by A.T. Emerald

The Demon was covered in blood. It was on his armored shoulders, his gauntlets, dripping down the crimson moon carved into the front of his chest plate. The stench of it was enough to make her stomach roil.

“Whose blood is that?” She quickly strangled it into submission, but an edge of fear crept into her voice.

The Demon slowly cocked his head in a movement so predatory Soraya’s breath hitched. “Would you like a list?” He started walking toward her. “It’s hard to say, I don’t remember all their names. I am the Ancient One’s prized dog after all, aren’t I? I have a lot of rather important tasks.”

Try as she might, Soraya couldn’t stop the slight tremble in her knees when he stopped on the other side of the cell bars. “You’re a fucking monster.”

A deep scoff fluttered from that grotesque helmet. “I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘Demon,’ ” he said, voice as hard and cold as iron, then grasped his helmet by a horn and yanked it off.

There weren’t words to describe the face beneath. She doubted there was a word in any tongue that’d capture him accurately. She supposed some might say he was beautiful, in the same way one might marvel at a black hole before they were sucked into its orbit and crushed into nothing.

She guessed he was around her age, with short silver hair and skin as pale as cold cut marble. His features were thin and angular: straight nose, high cheekbones, and a jawline that looked like it bit back when struck.

She’d thought his eyes looked like the Iron Sky before, but standing this close, without cold wind ripping at her face and seconds away from plummeting to her death, they looked more like opals that’d been sanded down so many times they’d lost their shine. Dull and lifeless, except for the thin slice of gold in his right eye that lined up perfectly with the streak of missing hair in his eyebrow, as though whatever dark God that’d made him had grown jealous of their own creation and slashed him in a fit of rage—like that could make him any less than what he was.

A monster. A Demon.

He set his helmet on the floor, then clasped his hands in front of him, surveying her just as coldly as she was studying him. There wasn’t a drop of blood on his face. “How’s the escape plan coming?”

Even without the magic in his helmet, his voice demanded attention. Deep and slow. Rough but smooth. The kind of voice that could command armies and bring kings to kneel without ever having to raise an octave.

Blood or no, Soraya refused to be intimidated. She stared up at him from the other side of the bars, infuriated that she had to tilt her head back to meet those strange eyes of his. “I will find a way out of here,” she said slowly, savoring every bit of anger and venom that dripped off her tongue. “And when I do, I will sever whatever this connection between us is, and slit your throat with a smile on my face.”

“Is that before or after you carve my eye out with whatever you’re hiding in your jacket?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He held out a hand, careful to keep his palm on the other side of the bars. “I’m in no mood for games, human. Give it to me.”

Soraya opened her mouth, about to tell him to fuck all the way off to hell, but the words died in her throat when the fires on the scones in the walls all suddenly flickered and her needle was yanked out of her hand by an invisible rope. She hissed, brow scrunching as she watched the piece of green metal zip between the cell bars that seemed to be twisting in on themselves before it spun around and shot back toward her, halting just before it speared through her throat.

Soraya froze, not daring to swallow.

While fairies were all masters of plants and earth and Ethereals monsters of shadow, Dar’rak abilities were as varied as the oceans were deep. The power to move things with their mind like Ikarus was fairly common, but in every one Soraya had ever fought there was always lots of hand moving and arm throwing used to control and channel that power. One of the first things she trained into new recruits was to cut their enemies’ limbs off. No hands, no magic.

But Ikarus hadn’t lifted a finger just then, and the entire room—her hair needle included—had seemed to bend to his will. What did that mean about the depths of his power? Soraya didn’t let herself think about it.

Ikarus let the needle hang there, the sharp edge an inhale away from slicing into her skin, letting her know precisely how easily he could end her if he wanted to, before calling it back and sliding it into a panel in his armor.

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, remove your earrings.”

Soraya barked a laugh. “Don’t tell me the big bad Demon is afraid of a few earrings?” In fairness, she had considered using them if the needle plan didn’t go her way—a thought that had apparently occurred to him too. He was clever, then. Tricking him wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d thought.

Ikarus’s eyes bore into her face. “I’m no fool. I know your reputation, and I know perfectly well that anything can become a weapon in your hands. Now, if you please.”

“Keeping you from something, am I?”

“You could say that.”

Twisting her face into a sardonic smile, Soraya did as she was told. Ikarus’s answering smile was just as deadly. “There’s a good girl.” Sadistic prick. Lip curling in disgust, she removed the gold knife-shaped stud at the bottom of her ear, then the tight hoops decorated with a rusting star above them, working her way up to the bare bands of gold at the very top.

“Got a lot of time for piercings above, have you?” Ikarus asked. Soraya flipped him the middle finger as she removed the last tiny stud from her right tragus, a greenish bronze sun, and threw them at his boots. “Happy now?”

“I will be after you’ve taken off those knuckle-dusters.”

“I can’t.”

A crease formed between his brows. “Why not?”

“They’re welded onto my hands.”

“For what purpose?”

Now the smile on Soraya’s face was genuine. “Come in here and I’ll show you.”

His eyes slid down to the bands of rotting gold on the back of her hands, the scarred skin across her knuckles where metal met skin, then the four spikes across each duster, most blunted or chipped after so much use.

He met her gaze again, the coldness in his eyes enough to make Soraya’s spine stiffen. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you. Did you know you’re almost as famous as I am among my kind? So much so the others have come up with a name for you. Vous Mylista,” he said, his voice dropping into a deep caress as he slipped into his native tongue.

“What does that mean?”

A malicious sort of gleam entered his eyes. “God Killer.”

“Someone thinks highly of themselves. You lot aren’t Gods. You bleed just the same as any human.”

He cocked his head, that smile remaining. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? How many of your kind have we killed? It’s got to be in the hundreds of thousands by now. Who knows. Probably too many to count.”

Soraya couldn’t keep the words from lancing her heart. She scoffed, her default whenever she was hurt. “You don’t even care, do you?”

Ikarus blew out a breath. He sounded bored. “Yes, please be more vague. That’ll surely speed up this conversation.”

Soraya’s hands balled into fists. “Do you even care how many people you’ve killed? Does it bother you—even in the slightest—how many hearts you’ve stopped from beating?”

The cell door suddenly swung open, his broad frame and spiked armor shrinking her cell to the size of a shoebox. “Not at all.” He stepped inside, and Soraya hated that every instinct in her body screamed that she should back away. That she should run and hide and get as far away from this . . . thing stalking toward her as she could.

“Watching your precious friends sniffle and beg for their lives is the highlight of my day. It’s the least you deserve after everything you’ve done to us.”

“After everything we’ve done to you? We’re not the ones who started this war.”

“No—you’re just the ones who imprisoned an entire species down here and left us to rot for almost two centuries. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be born into the dark? To suffer here, while you basked in the suns, laughing at us?”

“Don’t pretend that justifies the thousands of innocent lives you’ve taken since the invasion.”

“And what about the lives you’ve taken?” Soraya stopped short. “What?”

“Don’t pretend we’re so different. You trapped us down here, so we fought back. You kill us, we kill you—and you’re the worst one of all. I bet your ledger is almost as dripping as mine.”

Ma’varea had said something similar days ago. Was that how this side saw her, then? As much of a monster as any of them? Something like grief sparked in her chest, but Soraya pushed it away. She killed for survival, not enjoyment. They were nothing alike. “Don’t you dare pretend that we’re the same. We’re not.”

Ikarus shrugged faintly. “Demon. God Killer. You don’t get names like ours from just sitting behind a war table. They come from getting your hands dirty, from tearing your enemies apart with your bare fingers, and when this war ends, our names won’t be written in some history book collecting dust somewhere—oh no, we’ll be side by side, me and you, written on the walls in blood—because underneath all that rotting gold, you’re just like me.”

Soraya couldn’t help herself.

Before her brain had even caught up, she reared back her arm and slapped him across the face hard enough to jerk his head to the side.

Ikarus stared at the far wall for a long moment, his jaw tightening and relaxing again and again. Soraya felt like she was watching some wild beast be forced back into a cage. She could feel the rage vibrating off him, dark magic crackling at his sides.

She watched him close his eyes and take a deep breath, like that was the only thing stopping him from reaching out and snapping her neck right then and there.

When he finally looked at her again, the hatred burning in those gray irises could’ve thawed ice.

“You get that one, human. Do it again, you will regret it. Are we clear?”

Quick as a striking asp, he grabbed her arm and dragged her toward him. Soraya swore her heart stopped for a beat when her chest slammed against his, almost bouncing off the plates of his armor.

“If you weren’t so important to the Ancient One,” he hissed, “I’d kill you right now.”

She was an idiot to rile him like this—but Soraya had never backed away from battle, and she had no will or desire to stop herself from holding his gaze, from leaning in until they were almost nose to nose, and whispering back, “If I still had my weapons, you’d be dead already.”

They glared at each other, silence stretching like a void between them.

Ikarus’s face was hard as stone, giving nothing away.

She was going to kill him. She didn’t know how or when—and be damned if it killed her too, but mark her fucking words, she was going to be the end of Ikarus.

Pre-order Under the Iron Sky, releasing October 13, 2026

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lauren Blue, Editor & Book Club Co-Host

As an Editor for The Everygirl, Lauren ideates and writes content for every facet of our readers’ lives, from must-read books and behind-the-scenes interviews to beauty products she can’t live without. When she isn’t sitting in an AMC watching the latest buzzy release, she can be found scouring Goodreads for the perfect pick for The Everygirl Book Club. There, she co-hosts discussions with members, debating plotlines, fancasting characters, and, of course, tossing in her own recommendations.

READ LAUREN’S FULL BIO

Featured graphic images credited to: Christina Niner | Dupe and A.T. Emerald | Instagram

The post Exclusive Preview: The Buzzy New Romantasy the Internet Can’t Stop Talking About appeared first on The Everygirl.

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