Page 140 of Under the Iron Sky

“No. I move things. I can hold a person’s armor or bones and crush them with it, but what you did … You crushed his body from the inside out.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re a Hemokenetic,” he said. Again, no emotion in his voice. It was like she was talking to a statue. “You can control blood.”

Like Ramapheal? Bile rose in Soraya’s throat but she made herself swallow it down. Made herself speak. She couldn’t beat this thing if she didn’t know how it worked. “So you’ve been leaving threads of your magic in my head … Why?” Pain made her angry. Made the words start to come out quick and sharp as blades that she wanted to stab him with. “So you can puppet me around? And what about this Hex you’ve been developing? Does that play into it too? This weapon you’ve all been oh-so secret about? Do you want me to operate it? Build it? Answer me!”

His head snapped toward her then, his eyes blazing in the light from the fire as he pushed off the hearth and stormed toward her. “You’re not getting it, Vous Mylista.” The words were a snarl, angry and vicious, even if something that looked a lot like regret burned in his irises. “This thing I’ve been developing in your mind is called the Demon Hex. It’s you. You are the weapon.”

“No.” She shook her head and stepped away from him, cold terror beginning to take root deep in her veins. “You have an army of people with magic. What difference do I make?”

“Because when you’re under the Hex, you’re essentially a bloodhound that will destroy anything or anyone that gets in the way of the target you’ve been assigned. And Ramapheal is going to use you to take us to your pieces of the Arch.”

The ground might as well have swallowed her up. This was so much worse than anything she’d imagined. “I’ll never take you to them! I’ll die before I ever give them over to you!”

“You won’t have a choice.”

“Why?” Soraya managed to grind out. “You’ve captured Vordellian soldiers before. Why wait until now?” There was a reason. Through the screaming in her head and this storm of rage and grief that was whirling around and threatening to choke her very existence, she knew that much.

Ikarus stared at the rug. He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and when he met her stare again, his eyes were empty husks, void of any emotion. “There’s a reason the Ancient One wanted to name it the Demon Hex. Whilst it’s true we don’t need words to activate our magic, this is special. He needed someone high up enough in the ranks to know where the Arch pieces were being kept, but he wanted someone lethal. Someone who knows how to kill, who’ll stop at nothing to get what they want and who can and will destroy any enemy who gets in their way. He wanted you, God Killer, because deep down, under all those pretty gold trimmings and self-righteous bullshit, you’re just like me.”

Soraya was suddenly charging across the room toward him. “We are not the same! Don’t you dare say that we are the same because we’re not!”

“No? So you haven’t taken just as many lives as I have? Maybe more?”

“That’s different!”

“Why is it? Do you think that just because you’re on the ‘good side’ of this war that the lives you’ve taken don’t count?”

He didn’t take a single step, but he seemed to be towering over her suddenly, his entire being swallowing up the room until she felt like there was no air. “Do you think that just because the people you’ve butchered wear helmets that somehow your soul is cleaner than mine? That you’re somehow better than me?”

“I am better than you,” Soraya screamed. “You kill without mercy. I don’t want to kill but I do because this is war! We don’t have the luxury of mercy anymore! Not when Ramapheal has grown as strong as he has!”

“You’re right, this is war, so let me ask you this. Of all those soldiers you’ve killed on battlefield after battlefield, how many do you think had wives waiting for them at home?”

If he’d punched her in the stomach, it would’ve hurt less. “I … That’s not … That doesn’t mean—”

“How many of those poor souls you’ve executed were someone’s son or daughter?” he asked.

“Stop it.” Soraya took a step back but Ikarus followed, a shadow she couldn’t escape, burning her with the truth.

“How many of those Dar’rak and fairies and Ethereals that died screaming at the barrel of your guns or machines had children? All waiting for them to come home, and you’re the reason they never made it?”

“Stop it!” Soraya bit. “We’re not the same!” She moved to attack, desperate to bury the spikes on the back of her hand into his face so he’d just stop talking—but Ikarus caught her hand. The temperature suddenly plummeted, and then she was dragged into his mind and he was showing her not his own memories, but someone else’s. A door within a door, something he’d seen in someone else’s mind.

First she was in a dark hallway, twenty years old, long golden braid swishing like a pendulum behind her as she pushed through a Dar’rak stronghold, Sunrifle in hand. Fleeing or attacking, it made no difference, she fired at them all, watched them all fall to the ground without a hint of emotion on her face before firing at the next, the next.

The memory changed, and then she was watching herself in a glider, death gleaming in her eyes as she shot winged creatures from the sky.

Then she was down in mud, bringing a golden shield down on someone’s helmet again and again until his blood was all over her armor and there was no helmet left.

As quickly as blinking, she saw memory after memory, a rolodex of all the horrible things she’d done. The monster she truly was.

This was it, Soraya thought, her heart cracking wide open with the realization. This was why Ramapheal had wanted her. Not because she was Noreen’s daughter or any memories or information she might carry, but because of this. That look on her face. Because he’d seen this monster wearing human skin, green eyes blazing, hungry for more, covered in blood and death, and seen a creature even his own monsters had come to fear.

He’d wanted a Vous Mylista.

A God Killer.