Page 150 of Under the Iron Sky

Soraya said nothing, but she felt each word land like a separate blow. Raina didn’t know. Hadn’t been deemed important enough to be told what Soraya was now, what she was capable of.

Ikarus stepped to Soraya’s side, silent as a shadow.

Raina looked between the two of them, eyes widening by the second as she put the pieces together. She backed away, confusion giving way to terror as she took Soraya in again, the black eyes, the blood on her face and hands.

Yes, Soraya wanted to scream. See that this isn’t me. Go. Get as far away from me as you can.

Soraya opened her mouth, but the word that left her lips was not hers. It was the Hex’s.

“Run.”

Raina did. Whirling, she hobbled down the hall as quickly as she could, the Sentinel following closely behind. Soraya chased after her.

Limping with every hurried step, Raina began furiously stabbing the bracer on her arm. The walls hummed, then large metal doors were sliding down from the ceiling to seal the hallway.

The Hex pushed Soraya into a sprint. She ducked beneath each one as they fell from the ceiling, diving beneath the final one just before it touched the ground.

When she leaped to her feet on the other side, Ikarus was not beside her.

At the end of the hallway, the doors to the flight hangar slid open. Raina and the Sentinel broke through, panting; she spun around to frantically tap into a panel in the wall beside them, the doors sliding closed just before Soraya reached them.

Soraya slammed her palms against the small rectangular glass window, blood from her kills splattering up the pane. She did it again, again, the Hex screaming no, no, no, no, as Raina hobbled across the empty hangar toward a jet.

Soraya thrust out a hand, holding Raina’s retreating form between two fingers, and pinched them closed.

Nothing happened.

Soraya didn’t realize why until the Hex’s screaming in her mind quietened enough for her to hear the low humming in the sliding door in front of her. The metal and all the glass were charged with Light just like the Astro Temple. Her magic couldn’t pass through.

It was over then. Raina had already reached a jet and was tapping the holographic charts coming out of her bracer to command the Sentinel to secure the piece of the Arch to one of its storage compartments so she could escape.

She was going to get away. Oh, thank the suns.

The Hex had other ideas. It guided Soraya to take Aleena’s crown off her head.

Raina flinched and turned toward the door when Soraya slammed the crown into the glass panel, her fingers moving quicker when Soraya did it again, again, the protective pane splintering with each swing.

It took seven swings of that crown for the glass to shatter enough for Soraya to reach her arm through and push a few buttons—

She put the crown back on and the door slid open with a strangled whine.

Raina was halfway into the jet’s cockpit before Soraya raised her hand, magic reaching out to grasp Raina’s blood and muscles and pull her to the ground.

Raina slammed into the hard floor, her answering scream of agony was guttural, but nowhere near loud enough to drown out the sound of her bones cracking on impact. Her already fragile spine …

No. No. No.

The piece of the Arch now secured to the jet, the Sentinel turned around, gears shifting as it assumed an attack stance—

A blink, and the blood staining Soraya’s armor rose into the air and crystallized into an arrow. A wave of her hand, and that blood arrow shot forward and speared right through the essential gears in the Sentinel’s chest and came out the other side. Its useless hide crashing to the floor made the ground tremble.

Whimpering, Raina scrambled across the floor. Tears burned Soraya’s eyes as she stalked after her.

Metal crumbled somewhere in the distance, and Soraya was vaguely aware of Ikarus stepping into the flight hangar behind her. “That’s enough.”

The words registered somewhere in Soraya’s mind, but it was like hearing it through static. The Hex wanted her to take her time. She slowly stalked after Raina, fingers bending to gather the blood splattered by the Sentinel’s empty chest and re-form it into another arrow.

A sharp crack, then Ikarus was standing in front of her. His hand jutted out, reaching for her, but she was already ducking out of the way, already thrusting her own hand toward his chest, her magic holding his body like she was grabbing the front of his shirt. One shove, and he was crashing into the wall on the other side of the room.