Page 157 of Under the Iron Sky

Malakai.

55

Nausea hit Soraya like being struck in the stomach with a steel bat. Her legs buckled, and she might’ve fallen face first to the floor had it not been for the arms wrapped around her waist. Arms that vanished the moment she steadied herself on the wall beside her, and were now ripping open various floor-to-ceiling cupboards.

Ikarus had brought them to what she assumed was a storage room given the wall-to-wall shelves packed with glass jars.

Tearing his helmet off, he tore open one of the cupboards and disappeared inside. Soraya had just staggered to the other side of those doors, the thick haze in her mind finally starting to clear, when something flew into her chest.

Her bracers.

Her sunrifle followed next, landing with a dull thud next to her boots. Then a belt of bombs. Her guns and knives. And finally a little black velvet box that rattled softly as it landed on the very top of the pile—her many earrings, she guessed.

Everything Ikarus had taken when he’d captured her.

A crack, then movement from behind, ceramic, then tin, a door opening and closing. Soraya followed the noises into a large kitchen space with a black rock island in the center and five long-legged chairs tucked beneath.

“What are you doing?” she snapped.

Without looking up, Ikarus snatched a leather satchel from a dark wooden cupboard and, with a wave of his hand, began filling it with food from the various shelves and baskets that were suspended from metal rods around the room. “You’re leaving.”

Soraya blinked at him, stunned. She must’ve misheard. That couldn’t be …

A waterskin drifted from a shelf to be filled with water from a glass jug that also floated in the air when Ikarus gave a sharp wave of his hand. “I can’t have you in this house anymore.” Now full, the waterskin floated into the bag. Another flick of his wrist, and that satchel was in her hands. “Get out.”

Soraya’s fingers tightened around the warm leather. She should’ve been thrilled. She had her weapons and a bag full of food and water. Had everything she needed to get the fuck out of this hellhole that’d been a living nightmare for more than a month now. She’d dreamed of this from the moment she’d been captured.

So why couldn’t she get her feet to move?

Setting down the satchel—just for the moment—Soraya slid one bracer onto her wrist, then the other, trying to push past the feeling of wholeness that coursed through her at having them back. “Don’t you think we should talk about what happened up there?”

“No.” Snarling, Ikarus turned to stare out the window, as though he could no longer stand the sight of her.

“You’re not dead,” Soraya breathed slowly, disbelief coloring every word. “Your helmet was off, you breathed our air, and you didn’t die.”

Even standing here now, feeling her heart beat a wild rhythm against her ribs as proof of that fact, Soraya could scarcely believe it.

“Shut up,” he snapped. He braced a hand on either side of the sink, the knives vibrating in their sheaths against his back.

“We should both be dead.” Soraya slung the belt of bombs around her hips, then slipped one of the guns into the holster on her thigh.

“Shut up. You need to go. Now.”

“Ikarus—”

He was across the room in a second, icy rage on every line of his face. “I said get the fuck out of my house! You can’t be here anymore!” He prowled closer until he was all she could see, devouring the room and even the air between them like the black hole she so often thought he resembled. “You’re in my head like a fucking plague, ruining everything you touch! I don’t care where you go—you can get eaten alive by those spider savages that live at the top of that hill for all I care, I just need you out of my life!”

“No,” Soraya snapped back with equal venom. “I took off your helmet and you didn’t die! How is that possible?”

“That’s not what happened! You did something to me—you must have, because we can’t breathe your air! I’ve seen hundreds of my people die when their helmets are removed! It’s. Not. Possible!”

Soraya’s nostrils flared, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper. “If you really believe that, then why did you kill those Irons up there?”

“Shut up!” Ikarus glared at her, his shoulders steadily rising and falling in time with each ragged breath he pulled in through his bared teeth. Impossible. Utterly impossible what’d transpired today, and yet, here they were. “You’re not doing this to me. You’re not making me question everything I am!”

Behind them, stones shuffled against one another. “Aeris here,” called a small, gravelly voice.

Ikarus’s eyes remained locked on Soraya’s as he snapped back, “Not now, Golla!”