Page 73 of Under the Iron Sky

Nothing for one heartbeat, two, three, then right there—a pale, oval blue Light glowed several feet in the air.

He didn’t give it the chance to attack first. Hands by his sides, his magic snatched up another piece of metal and flung it into the Light. The metal groaned, snapped. A sure hit. So why did the Light remain?

Several feet away, another Light switched on, shining through the vapor like a lighthouse in a storm.

The human appeared between those lights, golden hair coiling around her face like beams of sunlight, a new bracer on each of her forearms.

A blade of golden Light was protruding from the right bracer, the scythe curving all the way up to her elbow, while a small holographic circular dial shone from the left.

Staring him right in the eye, she spun that dial, and the Lights at her sides moved, slowly whirling around until there were four of them, watching him like two pairs of eyes. All thoughts emptied from his head as she tapped that dial again, and the two Sentinels stepped out of the vapor beside her, completely under her control.

The Sentinels approached, and Ikarus’s power sparked, fanning out to pick up pieces of nearby debris and throw them at the machines now stalking toward him. Shoulder. Head. Chest. Legs. Striking all the places that’d down a human man instantly with perfect precision.

But these were not men.

Hand raised, Ikarus grasped one of their heads with his magic and squeezed. The metal shattered with a wheeze, yet the headless creature carried on.

He ducked just as one of the Sentinels swiped an arm, narrowly avoiding those giant metal fingers just as a barrage of bullets began firing from guns hidden in the other one’s arm. Grinding his teeth, he dragged a jet from the rubble nearby to shield himself, then sent it slamming into that Sentinel with equal force.

The machine’s eyes flickered once, then went out with a quiet sizzle.

One down, one to go.

All at once, the knives at his back flew out of their sheaths, and he was acutely aware of the human lingering in the shadows as he guided their movements, prowling like a cat at the very edge of his vision, those green eyes watching as he conjured shields to protect himself, studying each move of his arm as he commanded all those knives to slash and stab, severing the Sentinel’s guns, then the cannon it tried to raise from a panel in its forearm.

Only when the second Sentinel dropped to the floor in several chunks did the human pounce. His body reacted on instinct, his right arm, his shielding arm, instantly shooting up to defend him—just as she’d anticipated.

Ducking low, she bypassed that arm entirely and curved around him quick as an arrow leaving a bow, and slammed her elbow into his opposite side.

Pain exploded across his ribs. Snarling, he threw out a pulse of power and shoved her back into the mist. She righted herself quickly, cocking her left arm to conjure a shield, not the lackluster white he saw so often on battlefields now, but pure burning gold, like looking into one of the suns.

She let him see that Light, brought it close to her face so he could see the rage staining every one of her features, and charged again.

She was relentless, barreling into him with no regard for her own life, trusting her instincts to block and weave out of the way of every piece of shrapnel he threw and every slash of his knives so completely, just so she could focus all her attention on hitting him.

He kept trying to push her back, but there was no stopping her. Each time he found his footing, she slammed that shield into him and knocked him off balance again.

He’d never fought anyone like this before. Someone who matched him step for step, who had him needing to use his hands to control his magic, not out of desire or even old habits slipping back in like fighting the Sentinels, but to keep up with her. To stop her from taking his nose off each time she sliced that scythe near his face.

Just like him, she wasn’t aiming to kill, only incapacitate—to bruise and break him until he couldn’t give chase when she eventually fled.

He couldn’t let that happen.

One hand braced to shield himself, he crooked the fingers of the other to throw a robotic arm at her.

She cut it in half with one swipe of her arm, then spun around to smash that shield into his ribs again.

It was like a dance between them. They twirled around each other, striking, blocking, moving in such close quarters he could smell her.

She was fire and Light, a burning flame in this hellhole of darkness, and there was nothing he could do to stop her.

Summoning power into the very tips of his fingers, he pushed her away, desperately needing space to breathe and gather his thoughts. She didn’t let him have it.

Real panic like he hadn’t felt in years surged through his veins. All his knives flew to his defense, but even they could do nothing in the face of such fire. She blocked each one, parried back just as hard, then battered that shield into his face—not burning Light like the scythe or guns, but—fuck, it hurt.

And there was no time to even think about his next move before she slammed it into his chest. He staggered back, unaware that she’d been herding him backward this entire time until he crashed against a solid surface and the air was whooshing out of his lungs.

He’d just braced a hand on that surface to push himself off when she jabbed a panel on the side of her bracer.