Page 98 of Under the Iron Sky

Soraya’s breath finally returned to normal, as did her rational mind. “Fuck you.” She pulled back, batting his hand away. “And don’t touch me again.”

Ikarus’s brow twitched, but he didn’t bite back, instead he asked, “Why didn’t you just shoot him? It would have saved you a lot of pain.”

“I know,” Soraya panted, barely able to think through the pounding behind her eyes. The world spun again, and just as she thought she might collapse, a cold hand caught her chin, tilting her head back again until she opened her eyes and met his gaze. His eyes looked different—still mostly gray, but that gold slice seemed to be shimmering softly, thicker than it usually was.

“So why didn’t you?” he asked.

“Because he hadn’t done anything to me.”

Ikarus stared at her so intensely she felt as though she was looking into the mouth of a black hole, being pulled in, in, waiting for the moment he crushed everything that she knew and was.

The door to their room suddenly swung open.

Ikarus dropped his hand, lurching to stand. “Don’t you ever fucking knock?”

Malakai paused in the doorway. His eyes bounced between the two of them, clearly confused at finding them so close together, before he loosened a long, overly dramatic sigh, closed the door, and knocked five times.

“Hello, Ikarus darling, are you in there?” Malakai called from the other side, then answered his own question in a deeper voice supposed to imitate his friend’s, “Yes, you handsome devil, please do come in.” And then back in his normal voice, “Oh, thank you very much. You’re too kind.” The door swung open again. “Happy now?”

Ikarus looked anything but. “What do you want?”

“Morana thinks she’s found a way into the Astro Temple. She wants you to bring the human.”

31

The human didn’t put up half the fight Ikarus expected her to. She gave no reaction when he hauled her off the floor, nor did she attempt to scratch his eyes out when he marched her past a maniacally grinning Malakai and through the door.

A lesser man might’ve thought it progress. That he’d finally broken her down to the point where she realized escape was futile and had accepted her fate.

Ikarus was not one of those men—although he couldn’t decide if she was up to something or just trying to make him believe that she was. Adrenaline warmed his veins either way, the hairs on the back of his neck pricking each time her eyes changed direction.

What was she thinking? Those four little words never seemed to be far away these days, embedded in his mind like a path walked too many times.

When they stepped out of the burrows, was each flick of her gaze toward the various nests her way of strategizing? Was she marking the weapon of every fairy they passed out of morbid curiosity, the swords, the knives, the whips made of thorned vines, or to work out the best way to secure one and use it to slit all their throats?

Or perhaps she wasn’t thinking any of those things. The unknown of it all was as maddening as it was exhilarating.

Ikarus kept a close eye on her, kept his fingers tight around her arm like a shackle.

Morana was waiting by the west bank of the Astro Temple with an irritated expression. She held a trembling human by the nape of his neck, and a team of heavily armored fairies swarmed behind her in a loose circle formation like the pincers of a large beetle. It was half the size of her usual guard. A quick glance to see the God Killer narrow her eyes ever so slightly as she beheld the man caught in Morana’s talons. Her mouth was set in a tight line, but she said nothing. Whether she knew this human or not, he couldn’t say.

“What do you want?” Ikarus didn’t bother to hide the venom in his tone. It was no secret to anyone here that the two of them didn’t get along.

Morana’s hateful glare was like being caressed with barbed wire. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Still keeping a tight grip on the human kneeling at her feet, she held out her free hand, sharpened black nails curling with impatience. “Give her to me.”

Ikarus did no such thing. Leveling her with a bored stare, he said nothing and let her outstretched hand linger in the air just long enough for embarrassment to color her usually greenish skin before asking coolly, “Why?”

Not a woman used to being disobeyed, least of all by a man, Morana’s mouth twitched in annoyance.

“Despite the fall and our attempts to get inside,” she said, her voice low and controlled despite the rage on her face being anything but, “the temple’s defenses remain intact. I’ve scoured the building myself and found no weak spots—that was until your dog got into a fight with one of my guards.”

At this, Malakai stepped up beside him, no doubt grinning from ear to ear. “Your guy started it.”

“Nevertheless,” Morana seethed, “he sent one of my guards flying into the temple and—as luck would have it—loosened one of the protective panels enough for us to peel it away.”

She stepped aside, wings pulling back like a musty gray curtain to reveal a large crimson stain marking the wall of metal, smears leading to the ground as though someone’s bleeding body had been dragged down it.

“You’re welcome!” Malakai called as Ikarus stepped closer to inspect the small square of metal that had been torn from the wall in the middle of the stain, rusting gears and machines softly whirring inside it.