Page 99 of Under the Iron Sky

“What is this?”

A fairy Ikarus didn’t know the name of explained, “We believe it’s a retinal scanner the Vordellians use to grant access inside. We’ve tried with some of our hostages and had no success—”

“However,” Morana interrupted, “given the God Killer’s rank, she might just be the key to get inside.” She held out her hand again, this time to the human. “The human will open the door now.”

He waited for her to stiffen beneath his grip. Instead, she laughed. “The human will not.”

Scarred top lip twitching with barely restrained anger, Morana snarled, “I will not tell you again, girl. Do this, or I will cut parts of you off until you comply. Starting with your hands.”

Scoffing, the human held up her wrists. “Knock yourself out.”

When Morana looked inclined to make good on her threat, Ikarus cut in. “As tempting as that is,” he said dryly, “let’s try the easy way first.” He pulled the human forward. “Come.”

She glared up at him, the simmering rage there making her eyes look like emeralds tossed onto a roaring fire. “I’m not doing it.”

“It’s adorable that you think you have a choice.”

A few people chuckled when he shoved her in front of the scanner. She tried to twist away, but he pushed a band of his magic out to hold her in place, then another to hold her eye open while a faint beam of light shot out and passed over it, ignoring the impressive list of all the ways she was going to kill him when this was done—she was beautifully creative when she was under duress.

Nothing happened.

And just as Ikarus was about to turn around and drag the human kicking and screaming back up to their room, a metal groan permeated the air.

His hand slid across her back as the doors began to move, some dark part of him delighting in the way her pulse jumped when it slipped beneath those riotous golden curls and came to rest against the back of her neck. His fingers dug into her warm skin, squeezing in warning.

Stifling a grin, Ikarus sent his power into the looming darkness, tendrils of it sweeping through the room like the heads of hungry serpents, forked tongues darting out to taste for prey. No signs of life as far as he could tell, but that didn’t stop three knives from floating out of their sheaths across his back as he angled the human behind him and slowly stepped into the gloom.

Morana and Mortis quickly followed, the former dragging her own human captive while the latter slowly curled the fingers of his remaining hand to stretch the black-thorned roots winding around his arms and chest. A common practice for fairy soldiers, seeing as they could only control vines and other plant life, not create them.

The doors had opened into a large room with gold-lined floors and a domed ceiling, same as most Vordellian architecture; it was exceptionally bare except for a double sliding door on the far side that Ikarus immediately pushed the human toward.

When they reached it, he held her in front of another scanner. The same light flashed over her eyes—

Then the floor began to shake.

Ikarus tensed. So did the human. The door in front of them flew open with a hiss, and released an explosion of heat and smoke. He was fast enough to throw a shield of magic around him and the human to protect them, but not everyone was so quick.

Through the thick gray smoke quickly choking the room, Ikarus could make out Mortis lay clutching his side on the floor, many of his guards in similar positions behind him. Malakai was kneeling on the other side of the room, groaning and rubbing a bleeding spot on his head, but alive.

The same couldn’t be said about the human Morana had brought in. If he’d been lucky, the large piece of torn metal now protruding from his chest and stomach would’ve killed him instantly.

The explosion had shaken the entire room. Several of the ceiling panels and arches had already come crashing to the floor in the initial blast, and there didn’t seem to be a wall around them that wasn’t creaking. They likely had seconds before the entire thing collapsed.

Ikarus gripped the human tight and pictured the black rock outside—

Something pushed back, stopping him from phasing. The shields were still in place.

Shit.

Moving quickly, he dragged the human toward the entrance. She fought him every step, and they couldn’t have made it more than ten feet before he lost his patience, pinned her wrists together with his powers, and threw her over his shoulder.

Malakai rushed outside first, and Ikarus made sure to put a good thirty feet between them and the crumbling tower before setting the human down and bracing for the fist that was inevitably going to fly into his face.

It didn’t come.

She said nothing. Didn’t attack or try to run. Just stared at the Astro temple. Despite the blast, the main tower remained intact, but the smaller eastern wing they’d just been standing in … There would be no surviving for any soul unfortunate enough to be trapped in there.

Ikarus moved to stand at her side, watching it crumble with her. There was debris all over her face, and a speckling of blood across her hands and the front of her jacket that he assumed belonged to the other human.