Page 39 of Under the Iron Sky

A malicious sort of gleam entered his eyes. “God Killer.”

“Someone thinks highly of themselves. You lot aren’t Gods. You bleed just the same as any human.”

He cocked his head, that smile remaining. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? How many of your kind have we killed? It’s got to be in the hundreds of thousands by now. Who knows. Probably too many to count.”

Soraya couldn’t keep the words from lancing her heart. She scoffed, her default whenever she was hurt. “You don’t even care, do you?”

Ikarus blew out a breath. He sounded bored. “Yes, please be more vague. That’ll surely speed up this conversation.”

Soraya’s hands balled into fists. “Do you even care how many people you’ve killed? Does it bother you—even in the slightest—how many hearts you’ve stopped from beating?”

The cell door suddenly swung open, his broad frame and spiked armor shrinking her cell to the size of a shoebox. “Not at all.” He stepped inside, and Soraya hated that every instinct in her body screamed that she should back away. That she should run and hide and get as far away from this … thing stalking toward her as she could. “Watching your precious friends sniffle and beg for their lives is the highlight of my day. It’s the least you deserve after everything you’ve done to us.”

“After everything we’ve done to you? We’re not the ones who started this war.”

“No—you’re just the ones who imprisoned an entire species down here and left us to rot for almost two centuries. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be born into the dark? To suffer here, while you basked in the suns, laughing at us?”

“Don’t pretend that justifies the thousands of innocent lives you’ve taken since the invasion.”

“And what about the lives you’ve taken?”

Soraya stopped short. “What?”

“Don’t pretend we’re so different. You trapped us down here, so we fought back. You kill us, we kill you—and you’re the worst one of all. I bet your ledger is almost as dripping as mine.”

Ma’varea had said something similar days ago. Was that how this side saw her, then? As much of a monster as any of them? Something like grief sparked in her chest, but Soraya pushed it away. She killed for survival, not enjoyment. They were nothing alike. “Don’t you dare pretend that we’re the same. We’re not.”

Ikarus shrugged faintly. “Demon. God Killer. You don’t get names like ours from just sitting behind a war table. They come from getting your hands dirty, from tearing your enemies apart with your bare fingers, and when this war ends, our names won’t be written in some history book collecting dust somewhere—oh no, we’ll be side by side, me and you, written on the walls in blood—because underneath all that rotting gold, you’re just like me.”

Soraya couldn’t help herself.

Before her brain had even caught up, she reared back her arm and slapped him across the face hard enough to jerk his head to the side.

Ikarus stared at the far wall for a long moment, his jaw tightening and relaxing again and again. Soraya felt like she was watching some wild beast be forced back into a cage. She could feel the rage vibrating off him, dark magic crackling at his sides.

She watched him close his eyes and take a deep breath, like that was the only thing stopping him from reaching out and snapping her neck right then and there.

When he finally looked at her again, the hatred burning in those gray irises could’ve thawed ice.

“You get that one, human. Do it again, you will regret it. Are we clear?”

Quick as a striking asp, he grabbed her arm and dragged her toward him. Soraya swore her heart stopped for a beat when her chest slammed against his, almost bouncing off the plates of his armor.

“If you weren’t so important to the Ancient One,” he hissed, “I’d kill you right now.”

She was an idiot to rile him like this—but Soraya had never backed away from battle, and she had no will or desire to stop herself from holding his gaze, from leaning in until they were almost nose to nose, and whispering back, “If I still had my weapons, you’d be dead already.”

They glared at each other, silence stretching like a void between them.

Ikarus’s face was hard as stone, giving nothing away.

She was going to kill him. She didn’t know how or when—and be damned if it killed her too, but mark her fucking words, she was going to be the end of Ikarus.

Like he’d heard the words in her head, Ikarus’s hand suddenly lunged for her throat, and he speared into her mind before she could react.

He was a memory walker after all, then. Fuck.

His magic was everywhere, easily slicing across her consciousness like a knife through butter. Soraya squeezed her eyes closed, trying to grasp the blade that was his power with her hands and push him back and away from some mental door she felt deep within herself, away from the Arch and battle plans, away from her friends.