Heart of Iron

  The tracking chip burst.

  Jax

  The stars passed by slower and slower the farther they sailed from Eros, the stretches between them growing larger the longer they sped. Their destination was Xourix, a space station hidden in the asteroid belt, out beyond Cerces. Out of kingdom space. It was safe only for the right price, and Jax didn’t want to know what price Siege would pay.

  Jax had never flown so recklessly in his entire life. Messiers had pursued, relentlessly hot on their solar trails, until Siege’s friends finally helped him shake them off around Iliad’s rings. It was a detour they couldn’t afford, and now the quickly-patched sails groaned at full mast, catching the solar winds out into no-man’s-land.

  He hadn’t slept in two days, his hands barely leaving the helm. He couldn’t risk autopilot. Too much computer interference might tip off the Messiers, and he didn’t want to risk that. The entire kingdom was on high alert, and so little sleep was making him bleary-eyed and numb.

  He tapped his fingers on his armrest, eyeing the comm-link. He was tempted to radio the infirmary. He wanted to know if . . .

  A knot swelled in his throat.

  He didn’t know Robb’s fate anymore, and worry kept him company as he watched the screens for any ships that might try to ping them.

  And Ana . . . he would rather not think of Ana. Thinking of her only made his chest ache, and he didn’t think he could hurt any more in his lifetime.

  “Jax?” Talle greeted him, knocking on the cockpit doorframe. “I can keep the cockpit for a while.”

  Jax twirled his chair around. “Nah, I’m fine. It’s quiet up here—”

  “He woke up,” she interrupted.

  He jumped to his feet. “I hate quiet. Tell me if you see anything pop up on that screen,” he said, motioning to the half dozen holo-screens. “Any of the screens.”

  He was out of the cockpit and down the main corridor before Talle had the chance to nod, past the galley and crew’s quarters, to the infirmary downstairs. A curtain separated two beds, and he threw it back, not even pausing to catch his breath.

  Captain Siege sat in a chair by Robb’s bedside. They were talking in quiet tones until Jax appeared. “Sorry,” Jax excused himself breathlessly. “I’ll wait outside—”

  “Nah, he’s been asking about you. Couldn’t get him to shut up,” said the captain, standing. “Think about it, okay?” Robb nodded and she left, clapping a hand on Jax’s shoulder.

  When she was gone, Jax finally got up the courage to look at Robb.

  He lay on a gurney, his face sallow with a thin sheen of sweat. He couldn’t look more dead even if he tried, but he was awake, and his blue eyes were piercing like a clear Erosian sky.

  Jax had realized, in the moments he thought Robb would bleed out in the cargo bay, that he wanted to fly into those eyes. He wanted to get lost in them. Just once. If they just opened one more time.

  But now, standing in front of the Ironblood, he realized how silly that sounded. Because he didn’t care that much for an insufferable Ironblood who was quite possibly from the worst family in the universe.

  Really he didn’t.

  “I wasn’t asking about you,” the Ironblood said hoarsely.

  “I know,” Jax replied, fidgeting with his gloves. He came to sit down on the side of Robb’s gurney. He didn’t know what to say, now that Robb was awake. In the last two days, he had thought up entire conversations, ones that could last for hours, but now face-to-face with him . . . he couldn’t think up a single one.

  “The captain was giving me her condolences. For my mother.” Robb’s voice broke at the mention of her, and Jax reached to put a comforting hand over his—

  But it wasn’t there.

  Jax quickly drew his hand back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

  “It doesn’t hurt,” Robb said, rolling his shoulder. His arm faded to a nub halfway to where his elbow should have been, bandaged and spotty with blood. “Not yet, anyway. Talle did a good job.”

  “She and Lenda did the best they could, but . . .”

  “I’m alive, and I think that’s good enough.”

  Jax felt his lips twitch up into a grin. “I doubt that’ll ever be good enough for you, Robb Valerio.”

  In reply, the Ironblood gave a sad smile. “I gave that up last night after you left. I’m not a Valerio anymore. My entire life I thought my name made me who I was—I grew up knowing that as truth. That I was just a bad Valerio. But now that I’m not a Valerio at all, I don’t feel any different. I’m still me.” But then he bit his bottom lip and added hesitantly, “The captain gave me her last name, if I wanted it.”

  Jax said the proposed name to see how it felt on his tongue. “Robbert Siege—”

  “It’s not Siege. It’s an Ironblood name.”

  “No shit.”

  “Yes shit.”

  “Well, are you gonna take it?”

  “I’m not sure if I deserve it. I was selfish for a really long time. I only cared about myself. I don’t think I’ve earned it,” he replied bitterly. He glanced over to the other bed, sectioned off with a curtain. The soft beep of Ana’s heart monitor kept them company. “I don’t know how we’re alive. She must be the Goddess to have survived that.”

  Jax hesitated. “Di was a medic. He knew what he was doing. The blade missed her vital organs. She didn’t survive because she was the Goddess. She survived because Di loved her.”

  “And then we left him,” Robb muttered.

  He turned his eyes down to Robb’s missing forearm. “He’s not Di anymore. Even if we did somehow get him back, he killed people. The Grand Duchess. Countless guards . . . almost Ana. How would you feel if you came back to your senses after that?”

  “I don’t know.” The curly-headed boy sighed, frustated, through his nose. “He didn’t kill me back in the shrine—he could’ve, but he didn’t. There was another Metal—a girl, Ana’s handmaiden—she killed my mother. She looked evil. Di . . . Di didn’t. He’s still in there somewhere.”

  Jax studied Robb silently. Was this really that boy from Nevaeh—the one who fell out of Jax’s skysailer, and fought him in a duel, and bled on his favorite coat?

  “Chivalry looks good on you, ma’alor,” he said, brushing a dark curl out of Robb’s face. “And I hate that I like it.”

  “Your flattery will only get you so far,” Robb joked, trying to grin, but it turned sour and bitter. “I like you, but I have no right to say that. For what my mother did—for what I did. But . . . if there was a way for you to forgive me, no matter how long it takes, would you let me? Will you let me try to be worthy of you?”

  The question took Jax by surprise.

  He sat back, quite unable to find a response.

  I’ve seen your stars, he wanted to say, and this is impossible.

  All his life he’d thought that all fates flowed in a continuous, never-ending river, but now the current was disrupted, the path unsettled. They had changed the stars, and he was falling in love with a boy who should have died.

  Robb shifted, uncomfortable. “Or—or if you don’t feel the same way—”

  “I’m sorry,” Jax began, but when he looked into Robb’s eyes, there were tears there. Alarmed, he quickly added, “No, no! That’s not what I meant! I don’t mean—”

  “I knew you wouldn’t. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Tears curved down Robb’s cheeks, and, almost exasperated, Jax wiped them away.

  “I can’t lie, you insufferable Ironblood,” he chided. “I’m apologizing because I can’t forgive you right now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to kiss you, ma’alor. And it doesn’t mean I don’t like you. I do. I like you, but do you really want me? Someone who can’t touch other people? That’s my reality. I’ll never kiss you without seeing your fate. I’ll never touch you without seeing how you’ll die. Am I someone you could be happy with?”

  Robb’s brow furrowed. “Screw fate. I’ll tear down the stars for you.”

  For him? Even though
Jax had to wear gloves, and could never brush his lips against Robb’s jawline without seeing the stars, never kiss Robb’s ears, or trace the lines of his body, or feel the heat that pulsed just beneath his skin, hot and red and wanting. Jax felt his throat tighten as tears pooled at the edges of his eyes. He didn’t cry. He never cried.

  Robb took Jax’s hand, and kissed his gloved knuckles. “And lucky for you,” Robb added, “I’m not planning to ever die, so you don’t have to worry about my stars.”

  He laughed. “You make being mad at you hard, ma’alor.”

  “I plan on making it impossible,” replied Robb, and raised an eyebrow. “What does ma’alor mean?”

  Jax chewed on his bottom lip. “It means . . .” But he couldn’t bear that sort of embarrassment, so he simply leaned into the Ironblood and kissed him. Savoring the moment, the unknowingness of it all.

  Until new images came flooding across his senses like a wave of darkness across the stars.

  Hive

  The Royal Guard patrolling the door jumped when he approached. “Sorry, sir, this is a private Iron Council meeting—”

  “I am expected.” He grabbed the woman by her chin and flicked her head to the left. There was a crack, and she slumped to the floor.

  Inside the meeting, the poor Ironbloods were bickering about who would next wear the crown. They sat around a glass table, either too young to remember the face he wore, or too old to care. All the great heads of family were there—well, the ones who were left.

  There were no video feeds of the massacre. There were no reports. The HIVE had successfully altered or wiped all accounts from the feeds. The survivors would not be believed. The HIVE would see to that. More importantly, no one knew his face—at least, not outside of history books.

  The only thing left of that day was the blood he could not seem to get out from underneath his nails, and a creaking in his shoulder.

  He straightened his black suit as he came into the Iron Council meeting, his hair pulled back loosely with a silver tie.

  The Iron Crown gleamed in the middle of the table.

  Some of the Ironbloods tucked their rust-stained fingers into their laps; others clenched their fists. He smirked. They’d all tried to wear the crown. Pity none of them could.

  “Who are you?” asked Lord Carnelian, the arrowhead markings under his eyes faded with age.

  “I wish to test the crown,” he told the council. “Perhaps the Goddess has chosen me.”

  “That still doesn’t tell us who you are,” replied a young woman with strawberry blond hair and light eyes—the Wysteria girl. The one who danced with Ana. Her fingertips were the only ones not rusted. She had not tried to wear the crown. “I’ve never seen you before.”

  “What house do you hail from?” asked another young Ironblood. Blue eyes, curly black hair. The eldest Valerio—Erik.

  He took the pendant from around his neck, and tossed it onto the table. The half-melted Valerio crest rolled to a stop. There were only four known in the kingdom.

  Erik Valerio prickled. “I don’t recognize you. Who are your parents? You don’t even look like a Valerio.”

  He turned his eyes blue like an Erosian sky and lifted his gaze. “Are you sure?”

  Erik Valerio stiffened. “It doesn’t matter. They’ve decided on me. The Grand Duchess—”

  “Does not speak for the Goddess,” he interrupted. “And bless her stars, she is no longer with us.”

  There was a murmur through the council as they shifted in their seats, weighing his words.

  He flourished his hands toward the crown. “May I?”

  Erik Valerio opened his mouth to object when two other Ironbloods slid the crown, sitting on a pillow of crushed velvet, to the end of the table. They watched him with unease—with the exception of the Wysteria girl, who looked as though she had finally placed his face. No matter. The HIVE’s sweet song was loud and strong, drowning out the roaring, horrible sound of the shadow he used to be.

  And he reached for the iron crown.

  Ana

  At first, she thought she was dreaming.

  The Dossier’s infirmary was quiet and bright, the place she always felt safest, but she couldn’t quite remember how she’d gotten here.

  Slowly, she pulled her legs over the side of the bed and felt the cold tiles under her feet.

  Where was everyone?

  She tried to stand, but pain throbbed in her stomach, and she remembered—the palace, the HIVE, Di. She had her dagger pressed against his ribs, and she knew where to aim, where to slice, but she . . .

  She couldn’t.

  And he ran her through. He—

  The steady blip of her heart monitor began to quicken and skip, until she tore the patches off her neck and the beeping went silent.

  A whirring overhead caught her ears, and she glanced up to find E0S in the corner.

  “What’re you doing here?” she asked, her voice tight and scratchy, as if she hadn’t used it in a while. The bot turned and floated over to her, sinking onto her lap, and she noticed something small in its retractable arms. “What do you have there?”

  It bleeped, its lens closing, as she pulled a small cube out of its grip. It was barely bigger than a copper. A memory core. It pulsed gently, flaring and dimming with a gray-white light. Her eyebrows furrowed as she held it, the scrapes and dents across its surface like old battle wounds.

  “Is this Di’s?” she whispered.

  E0S bleeped again. Yes.

  She closed her fingers around it as the bot grabbed her by her nightshirt and pulled. She got to her feet and followed the bot up the stairs. There was a voice coming down the hallway. It was familiar, and loud—much too loud.

  She climbed the stairs and turned down the hallway toward the cockpit, like she had done her entire life, but it felt so strange now. The hallway was too small, the ship too cramped. She gripped the memory core tightly, pressing it against her stomach. The wound throbbed, but it was a pain she could endure, because she knew that voice.

  She followed it like a siren’s song.

  Her fingertips brushed the rusted walls, the sounds of Wick’s fiddle and Riggs’s voice playing phantom songs in her head. Barger’s boisterous laugh, the hum of Di’s Metal parts as she pressed her forehead against his.

  The ship was full of ghosts.

  Ahead in the cockpit, the crew stood watching the starshield. They didn’t hear her come to the doorway and lean against it, her very bones aching. She was just so tired.

  In the video, the steward, in a too-tight morning coat, addressed the crowd from a podium in front of the palace. “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the death of our Empress.”

  Her death? Was she dead?

  She gripped the doorway, looking around at the crew, or whoever was left. Robb was in a chair, his shoulder bandaged up with gauze, tapering to nothing at all. He looked sunken, terrified. Jax stood behind him like the backbone Robb needed. Lenda shifted against the wall, arms crossed, as Talle massaged Siege’s shoulders. The captain sat in the pilot chair, hair dark for the first time Ana could remember, and she could finally see the gray between her black curls.

  The cockpit felt empty and heavy with all the people they’d lost. Wick, Barger, Riggs . . . Di. Her Di. But now every time she thought about him, her wound flared, crippling.

  The steward’s face flickered on the screen as the Dossier caught another solar draft. She could feel the shift under her feet, the spirals of stars rushing past. On a small screen in the corner of the starshield, a dot moved toward the asteroid belt. Toward Xourix.

  Her captain was desperate enough to go to Xourix.

  “Four days ago, a Metal attacked the heart of our kingdom. The lives of countless Ironbloods were lost, including the Grand Duchess Armorov, Cynthia Valerio, Quintin Machivalle, Vermion Carnelian, and Gregori Rasovant.”

  Her fists clenched at the feeling of driving the dagger into him.

  She had killed someone.

&nbs
p; Count your bullets, Siege had said, but the guilt of killing someone didn’t suffocate her like she thought it would. She could have spared Rasovant, but as he’d reached into his robes she’d made her choice, and she had prayed for a heart of iron. In that moment, she had thought that the Moon Goddess hadn’t answered.

  But maybe she had.

  Her hands were not shaking, and blood washed off like every other stain. She’d tried being the daughter the kingdom wanted. The girl who studied the law and followed the rules. But now she knew—there were no rules. There was no peace.

  Only blood, and iron, and flames.

  “But in this hour of great need we need a great leader. We need someone chosen by the Goddess to combat these terrible crimes. We need someone with merit, someone with knowledge of the demons we fight. Someone who can unite our kingdom in this time of darkness.”

  “It’s going to be Erik, I know it’s going to be Erik,” Robb murmured from his chair, his hand over his mouth.

  Jax squeezed his left shoulder tightly. “He’ll be a terrible ruler. Someone will kill him off.”

  “That’s not any better,” Siege replied.

  “And the Goddess gifted us a ruler in our greatest moment of need. We look to him for guidance.”

  But the man who came into view was not Erik Valerio.

  She knew that gait—too smooth and too unnatural—and the color of his bloodred hair. He was dressed in all black, a crimson ascot knotted at his throat. His face was just as she remembered, seared into her nightmares. The sharpness of his cheekbones, the slant of his lips, the constellation of freckles across his nose.

  She clutched the memory core against her stomach, feeling the core pulse again, and again, in a steadying rhythm. A heartbeat.

  The redheaded young man knelt on one knee, and as the steward placed the crown upon Di’s head, Ana felt a strange shift in the universe, as if the stars had turned upside down and the sun was no longer theirs.

  “Rise, Emperor of the Iron Kingdom,” said the steward, and the man rose to his feet again, turning his gaze to the crowd. His eyes shone blue—pupils as dark as space. Lightless, unending nothing.