Heart of Iron

by Ashley Poston

  The silver-haired boy tugged at his gloves. “If you’re looking for a free fortune, I already gave it.”

  Robb’s eyebrows jerked up. “When we kissed?”

  Jax nodded. “It’s why I don’t touch people without gloves on,” the Solani went on. “That’s why I’m here. Because I saw something in your stars about Ana and— What are you doing?”

  Robb bowed, as far as he could go. “I’m sorry. That I hurt you. When we kissed, I should have asked. I’m sorry.” He was afraid to stand from his bow, waiting for Jax’s response.

  The seconds felt like eons.

  “Stop making a fool of yourself—and stop bowing to me, stars above,” Jax added exasperatedly, and waited for Robb to stand again. “I’m not worth that much groveling.”

  “But you are.”

  Jax sighed, and held out his hand. “Come on—Di and Ana are waiting.”

  Robb hesitated. “Well? Don’t you want to take a dashing boy’s hand?” Oh—oh did he.

  And he wanted to win a Wicked Luck game against this dashing boy. And he wanted to know why he had left his home, what his favorite color was, what food he liked best—what flavor.

  Robb wanted to know him as intimately as a sailor knew the stars.

  But there was so much space between them, filled with all the things Robb had never said, and all the secrets Jax kept. They were victims of an empire built on iron and blood.

  But for a moment, the space looked no bigger than the distance between their hands.

  He reached out and intertwined their fingers.

  “This isn’t me forgiving you,” the Solani chided.

  Robb squeezed his hand tightly, and they left the room together.

  Di

  In the dim lights of the lab, Di watched Ana’s golden-brown eyes flicker across his face. Once, he thought she could recognize him in any body, in any form, in any corner of the universe—

  But she did not recognize him at all.

  “Promise?” she echoed, voice trembling, and sank away. Horror swept over her face like a thunderstorm. “How do you know about that? What are you?” Her voice was rising, rising, like a tide.

  What are you, she had asked. What.

  A thing. Not who.

  His chest tightened uncomfortably, but he fisted his hands, nails digging into his palms, to concentrate on that hurt more.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Ana,” he said thickly, “I do not want anything—”

  She grabbed a book from the counter and threw it at him. He dodged, but another slammed him in the forehead.

  “Goddess,” he cursed—from both the pain and her wickedly good aim.

  “I don’t know how you know me or know about that—that promise,” she raged, “but I swear to the Goddess, if I find out you’re working for Rasovant—”

  “No—”

  “Or the Valerios,” she added, “I’ll gut you spleen to throat, I’ll—”

  A high-pitched squeal cut her off a moment before E0S shot into the room like a bullet and hid underneath Di’s coat.

  “Not the time,” he told it, his voice cracking, until he remembered that E0S was prone to getting into trouble. The bot tugged at his coat. “What is wrong?”

  Messiers, the bot relayed, feeding a brief video through their link. The patrol was not yet to the North Tower, but the HIVE knew they were there. He could hear the signal, screeching and raw, and how—the longer he listened—it began to sound like a song.

  “You have to trust me, Ana,” he said urgently.

  Ana reached for another book to throw.

  “Messiers are coming and we cannot be caught here. I will leave you alone if you just trust me this once. I will go away—forever.” The words hurt, but he would honor them, because his next tore a hole through his center. “I promise you on iron and stars.”

  An unbreakable vow.

  He held out his hand.

  She hesitated a moment longer. She could hear the footsteps now.

  “If you are found here,” he tried to reason with her, “then Rasovant will know what you know. The HIVE already does.”

  And the HIVE was the malware. It controlled the Messiers, the newsfeeds, the docks on the moonbay, and it could infiltrate any ship in kingdom space that didn’t predate the Dossier.

  And that was very, very bad news.

  Hesitantly, she took his hand, and he pulled her out of the lab and down the scorched hallway. He walked briskly, not sure where he was heading, but his feet seemed to know all the same. Like they knew the scent of sage on his uniform, and how the Eros globe in Rasovant’s study squeaked.

  It was something so inherent, he was worried what it meant, now that he had seen the lab.

  E0S followed them, beeping again.

  They left the North Tower, stepping over the prone Metals he had disposed of earlier. Ana gaped down at their ruined chests—and he could see the horror in her eyes, afraid that he would do the same to her.

  Messiers came from the hallway to the left, their footfalls like the heartbeat of a great monster.

  Like him—a monster.

  Ana’s grip tightened in his.

  E0S beeped again and swirled ahead of them, knocking against a closed door near the East Tower. Di took it as a sign and slipped inside. It was a parlor of sorts, where large portraits of ancient Armorovs hung on the walls and delicate vases stood on podiums. Two fainting couches sat against the windows facing the moon garden, a tea set on the coffee table. The room was immaculate, but it looked like it had not been used in years.

  Close, he ordered, and the door clanged shut, the lock switching red.

  Ana quickly let go of his hand, jumping at the automated door. “Who did that?”

  “I did,” he replied, and put a finger to his lips.

  E0S hid underneath his uniform jacket again.

  The march of Messiers grew louder until they were right outside the door—right, left, right, left—as a sharp, grating signal filled the air. He winced against it, recognizing the HIVE.

  The Messiers passed by.

  For a moment he did not want them to, because then he would have to keep his promise.

  Because she sees you as a monster, he thought as the sound of the Messiers faded. Ana backed away from him, her eyes red-rimmed with tears. He did not want to hurt her like this. He would tell Siege to rescue her. Siege could. Perhaps that was the better plan after all, guns blazing.

  He did not know why he had thought Ana would recognize him. It was an error on his part. She was human, after all.

  And he was exponentially less.

  He forced himself to bow, unable to meet her gaze. “I will go.”

  He turned to leave when her voice stopped him.

  “If you don’t work for Rasovant, who are you?”

  Who.

  With his back turned, he said, “You called me Di.”

  “Di?” she echoed, and before he could respond, she had grabbed a handful of his uniform collar, turning him around to face her. “I watched him die . . . I killed him! You don’t even look like him. You don’t sound like him. You don’t . . .”

  “I know,” he replied, trying to gently uncurl her fingers from his collar—so he could leave. He had promised to. “I must admit, this is one of my worse plans—definitely worse than that mine on Cerces, and the time you ran me over with a skysailer.”

  Her eyes widened. “How did you . . . No one . . .” She sank to her knees, dragging him with her. “You can’t be . . .”

  But still, she would not let go.

  As if she wanted to believe.

  There were over a million possibilities more likely, a million chances more probable. But he was here, and he could finally feel her warm hands, run his thumbs along her calluses.

  He was here.

  And without planning, without calculating, without thinking, he leaned forward—as if it was the most natural thing in the world—and pressed his forehead against hers. Like they always
had. Ever since he could remember. The smell of her flooded his senses, moonlilies, rich and wonderful, her forehead warm against his. She looked so different without hair. Stronger, sharper edges and bolder curves.

  Her scars were a star chart of latitudes and longitudes crisscrossing, string across string, painting a constellation across her cheek. He ran his thumb across it, tracing the lines, and finally raised his eyes to look into hers, as golden and as brilliant as a sunrise.

  He had never known this feeling, and now there was an ache for all the time lost. He drank her in, filling every program, every errant code, every dormant function, with nothing but her. With the imprint of her, the memory, the moment.

  She searched his eyes, strangely, wonderingly, trying to find something inside. He did not know what she wanted to find, but he hoped she found him. Her Di.

  Hesitantly, she touched his face, her fingertips quivering against his skin as if he was a mirage about to fade, and he leaned into her warmth, closing his eyes, savoring, thinking, I am here, I am here.

  “He died,” she whispered. “I saw him die.”

  Di smiled sadly. “I will always come back to you.”

  And with all his iron heart, he believed it.

  She heaved a sob and wrapped her arms around his neck. She buried her face into his shoulder, so tightly, as if she were afraid to be pried away.

  He set his chin on her head. “I am sorry, I am so sorry,” he repeated, feeling her tears dampening his uniform shoulder.

  “Why are you sorry? I was the one who wanted to sneak onto that ship. I was the one who led you into danger. I killed you—”

  He pushed her away from him. “No,” he said, looking into her eyes so she would understand, “I went because I wanted to.”

  “You went because you always go,” she argued, “and I always lead you into trouble.”

  “Because I will follow you anywhere,” he insisted. “To the ends of the galaxy, if I have to. I want to exist where you exist, and that is enough.”

  Then she leaned forward, and he made a move to try and catch her, worried she was falling—

  She pressed her lips against his. They were warm and soft. It was like the kiss from Astoria, a second, a moment, a breath—

  One point three seconds—and gone.

  “Oh, Goddess!” she gasped, pulling away, leaving the tingling, electric sensation against his lips. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean . . . that was . . . I didn’t—”

  He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into another kiss, and she melted into him, pressing as close as she could, and still he wanted to be closer. Her fingers threading into his hair, his around her waist, moving, exploring. Calculations had no room here, probability and chances washed away to a deeper longing. His tongue traced the contour of her lips, memorizing her taste, her motion, her method. The kiss lit a million suns in between his zeroes and ones, and made him infinite.

  He did not want to let go. He did not want to leave—he would not. It was that voice that cried this, deep inside him, growing louder and louder. It was selfish. It was damning. But he did not want to forget the taste of her, her warmth, her curves, her smell. It was selfish and it was human.

  And for a moment he allowed himself to be.

  Until finally, she slid away, coming up for air. “You, too?” she whispered, her breath hot against his lips, hopeful, her eyes blazing like suns rising for him.

  He pressed his forehead against hers. “On iron and stars,” he promised.

  Ana

  She wanted to drink him in like the dawn, and she wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He was a stranger. He was stranger.

  The way he looked, red hair and pale skin, sharp jaw and thick eyebrows. So human it almost scared her—it had scared her. The body was still Rasovant’s creation. It was still a secret the Adviser had tried to hide, but every time she looked into his pitch-black eyes the fear ebbed. Because there was her Di, staring back.

  He took her hand tightly, brown to pale skin, where there used to be silver, and she thought how different they both were now.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, his voice strange—tight. Afraid? Did he sound afraid?

  “How can you—you know? You can’t feel or—I mean you couldn’t. Because—you can’t—it’s not . . . you’re . . .”

  One side of his lips twitched up. He raised their joined hands and rubbed his thumbs against her knuckles. “I can feel that,” he said, flipping her hand over to trace her lifeline, “and that as well . . .” Then he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the tender spot on her wrist, and she shivered. “And that.”

  A warm, ravenous feeling burned in her stomach.

  “But I assure you,” he said, turning her hand back over, “I am ninety-nine-point-nine-eight percent me.”

  “How about that point-oh-two percent?”

  “Everyone needs a little mystery.” And he smiled. The way he looked at her made her want to stay in this moment until the sun exploded and the cosmos caved in on itself. He was here. He was alive.

  Di was alive, and it felt like she could finally breathe again.

  But looking at him, a stranger with the heart of her best friend, reminded her of what she had discovered in the dark lab. About Rasovant. About the HIVE. And painfully—achingly—she stood, her hand slipping out of his, which left the ghost of an impression on her skin.

  “I can’t stay here,” she muttered. “I have to go tell Robb about the lab, and the Metals, and—and you.”

  “He already knows about me,” Di replied matter-of-factly, rising to his feet too. He dusted off the knees of his trousers. “Well, this me. In this body. We had quite a good conversation—”

  “It doesn’t bother you?” she asked him. “What we learned in that lab? Don’t you wonder who you were? Don’t you care what the Plague took away—what Rasovant stole?”

  He sighed, and said quietly, “Of course I do, Ana.”

  “You used to be human.” She tucked a piece of his red hair behind his ear. “You used to be alive. And then Rasovant took your memories, your life—and used you to make a Metal. Goddess,” she gasped. “I destroyed the computer. It had everything on it!”

  “It needed to be destroyed.”

  “But I could have shown it to the rest of the kingdom, Di. I had proof! Rasovant killed my father because he was afraid the Great Dark would come back. He’s taking away Metal sentience—your sentience—because of some story. He’s a madman.”

  “Yes,” Di agreed, “and a madman with a lot of power is very dangerous. Imagine if other bad people got their hands on a way to create Metals—people worse than Rasovant. Ana, it needed to be destroyed.”

  “But Rasovant murdered the entire royal family—”

  “No. You are still alive.”

  She jabbed a finger back at the door. “Then I want to make that bastard sorry he ever let one little girl get away!”

  Di pursed his lips. Ana hadn’t meant to snap at him—but she didn’t know how else to feel. Happy that Di was alive, heartbroken to have remembered her brothers and watched them fade again, angry that she had destroyed the evidence of Rasovant’s corruption? The Iron Adviser had killed her father—and Mercer Valerio had found his body. That was why Robb’s father called the guards, but before they could arrive . . . the HIVE set the fire.

  And so no one knew—everyone believed Lord Rasovant and his lies. The kingdom let him HIVE innocent Metals and pretended not to notice.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not angry at you. I just . . .”

  “It is okay. I understand,” he replied, pulling his bloodred hair back into a ponytail. It was such a strangely human thing to do, as if he’d done it half his life. “But try to understand me, too. The HIVE will do anything to protect its creator. It set the fire in the North Tower—and then on the Tsarina it tried to kill us for finding the ship. There is no telling what else it will do if you provoke it.”

  Her hands curled in
to fists. “The HIVE is a monster.”

  He winced at that, and her feet slowed to a stop.

  “It is, Di.”

  “No more monstrous than I,” he replied to the floor. “I would do anything for you, too.”

  “It’s nothing like you, Di. You saved me when the fire broke out. We ran with Robb’s father onto the closest ship we could find.”

  He glanced up at her, surprised. “You remember?”

  She looked away and gave a slight shrug. There were so many strange memories in her head, trying to fit together like puzzle pieces with the wrong shapes. “But the HIVE—the malware—was on the ship. The only way to get us out was to eject our escape pod manually. He said he would be in the next one, but he lied . . . he just ejected ours.”

  “Then Siege found us,” Di filled in, and Ana scoffed at the mention of her captain. “She told me what had happened.”

  “She lied to me.”

  “Siege wanted to protect you.”

  Ana’s brows furrowed. “I wish she could’ve.”

  Di rubbed the back of his neck, his lips pressed into a thin line as though he heard something she couldn’t. “I asked her to keep you hidden, and to wipe my memories—I do not think I will ever get them back. But that led to my glitches.”

  “And the glitches led us to the Iron Shrine, and Mokuba, who led us to the Tsarina again.”

  “Which led us here.”

  “Led you here,” she corrected.

  “To you.”

  He took her hand, twining their fingers together, and kissed her knuckles, his lips so light it melted the anger in her bones and left butterflies instead.

  Suddenly, out in the hallway, a door slammed. Ana jumped, startled, as the sound of the distinct march of Messiers returned. This time she could hear the guards opening doors, checking each room.

  “We must leave,” he said, squeezing her hand tightly. “Let’s go home.”

  Home. She wanted to go home more than anything else.

  He pulled her toward the open parlor window. It dropped out into the garden, where moonlilies were beginning to open again like springtime buds on Eros. “I have memorized the guard patrols. We can jump down into the garden and leave the way I entered. Riggs parked a skysailer for us on the docks—”