Heart of Iron Read online

  In the middle of the aisle, the Messiers pressed back against one another, their vision resetting. That was smart, to trick Metal optics with a flashbang and use the blowback to wipe out the candles. Assuming it was on purpose.

  It probably wasn’t.

  The shrine was almost completely dark now, the only light the colorful streams coming through the mosaic windows.

  He blindly took another step back toward the side exit. Almost there. Then he could call for his skysailer and ride it off into the sunset like nothing had happened.

  The coordinates chip in his pocket felt heavy, weighed down by all the years he’d been searching for Lord Rasovant’s lost fleetship. He couldn’t lose it now. He had somewhere to go—somewhere to find answers. After seven years of searching, he deserved them.

  The person who must have thrown the flashbang was grabbing Mokuba by the hand. Tattered burgundy coat, a Metroid at her hip, long black hair in a renegade braid, and looking like she hadn’t bathed in a week—the girl must’ve been an outlaw.

  With Mokuba in tow, she turned to pursue the person with the coordinates—him.

  Yeah, he needed to leave like three seconds ago.

  Pressing the comm-link pinned to his lapel, he snapped, “Ride. I need a ride!” and made a mad dash for the side exit.

  Ten feet, five—

  A shadowy figure stepped in front of him, hood pulled low. Robb collided with it—a brick wall would’ve had more give—and stumbled back, holding his nose.

  “Goddess!” he cried in pain.

  The figure raised its head slightly, white eyes gleaming.

  A chill curled down his spine. A rogue Metal, of all the things. Its soulless gaze flickered toward Robb’s hand inching toward the lightsword on his back, as if daring him. For a moment, he actually hesitated. The Metal could break his arms in two moves if it wanted to.

  I’ll chance it.

  With a cry, he reached for his sword—

  The girl tackled him from behind and slammed both him and the Metal into the door. It gave a groan and swung outward onto a staircase and into the grimy alleyway. He grappled for the railing, trying to catch his footing, but his ankle bent. He tumbled down the steps, striking his head against the cement.

  The world split with pain and he gasped, gagging on his own breath.

  Beside him lay the girl—the one who’d thrown the flashbang. Mokuba rushed down the steps, the Metal bending the door handles inward so the Messiers couldn’t follow.

  Robb rolled onto his knees, world spinning, and pulled himself to his feet. His head pounded. He wanted to vomit.

  Worth it, it’s worth it, he tried to convince himself as he heard the sound of a skysailer drawing closer. His ride. He reached his hand up, higher, higher—

  “Stop!” the girl cried, standing quickly. “I need those coordinates!”

  The skysailer broke over the buildings. It came in low, tilting sideways.

  “No hard feelings,” he told her as one of his family’s guards leaned out and took him by the hand as the ship passed, its fanlike wings almost scraping the ground.

  The girl screamed for him to wait—why, so the Messiers would catch him too? Great Dark strike him, he’d rather not.

  The guard heaved him into the skysailer and banked the boat upward, so sharply Robb’s head spun. He lay down on the backseats, trying to keep from vomiting.

  “We’re late to your brother’s announcement ceremony, sir,” said the guard. He was older, with a graying mustache, the most loyal to Robb’s late father—and more loyal with a sack of coppers to keep him from tattling to Robb’s mother. “Your mother will not be pleased.”

  “I’ve got my entire life to kiss my brother’s ass when he’s crowned Emperor. I think I can be late to one more party,” he muttered, fishing in his coat pocket for the coordinates chip Mokuba had sold him. He held it toward the skylight, its insides sparkling green.

  The guard eased into Nevaeh’s flying traffic. Skysailers zoomed past them, the sound of the congested airwaves enough to drown out his thundering heart. “What shall the excuse to Lady Valerio be this time, sir?” asked the guard.

  Once, a Solani who claimed she could read the stars had told Robb that his silver tongue would be his undoing, and he took that as a compliment. Lying was an art form. He simply had perfected it.

  “I was paying my respects to the Goddess,” he replied, and curled his fingers around the coordinates chip as the skysailer rose toward his family’s floating guarden in Nevaeh’s man-made sky.

  Ana

  The skysailer with that stupid Ironblood climbed into the air, leaving a cold feeling in Ana’s gut. There went Di’s last chance, disappearing into the Nevaeh sky right before her eyes.

  Behind her, the shrine’s side door buckled out with the force of the Messiers on the other side.

  Di pressed his back against the door to keep it closed. He must have stopped glitching after she lobbed the flashbang.

  “That door won’t hold,” Mokuba said nervously, taking her by the arm. “Kid, you gotta get out of here before they break through. If they catch you or your Metal, then Siege’ll skin me alive. You were stupid to come after those coordinates. I told you no to begin with—”

  “I have to!” She twisted out of Mokuba’s grip. “Di, we need to call Jax.”

  “On his way,” Di replied.

  She gave a relieved sigh. “Goddess, I’m glad you didn’t glitch long.”

  “My”—Thud! The door shook again—“apologies.”

  “Kid, don’t go after it,” Mokuba begged. “It’s cursed. People have died for those coordinates. You don’t understand. This whole thing is—”

  A lightsword sliced through the door beside Di’s head. He ducked out of the way, but not quick enough before it tore through half of his hood.

  Sweat prickled on Mokuba’s upper lip. “Ana, you have to run.”

  “But—”

  “Now,” the info broker snapped. His black eyes were frightened and desperate. She had never seen Mokuba like this before. “Siege’ll kill me if anything happens to you.”

  “What’ll you do?”

  “Distract them.”

  Alarmed, she shook her head. “They’ll catch you. They’ll—”

  The Messiers kicked the door open, and it fell outward with a terrifying crash.

  Hurtling over the railing, Di landed at the bottom of the stairs and curled his cold gloved hand around her wrist. He pulled her down the grimy alleyway before she had a chance to argue, leaving Mokuba to face the Messiers alone.

  Jax

  As a Solani, Jax prided himself in knowing two things: how to fly absolutely anything, and how to stay out of trouble. The first was a breeze. He had a knack for flying, and when he closed his eyes he could feel the stars orbit around him no matter where he was, so he could never get lost.

  The second, however, was proving to be a problem. Along with his excellent way-finding skills, he was taught at a young age to stay out of conflict. Solani were good at that: sticking to their heritage, never leaving their homes, growing old under the stars, and coasting under kingdom radar—

  But being Ana’s getaway driver made staying out of trouble very, very difficult. Maybe he should have picked an easier job instead of being the most talented and respected pilot on the wrong side of the law.

  Still, on days like this, he wondered if it was worth a lifetime in jail. Solani didn’t fare so well in dark places.

  Gunfire exploded through the alleyway below. He leaned over the skysailer, squinting down into the mess of Nevaeh. Ana and D09 sprinted down the alleyway. A few yards behind, gaining speed, six of the kingdom’s mindless legion pursued them.

  “You were supposed to babysit her, metalhead, not send her into the middle of a firefight,” Jax muttered, tugging at his leather gloves—a nervous habit—and swooped into the no-fly airspace below.

  The sailer purred like a kitten, its silvery wings fanning up on either side of the hull, soaking
in the solar light coming through the harbor high above them. Wind whistled through the cracks in the cockpit shield as he ducked out of the airstream, gliding toward Ana and her boyfriend—

  Metal, he corrected himself. Metal boyfriend.

  Warning signals sprang up on his console. NO FLY. RETURN TO ROUTE. He swiped them away with a flick of his finger. If he was going to get arrested for anything, it wouldn’t be because he was flying in a no-fly zone.

  In twenty yards the alleyway broke out into a crowded market square. Nervous sweat prickled the back of his neck; he only had one shot at this.

  He unlatched the shield and shoved it up.

  “Ana! Di—Ak’va!” he cursed as a bullet ricocheted off the dash. He pushed on his goggles, his long silver ponytail swirling up like a streamer in the wind.

  D09 grabbed Ana by the waist, skidded to a stop, and lifted his hand—

  Jax jerked the helm left. The ship tilted sideways, diving into the alley. The left wing scraped the ground, leaving a trail of sparks.

  He outstretched his free hand.

  Fifteen yards, ten—

  Di caught ahold of his arm, and as the ship burst into the market square, Jax used the momentum to swing them into the cockpit and right the ship. The sailer grazed over the top of the crowd, rising sharply, and burst out from between the buildings, higher and higher until the Messiers were dots with glowing blue eyes.

  Ana scrambled to her feet, and grappled for the back of his chair. “We have to go after that skysailer! Did you see it? It’s—”

  “I saw it,” Jax interrupted, looking up at the ship rising through the slipstreams of traffic. “And that means you don’t have the coordinates.”

  D09 inspected his cut hood. “We ran into some problems.”

  “Obviously.”

  Even if the Messiers got a good look at their skysailer, thanks to his paranoia it looked like every other standard-grade skysailer in the kingdom. Recognizable, but easy to mix up between his and the one in front of him in traffic.

  Above them, the pinprick of the skysailer in question swirled up into the underbelly of one of the floating Ironblood gardens, and his heart sank. Anywhere else. The Ironblood could’ve gone literally anywhere else.

  “Love,” he said, easing back on the helm, “I think your Ironblood’s late to a party.”

  Ana stared up at the floating patch of greenery. “That’s not . . .”

  “Astoria. The Valerios’ garden estate,” D09 confirmed. “Where the Grand Duchess is scheduled to announce her heir.”

  “Well, we gave it our best,” Jax said lightly, turning the skysailer toward the harbor. “Who’s up for a round of Wicked Luck when we get ba—”

  “We’re going, Jax,” she said stonily.

  “Come again?”

  “It is not wise,” Di agreed.

  “See, when the Metal agrees with me, we have a problem,” he noted dryly.

  She glared at both of them. “Either we’re going or I’m kicking you both off this ship,” she threatened, the tone in her voice making his stomach twist like it did when he stared at the stars for too long.

  He never liked that tone. It usually ended with them trapped in a mine on Cerces, or caught in the middle of a territory war between mercenaries. She wore trouble like royalty wore the Iron Crown, and it fit her a little too well.

  “It’s the Valerios’ garden,” he stressed. “They’re worse than any mercenary group out there.”

  “We’re going,” she repeated.

  He quickly looked away, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

  She went on, “And if I don’t get the coordinates this time, I’ll stop—I promise. Just give me one more chance.”

  He didn’t want to point out that if she got caught, there wouldn’t be a next time, but trying to argue with Ana was like trying to tell the stars to stop shining. Sighing, he pulled at his long, pale ponytail, trying to convince himself this was a good idea, and turned the ship up toward Astoria.

  Ana

  The closer they drew to the floating garden, the louder her heart thundered in her ears. Crashing an Ironblood’s party couldn’t be that difficult. She’d gone through worse. The mine on Cerces was worse. This would be easy. This was just a garden.

  Just a few Ironbloods.

  The floating gardens of Nevaeh were renowned across the kingdom for their beauty and exotic flowers. Ironblood-owned, and Ironblood-funded, the islands rose and fell over the cityscape like the cycles of the moon, and anyone who didn’t have pretty noble blood couldn’t visit.

  And sneaking onto the Valerios’ floating garden . . .

  She wasn’t sure if she was just desperate—or foolish, too.

  Anxiously, she checked the bullets in her Metroid .56; an older pistol Captain Siege had given her three years ago when she turned fourteen.

  “Count your bullets and remember where they land,” Captain Siege had warned. She put a hand over Ana’s to steady her aim. “Once you steal a life, you can never give it back, so easy on the trigger. Exhale. Feet apart.”

  Ana did as she was told and let the captain fix her posture, straightening her back and crooking her elbow, and she found her aim easing toward the target, her finger effortlessly squeezing the trigger. Bull’s-eye.

  “On your way to being a fine captain, I’d say,” Siege had said with a grin.

  Ana still remembered that moment, how those words filled her with pride.

  She hadn’t killed anyone yet, hadn’t started counting her bullets, but she’d come close. How desperate was she for those coordinates?

  The skysailer slipped between the lines of traffic toward the underside of the garden. From this high up, the people in the streets looked like dots of moving sand. Or bugs. If the Moon Goddess existed, did she look at humans that way? As faceless little termites scurrying around, ruining perfectly good foundations?

  Ana had never believed much in the Goddess. She only knew the origin story, as sweet as a bedtime lullaby. How, in a kingdom of shadows, the queen bore a daughter of light who chased the Dark away.

  But would the Moon Goddess protect an outlaw like her?

  Ana prayed anyway, like the old women had in the shrine. Goddess bright, bless my stars and keep me steady.

  “Twenty-five feet and closing,” Jax told them, and added, “Try not to get yourselves killed.”

  “It is a priority not to,” Di replied, earning a glare from Ana as she spun the barrel of her pistol shut and holstered it.

  The skysailer coasted into the marina under the garden, where guests’ skysailers sat parked in rows upon rows of ship ramps. The plan was to go in through the service entrance—hopefully unannounced. The Valerios’ guests used the main entrance on the garden level, so the odds of being found down here were slim to none. Besides, Ana rather liked going in the back door—she didn’t have to knock.

  “Remember,” she said through the comm-link to Jax, watching him drop away into traffic again, “keep low until I get the coordinates, and then—”

  “It’s not my first rodeo, love,” he interrupted, laughing.

  “I do not like this,” Di protested as they hurried across the docking ramp toward the service entrance. “There should be more security—”

  The door to the service entrance slid open.

  A Messier, clad in uniform blue and black, stepped out. It shifted its blue gaze from her to D09, and lingered on him. Ana went silently for her gun. She didn’t like way the Messier stared, as though nothing ticked inside its metal head. Nothing thought.

  Ana glared at Di. “Happy now? Security.”

  “You are trespassing,” the Messier said, and turned its HIVE’d eyes to Di. “And you are rogue.”

  “I am,” Di agreed, then punched his hand into the weakest part of the Messier’s torso and ripped a small glowing square out of its body. Strings of optical wires came with it, stretching like sinew.

  With one final tug, the wires popped away. The Messier’s eyes flickered out, and
it dropped onto the docks. D09 pushed the body over, and it fell and fell and fell into the city, until Ana couldn’t see it anymore.

  She looked back at the glowing square—the Messier’s memory core. It was so small, no bigger than a sugar cube, like Di’s, sitting damaged in his metal chest. It held everything a Metal was, everything they could be. But this one was dark, barely glowing at all—HIVE’d.

  He crushed it in his grip, and she flinched.

  “Are . . . are you sure you needed to do that?”

  “I lack the capacity to be unsure. It was already HIVE’d. Shall we continue?”

  “But—”

  “This way.” He led her through the automatic doors and into a dimly lit hallway. Irrigation pipes above their heads hummed with water, leading them toward what smelled like the kitchen. Floating garden cuisine used only produce grown in the garden. It must have been nice, having food that wasn’t dry-sealed and tasting like dust.

  The smell of baked goods and meats led them to the kitchen, and up a staircase to the garden. There wasn’t door at the top but a curtain of honeysuckle vines. From between them came the sound of a full string quartet playing lively melodies over the chatter of high-society gossip. She relished the noise for a moment, and the scent of magnolias and chocolate twisted into a perfume that made her mouth water.

  She peered out between the vines, not daring to move them, afraid of being seen. Ironbloods were only Ironblooded because their lineage could be traced to the Goddess’s court—or so the Cantos of Light said. But in the midst of lavender roses and orange daffodils, green grass and ivy vines, the Ironbloods looked almost ethereal in their glittery dresses and jeweled coats.

  “How do you plan on infiltrating the party?” Di asked. “We are hardly Ironblooded.”

  “I didn’t get that far. Gimme a minute,” she muttered. Grease-stained trousers and a patched frock coat were’t quite Ironblood attire. She chewed on her bottom lip, glancing into the kitchen at the cooks.

  Di began, “Perhaps we can—”

  Coming out of the kitchen, a waiter with a tray of champagne flutes stopped dead in the doorway. He wore the crimson-and-gold colors of the Valerio house, and a black collar around his throat, humming gently.