Soul of Stars Read online

  The streets of Nevaeh teemed with citizens, crowded into the avenues that crisscrossed over the city. From his perch on the edge of the floating garden of Astoria, they looked like an infestation of vermin. Messiers perched on the rooftops like prison guards, their skins glinting like flares in the morning light. Newsfeed drones orbited around him, cameras feeding his likeness onto large holo-screens so even the citizens near the slums could not escape his gaze.

  The HIVE thrummed in his head like a heartbeat. It told him who he was, and who he needed to be, and what to say.

  He spread his arms wide and the citizens roared his name.

  “Goddess bless the Emperor!” they cried. “Goddess light his way!”

  In the light spilling from the harbor above, he looked like a god, sunshine catching in his red hair, turning strands orange and gold. It reflected off the toggles and buttons on his rich black cloak, sparkling off the diamonds sewn into the fabric in galactic swirls. His cuff links burned like fire, the Valerio clasp around his neck like molten gold.

  He looked like an icon—a god of the sun to rival the memory of their moon goddess.

  Behind him, his Royal Guard, in their simple purple uniforms, stood in a quiet line. His sister had replaced all the human guards with Messiers after his coronation. Beside them were a few of his Iron Council—the Obsidias and Carnelians and Pyrites. Those who had pledged their unending devotion to the crown.

  Also standing there was the sole Valerio who owned this floating garden. He’d never cared for the Valerio. The man looked on with a narrow sort of envy that was snakelike and wanting.

  He raised his hands higher, palms out, and slowly lowered them. In return, the crowd sank into silence. There were hundreds of thousands of eyes on him, as the HIVE wanted. A beacon for them.

  He savored it, only to close his eyes and see the Empress staring back at him. When his Messiers had caught her on that rooftop, he’d thought she would have been frightened, but there had only been pity in her eyes.

  That irked him.

  Did he look like someone to be pitied? He was a god. “My citizens,” he began, the voice of the HIVE whispering at the back of his tongue, languid like honey, and it was so easy to stoke their fears. Humans hated things they didn’t undertand, so humans hated Metals. It was that simple, and their fear made them that much easier to control while his sister searched for her heart. Once she found it, not even the rage he stoked would save them, and by then there would be no one left to stop her. As he finished his speech, he told the audience, the lie sweet on his tongue, “Follow me, and I will lead you into the light!”

  The crowd roared, a hundred thousand voices amplifying the song in his head. He relished in it. Reveled—

  There was a flash to his right. A sound zipped past his ear, through his red hair, a bullet missing him by a fraction of an inch.

  The HIVE whispered, Lower left, fourth building, street corner, and his gaze lowered to a rogue Metal with a high-grade sniper rifle.

  The crowd below screamed and began to heave like waves in the sea.

  The Metal aimed again in the chaos, cool and composed.

  In a blink, he took control of the rifle. Electricity crackled over its charger, wires whining as it overheated—

  The Metal fired again a moment before the weapon exploded in its grip.

  He felt someone jerk him back from the side of the floating garden and force him to the ground. His gaze refocused on the man on top of him. Chilling blue eyes, brown—almost black—hair shorn short with a floral design shaved into the sides. A Valerio crest was clasped to his throat, knuckle rings glinting as he grabbed his shoulder.

  “Your Excellence,” Erik Valerio said, “it’d be a pity if you’d gotten hurt.”

  He shoved off the Ironblood and silently got to his feet.

  The Royal Guard ushered the Ironbloods into the underbelly of the garden for safety, but he walked to the edge of the garden again and peered down to where the Metal had been.

  It now lay broken on the ground, the explosion from the rifle having carved a hole into half of its face and chest.

  They are growing bolder, said Mellifare, who had gone into the underneath with the guards and Ironbloods.

  Let them try, sister.

  The streets swarmed with panic. People fled for cover, trying to find who or what had shot at the Emperor. There were rebels in the crowd, too. Somewhere, festering like glitches in an otherwise perfect code.

  “Your Excellence, seems like the public doesn’t like you much,” said the Valerio.

  “They are few,” he muttered.

  “Maybe there are more than you think.”

  The Emperor gave him a sharp look, but the Valerio simply bowed and led him into the underbelly of the garden. The other members of the Iron Council were already gathered in one of the hallways, and they quickly genuflected at the sight of him, expressing gratitude that he wasn’t dead.

  “You were so lucky that the young Valerio saved you!” said Lord Obsidia.

  Lady Pyrite nodded. “What is this kingdom coming to?”

  “Heathens,” added a third Ironblood. A Malachite son. “The lot of them. You’re a light in the darkness, Your Excellence.”

  The Iron Council was to serve the Emperor or Empress in their ruling of the kingdom, but they had not helped anyone but themselves for generations. If someone assassinated him, each and every one of them had a plan in place to put themselves on the throne.

  And none wanted it more than Erik Valerio, who was only twenty years old and already head of the Valerio estates after the murder of his mother.

  Erik Valerio had not saved him because he was loyal.

  He turned to Erik Valerio. “Thank you, Lord Valerio. Your mother would have been proud of you. I am proud of you. If I can repay you in any way for saving me, please do not hesitate to ask.”

  Erik smoothed a smile over his lips that was cold and predatory, and flicked his eyes down to the half-melted Valerio pendant at his throat. The pendant he had used to claim the throne almost six months ago.

  “Seeing you alive is enough,” said Erik, his eyes as cold as steel. “We Valerios need to look out for each other, yes?”

  The Emperor cocked his head, imagining what it would be like to rip the Valerio’s lying tongue out of his mouth, but instead simply said, “What a charming sentiment.”

  “Very. I expect you at my party next week—it will be fantastic. Astoria is beautiful this time of year,” Erik added.

  “Yes, of course.”

  The HIVE bloomed in the back of his head, relaying that another Metal had been captured, a moment before one of the Messiers in the hallway bowed and said, “Your Excellence, we found an accomplice. We have brought it up to the garden.”

  “Thank you. Leave us and return to your families. I am sure they are worried.” He gave a flick of his wrist to dismiss the Iron Council.

  As Erik Valerio passed, he very carefully took him underneath the arm, and leaned in. The facade of the dutiful Ironblood slipped away, revealing the envy and rot underneath, and he snarled, “You can fool everyone else, but not me. We both know you’re not a Valerio, and that’s not your crest. Enjoy your time on your stolen throne, because it will be mine.”

  The Ironblood let go of his arm and left with the others to the docks.

  His throne? A flash of anger spiked his processes, but he wrestled to control it and rolled his shoulders back to ease the tension. The Valerio knew how to poke at him, but he had more important matters to attend. He turned his attention to the Messiers and their captive Metal. They had detained it in another hallway that led to a kitchen, forced it to its knees. It looked up at him with glowing moonlit eyes and watched him wearily.

  The Metal was dented, a bullet hole in its shoulder. It wore a leather jacket and knit trousers and shoes—although it did not need to wear anything. It was a weapon. It was not supposed to think on its own.

  “Why do things like you even try?” he asked, more exh
austed than anything else.

  “I am not a thing,” it replied. “And you are not an Emperor—”

  He bent down to the android and snagged it by the chin. “You are nothing.”

  Then, with the HIVE singing in the back of his head, he pushed the code into the Metal, one line at a time.

  At first the Metal twitched. Then it tried to tear out of his grip, but he held firm and fed another line of code, and then another, like humming a tune that would soon get stuck in its head. One note, and then another, and another, and it thrashed in a dance all its own, until the song sang so loud between their link it was a symphony. Its moonlit eyes faded to a soft, sweet blue, and the Messier stilled in his grip.

  “Who are you?” he asked the Metal, and in reply the Messier said, through the mouth of every other Messier who stood guard in the room,

  “I am the HIVE.”

  “See? You are nothing.” He dropped the Messier’s chin and, gathering his cloak, left the room. “We are nothing.”

  Robb

  The dreadnought was enormous.

  It looked like a monstrous bird of prey, a ship built in an era when Ironblood rebellions were common and heirs vied for the throne. They were built as deathships by a mad emperor bent on quelling any uprising, but the destruction they caused was catastrophic—more than the Ironbloods could justify, and as soon as the Emperor died, the ships were decommissioned. There were still graveyards in space where pieces of rebel fleets drifted. Robb had studied the decomissioned dreadnoughts at the Academy, but he’d never thought he would see one in person.

  The sight struck him senseless.

  Over the last six months, the Emperor had recommissioned these deathships. They acted as prisons of sorts now—where Messiers took convicts and outlaws and rogue Metals. They never came out alive. Or dead. They never came out at all, really. He thought the HIVE killed them, but maybe . . . maybe the rumors were true.

  Maybe the HIVE turned them into Metals.

  Robb sorely hoped it was just a rumor. He hoped they weren’t too late—that Ana was still alive. Elara ran a cloaking device over the skysailer to skew the dreadnought’s sonar so they could get close undetected. While no one had ever escaped a dreadnought, no one had ever tried to sneak aboard, either.

  The ship was shaped like a hulking boomerang. The plan was: get in, overload the solar core to shut down the power, and search for Ana—avoiding the entire HIVE in the process. They had about eighteen minutes and thirty-two seconds to cover the entire bloody ship, so he and Jax would have to split up once they got inside.

  It was a terrible idea.

  They didn’t have a better one.

  Jax fastened his hand on the side of the ship, his other hand holding tight to Robb, as Elara, Xu, and the skysailer fell away.

  “Well, this is better than not doing anything, ma’alor,” Jax said over the comm-link.

  “Just barely,” Robb replied, and grabbed ahold of the other handle on the opposite side of the airlock. “But why couldn’t Elara or Xu do this?”

  “You didn’t just suggest that a Metal walk into a ship where they HIVE Metals,” Jax deadpanned.

  He felt his cheeks redden.

  The Dossier was on its way, but it was on the other side of Eros, dropping off medical supplies and rations at a sanctuary. It would get here as fast as it could.

  His mechanical arm twitched, and Robb quickly grabbed his forearm to keep it still, prayed to the Goddess that he could control it.

  Their space suits had been improved upon since the last time Robb went jumping onto another ship—they were the first thing Siege had bought in the wake of the assassination attempt six months ago. (The second thing Siege bought was a drink.) The space suit reminded him of old Royal Guard armor, a plated chest piece, pauldrons, arm armor, gauntlets, and a thick nylon-polymer body mail underneath. The chest piece pulsed gently with a dull light.

  And, thank the Goddess, they were bulletproof.

  Jax dug into the satchel and took out a small square. He pressed it against the lock. The square lit up with three red bars that slowly counted down to a green bar. Then the airlock burst open with a snap, spilling a puff of frozen oxygen into the air. Jax helped him inside first and followed, closing the airlock after them. The chamber gave a sigh and recompressed.

  Robb pressed the button on the side of his helmet, and it folded back into the collar of his spacesuit. He sucked in a lungful of stale recycled air. “Goddess, I hate space.”

  “And tight spaces, and the word moist, and freeze-dried jerky with caminar pepper,” Jax added, looking around the darkened maintenance hallway. “You know what I was just thinking?”

  “How this is a terrible plan?”

  He gave a wry laugh. “About the first time we met. Me, dashing and rogue-ish. You, bleeding all over the newly upholstered backseat of my skysailer.”

  “I only bled a little on your seat—and don’t forget I helped save your life when the skysailer stalled, remember?”

  “You could say I fell for you then, ma’alor.”

  He scowled. “We’re sneaking aboard a death trap and you’re making jokes. What if my metal arm acts up? What if I can’t defend myself and—”

  “Shush,” Jax interrupted, and gently cupped his face in his hands. “Worrying’ll give you wrinkles. You’ll be fine.”

  Robb hesitated as he looked into his partner’s eyes. “How do you know?”

  His partner gave a secretive smile, but there was a strangeness in his eyes that Robb couldn’t place. He pressed a gloved thumb against Robb’s lips—and kissed it. It was the only way they could kiss, with layers between them, always rotating around each other like a binary star.

  Close, but never touching.

  “. . . Jax? Is there something wrong?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Can’t I kiss my partner?” Jax asked, and gently traced this thumb across Robb’s bottom lip.

  Maybe he’s just nervous, Robb thought. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes in the docking bay, then. Either I’ll have Ana—or you will. We’ll be fine.”

  For a moment longer Jax studied Robb’s face, as if he was trying to ingrain it into his memory. “Al gat ha astri ke’eto, ma’alor.”

  Until the next star shines on you.

  “I’ll see you soon,” Robb promised in reply, and watched him leave down the dark maintenance hallway and out of sight.

  It’s nothing, he told himself as he heaved the rucksack, heavy with the tools he needed, onto his shoulder and left down the other way to find the electrical conjunction. Jax is just nervous, like I’m nervous.

  He easily found an open grate into the ventilation ducts, or climbed on top of a cleaning bot to lift himself inside, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, even as everything went according to plan.

  Ana

  A group of six Messiers led her down a long gray hallway. Halogen lights lined the edges like trim work, the doors they passed sealed tight. There were medical wards and living quarters, vacant food halls and empty rooms, their windows dark. She didn’t know where they were taking her on the dreadnought, and that made her all the more nervous.

  She should be dead. She was going to be dead if she didn’t come up with another lie—and fast. At least she knew she’d been right: the HIVE was looking for something in the shrines, and then burning them.

  But what?

  Think, Ana.

  When the Messiers had loaded her into a transport shuttle, they bound her hands behind her back with magnetic cuffs and snapped a voxcollar around her neck. It hummed softly against her throat, a constant threat of ten thousand volts straight to her skin if she so much as mumbled a word. She couldn’t escape it. Was this what Jax had had to deal with for a week while he served Lady Valerio in the Iron Palace? If she fought back against her captors, she’d surely make a sound.

  So she had to work around that.

  Somehow.

  When they had brought her onto the dreadnought, th
e Messiers stripped her of her cloak, her weapons, her coppers, her comm-link . . .

  But when the Messier had found Di’s memory core, it paused.

  There was a shift in its eyes, and it flicked its gaze to her—and there he was. Just like on the rooftop in Neon City, the Emperor—Di—looked out through the Messier’s eyes.

  He had tucked the memory core back into her coat pocket. “For your comfort,” he had purred, and then the Messier’s eyes faded to blue, and he was gone again.

  It had to be a trick of her mind—he couldn’t be anywhere, could he?

  The Messiers let her keep Di’s memory core nevertheless, even as they stripped her of everything else and led her deeper into the dreadnought. She had been walking for so long, she couldn’t remember how to get back to the docking bay where they’d brought her in.

  Her breath came out in puffs of frost. It was so cold on the ship, she doubted the other prisoners could spend very long here without turning into human ice cubes. She shivered, darting her eyes from one Messier to the other, trying to formulate how to escape. If her hands weren’t tied, she’d have a lot more options. She could try to disable one—but then the other five would take her down. Her fingers were almost numb from the cold already.

  The last time she’d been this cold, she and Di had taken shore leave to one of the frozen cities of Iliad, a small town that specialized in ice sculptures and ship graveyards. The Dossier had been in a fight that took out two of its sails, so while Jax and the captain went to salvage replacements, Ana and Di had some shore leave and a laundry list of parts to get for repairs. It had been only a year and a half ago, but it felt like decades. With the last of her coppers, she’d splurged on a small cup of hot wine, of which Di had greatly disapproved.

  “Well, fine then—if you could buy anything, what would you buy?” she had countered.

  “Books,” he had replied.

  “Seriously? You read them once and then you put them on a shelf to take up space. Forever.”

  “And to reference later,” he had argued, “and reread.”

  “You have a photographic memory, Di.”