Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)
Ashley Poston
Dedication
TO THE STARRY-EYED GIRL
WHO DREAMED OF BECOMING AN AUTHOR—
WE MADE IT
Epigraph
Far above the crown of stars, there lay a kingdom cast in shadows until a daughter born of light drove the night away.
And so the Great Dark waited a thousand turns around the sun and promised on its heart of iron to once again return.
—“Origin of the Moon Goddess,”
The Cantos of Light
I
Iron Thief
Ana
Nine hundred and ninety-nine candles lit the Iron Shrine.
Ana curved a crescent moon across her chest—in honor of the Goddess she didn’t believe in—to disguise tucking three coppers from the offering tray into her burgundy coat.
Di gave her a long look as he sat in the pew beside her.
“What? It’s called an investment,” she told her best friend. “Don’t give me that look.”
Di—short for the serial number D09 inscribed at the nape of his neck—gave a human-looking shrug. His voice sounded like garbled static from a damaged voice box. “I am not sure what you are referring to.”
“The judgy one you’re giving me right now.”
“I am incapable of giving looks.”
“Says the Metal giving me a look.” She shifted uncomfortably, and then sighed. “Fine. I’ll go put the money back when we leave.”
“Do not be chivalrous on my account,” he said in his monotonous, staticky voice. If he had emotions, she thought he would’ve said it dryly—like a joke.
As if he could tell one, she thought, amused.
He sat forward, elbows on his knees. His hood was pulled low to disguise the slats and plates that made up his face, without a nose or ears or eyebrows. He was more dented than other Metals, having fallen through mine shafts on Cerces and been shot at by mercenaries on Iliad. She felt bad for a particular ding on his forehead, but she had apologized a thousand times for accidentally running him over with a skysailer.
He still refused to let her drive.
An abbess passed down the almost-empty aisle. Ana could hear her humming a sad, lonely hymn from The Cantos of Light as she swung a thurible, carrying with it the heavy scent of moonlilies. At the head of the shrine stood the statue of the Moon Goddess, seven men high, her arms outstretched as she looked to some distant point in the domed ceiling, where murals of the Moon Goddess’s story, the kingdom of shadows and the girl of light, were painted. The entire space station of Nevaeh felt empty in the shrine, as if the world only existed between the alabaster pillars and stained-glass trappings, so quiet she could hear the electric hum of Di’s wires and functions, as soft and soothing as a song.
She figured most of the kingdom’s citizens were at home or at the pub, glued to their holo-pads and newsfeeds. Today, the Grand Duchess would choose her heir—and the thirtieth Emperor of the Iron Kingdom.
So naturally, with everyone distracted, it was a good day for a heist.
As the abbesses in their shimmery silver robes roamed the aisles, two older women scooted into the pews a few rows up. “May the stars kep us steady, and the iron keep us safe,” they murmured as they drew crescent shapes across their chests and sat. One of them had a mechanical hand—a sign that she had been infected with the Plague twenty years ago.
The woman’s friend glanced back to Ana, and gave a start. “Goddess save me,” she said in a hushed whisper to her friend, “I think a Metal is behind us. Do you think it’s HIVE’d? I hope it’s HIVE’d.”
The HIVE was the Iron Kingdom’s way of dealing with misbehaving, or rogue, Metals. Instead of imprisonment, the kingdom stripped Metals of their free will and assimilated them. Then, with them obedient and unthinking, the kingdom used them as guard dogs—Messiers.
The woman with the mechanical hand looked back, too, before quickly turning around again. “No, its eyes aren’t blue.”
“They all give me the chills. To think our Iron Adviser created them to help people, and then they go and do that dreadful thing seven years ago.”
“Not all of them are bad.”
“Please. It probably gave that girl those scars, poor thing. They should all be HIVE’d—they’re unpredictable.”
So were humans, Solani, and Cercians, but the kingdom didn’t try to control their minds.
They’d probably feel differently then, Ana thought, absently pulling a pendant out from under her collar and tracing her thumb around it. Her good luck charm. She’d had it for as long as she could remember, a dragon or a snake molded into an open circle. Once, it might have been a fancy brooch, but whatever had burned the left side of her face had also melted the brooch. She wished she could remember who gave it to her—she always felt safe with it on—but her head ached every time she tried.
Captain Siege had found her and Di in an escape pod in the wreckage of a cargo ship. It had been set upon by mercenaries. No survivors—except for them. She didn’t even have pictures of her parents, and her own appearance didn’t give her any clues. She had warm bronze skin and wide golden-brown eyes, full lips, and a heart-shaped face. Her hair was as dark as space itself, but it always curled into tangles. She wore it atop her head in a long braid and shaved the sides. She was moderately tall, solidly built for a life of evading death at every turn, and wore hand-me-down coats like the red one she wore now and darned trousers that never fit right. She looked like a girl from any part of the Iron Kingdom—and nowhere all at once.