Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(100)
Her face brightened. Hopeful.
Like a sunrise—
A body slammed against him. Forced him to the ground. Robb Valerio pinned him down, but he threw the Ironblood off like a blanket, tossing him into the pews. The boy got to his feet again, drawing his pistol. At this short range, he would likely not miss.
“Run, Ana!” the Ironblood cried. “RUN NOW!”
“But—”
“You can’t save him if you’re dead!”
The Empress, pursing her lips, picked up her dress—and ran.
She slipped between the Royal Guards flooding inside, coming to the distress call. A guard took her by the arm—old, gray hair, a mechanical leg, someone he knew—
Kill her! the voice in his head cried. Kill her now!
He went after her, but the Ironblood shot him again, this time in the shoulder. He hissed, but the red code in his head blocked out the pain. Until he was better.
“You’re just another mindless Metal,” the Ironblood said.
“And you are just meat,” he retorted, then lunged forward and knocked the pistol out of Robb Valerio’s grip. He grabbed Robb by the throat and sent him swinging into a line of oncoming guards.
He picked up Robb’s pistol and pointed it at the retreating Empress as she raced out of the shrine. He aimed for her head—not his first choice, but he did not have time to kill her with the crown. Pity. That would have been so fitting.
His hand shook. He tried to steady it. But there was a noise in his head.
A scream, leaking between the tendrils of his new programming.
Begging, pulsing, swelling.
No, you are mine, the HIVE commanded.
The Grand Duchess rounded a statue from where she had been hiding, grabbed a candle, and threw it at him. It bounced off his shoulder, rolling under a pew. “Monster! You will not kill my Ananke!”
He swung his aim toward the Grand Duchess and pulled the trigger.
It was not his aim that had made his hand shake after all.
The old woman slumped back, painting a red streak across the base of the Goddess’s statue as she slid to the ground. He tossed the empty Metroid to the ground.
After the Empress! the voice cried, the red code grinding, grinding. He winced, wanting it to stop.
The Ironblood was getting to his feet.
He pushed Robb back down into the pews. “Get up again and I will kill you,” he warned the boy, not sure why he did not kill him now, and pursued the Empress out of the shrine, plucking a lightsword off a dead guard as he left, the sound of the HIVE so loud and sweet, it tasted like blood on his lips.
Robb
Robb struggled to his feet. The Royal Guards, led by the captain herself, drew their weapons on Di—they would stop him. The Metal couldn’t possibly get through half a dozen of the kingdom’s finest and Viera. The hum of their Metroids filled the shrine like a haunting hymn. They’d kill Di. Robb couldn’t watch, turning his face away.
“You will move!” Di flung out his hand to the guards.
Robb felt the hair on his neck stand on end. A wave of electricity pulsed from the end of Di’s fingertips, rippling outward like a wave toward the guards. The comms on their lapels sparked—and the voltage sent the guards, including Viera, to their knees in gut-wrenching screams.
Di stepped over the guards writhing on the ground and was gone.
Robb cursed, grabbing a Metroid from one of the guards’ holsters, hurtling over the stone pews after him, when a shadow stepped into his way. He hadn’t notice her before—hadn’t all the guests left screaming? The girl was small, fragile, although her eyes glowed as red as death. The same color as Di’s. She cocked the pistol she was holding.
“You got up—what a pity,” she tsked, and aimed for him.
Surprised, Robb froze. He didn’t have a moment to think—even a second. Someone screamed his name, and the air around him shifted. A blur stepped in front of him, shielding him. Dark peppery hair spun high into a tight bun, a white dress, tall and cold and—
The girl fired.
A firework of red exploded into the air, and warm droplets splattered on his cheek. He quickly wiped them away—blood.
The world came into focus with a jolt, and his mother stood in front of him, arms outstretched. Blood stained her beautiful white dress—she had made her sons match her, in insufferable white tuxedos. White only ever looked good on her, and now it was stained in red. Robb couldn’t breathe, frozen in a moment when his mother still existed. And then her arms fell to her sides, and she toppled to the ground like a doll and did not stir again.
He looked down again to the blood he’d wiped off his cheek. Her blood. “No,” he whispered, sinking down to his knees beside her. “No, no, no . . .”
The flaxen-haired girl aimed again. “Seems I missed.”
Robb turned his gaze up to the monster with the familiar face. Round cheeks and pursed lips, golden-peach skin and high eyebrows. She was unmistakably Ana’s handmaiden. He had seen her a hundred places before. Mellifare. He stared at her until he had memorized her face—until he could pick her out of a crowd of thousands.
“I like that look, Lord Valerio. Hate really suits you,” said the girl, and she squeezed the trigger—
A flashbang ignited the shrine in a blinding white light.
He winced, covering his eyes with his arm as the explosion swept through the room, extinguishing all one thousand candles in a single puff, until the only light came from the doorway—a bright, burning dawn.