Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(101)

No—it wasn’t the dawn, it was a woman’s hair blazing as brilliant as the sun. Captain Siege stepped into the shrine, her Metroid fixed on the golden-haired girl.

Talle hurried over to Robb and pulled him to his feet. “Robb! Where’s Ana?”

Dazed, blinking, he took one last look at his mother’s corpse on the ground and told her, “She ran—she ran with Riggs.”

“Perfect,” Talle began, but he caught her shoulder.

“Di went after them. He’s HIVE’d—Di’s HIVE’d. So is that girl,” he added, turning his gaze back to Mellifare, who was pressing her palms into her hands, unable to reset her optics. “She’s a Metal, too. Like Di.”

“Shit,” Siege cursed.

Mellifare blinked, resetting her vision, turning to them—when a Royal Guard slammed into her, throwing her to the ground. Then the guard grabbed a lightsword from one of her dead comrades, turning it on the girl.

Robb’s eyes widened. Viera.

“I’ll keep her busy,” said the Royal Captain. One of her ears was bleeding, her coat singed and smoking from the charge that had downed her guards. She could barely stand. “Just get Her Grace to safety.”

Viera Carnelian’s eyes flashed to Robb, and there was that aristocratic stubbornness he always saw—the kind of stubbornness that had them dueling in their underwear on the Academy rooftop and playing thirteen rounds of Wicked Luck.

There was no way of stopping her.

“Iron keep you, Vee,” he said, and turned to leave the shrine. “This way!”

Siege and Talle followed.

Outside the shrine, the bulbs of the moonlilies were red with postdawn light, almost red enough to disguise a young man with golden hair in them. A Carnelian pendant smashed in the flowers. Footprints dirtied his evening coat. Robb knew him—one of Erik’s lackeys. Vermion.

Robb tore his eyes away from the body, hurrying to catch up with the captain. People lay abandoned in the garden, moaning, some trampled, others simply afraid to move.

Overhead, three large ships dove in close to the palace, so fast they plucked the moonlilies from the ground and spun them into the air, leaving the stench of burning tapestries and airship exhaust. The ships flew pirate colors, painted silver and black.

Siege’s fleet?

Smaller Messier fighter ships screamed across the skies in pursuit, painting dawn in exhaust-white clouds. The crackle of explosions lit the skies like bloodred fireworks, rumbling across the palace.

Robb made his legs go faster, because Viera was a good swordswoman, but she couldn’t hold out for long. He refused to look back. He couldn’t watch her die, too.

So he trained his eyes on the palace doors, Talle and Siege just behind him, and ran.





Ana


“This way!” Riggs cried.

In the corridors, the Messiers stood guard like metal statues, blue eyes blazing as they watched. They didn’t move, they didn’t turn their heads. They simply stood—not wanting to kill her but not saving her, either. They were supposed to look impassive. The HIVE had planned this all along.

The booming sound of ships in the skies overhead quaked the walls of the palace in long, terrible growls. The lanterns bobbed frantically overhead, rushing faster as if they, too, knew something was wrong.

Her heart hammered in her throat.

Di . . . Di was . . .

“Why did you come for me?” she asked Riggs, whose mechanical leg made sharp thunks against the ground with every step. “You’re going to get yourself killed! Like Di . . .” Her voice cracked at his name, at the memory of those red-ruby eyes glinting from under that black hood. He hadn’t escaped after all.

If she hadn’t sent him away—maybe if she’d kept him close, maybe if she’d . . .

“Erik was right,” she croaked. “I destroy everything—”

Riggs grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her one good time. “Never say that. Never even think it. Wick wouldn’t let you, so I won’t either. We protect our family. We’re nothing without it.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes. But what about all the family who had died because of her? All the family who haunted her shadow, breathing across the back of her neck?

The old man pressed a kiss on her forehead. “You’re ours, Ana. And we’ll always come for—”

He choked, his reply cut short. Blood dribbled from his mouth. Ana gave a cry as Lord Rasovant pulled the dagger out of Riggs’s back, letting him drop to the ground. Rasovant stepped over him, wiping the blade clean on his pristine white ceremonial cloak.

“I am dearly sorry, Empress Ananke,” he said, turning the dagger on her, “that it’s come to this.”

Riggs went still on the ground, eyes open, as if he was staring into some great distance. Dead—he was dead.

Because everyone around her died.

“At first, I thought I wouldn’t have to kill you after all,” said Rasovant, and she gritted her teeth against the fire-hot hatred inside her. “I loved your father. Your parents were like a second family to me. I had to kill the Emperor, and the fire . . . it just seemed like the best story. It had to be done to stop the Great Dark,” he said as Riggs’s blood dripped from the blade. “It was only by chance you survived—Erik would have been a grand pawn. He still will be, when you meet your tragic end!”