Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(26)

“Ten minutes and twenty-seven seconds,” replied D09.

“Now where’d you get this?” pressed the captain.

Robb gave her a flat look.

“Ah, so we answer your questions but you don’t answer ours? Typical Valerio,” she added under her breath, and waved her hand to dismiss D09. “Give us a minute.”

The Metal did, but Robb noticed another face in the doorway.

“You too,” the captain said to Ana, who was hovering just outside. “Don’t think I don’t see you there.”

“But Captain—”

“Out.”

He couldn’t meet Ana’s withering glare. She had trusted him, stuck up for him against her own crewmates. A Valerio shouldn’t care, he reminded himself. Valerios didn’t care.

Sulking, Ana closed the door behind her.

And left him alone with the homicidal captain. Siege was terrifying even without her bandolier and golden-trimmed murder coat. In a plain nightshirt and breeches, she still looked like the walking emblem of death.

“So, why Aragon?” she asked, rolling the iron ore between her fingers. Rust came off, painting her fingertips a reddish brown.

He shrugged.

“Start talking or I’ll cut off your ears first. Then your lips. Then your nose—”

“What am I supposed to say? Sir,” he added.

“You’re a Valerio,” she replied, setting down the iron ore. “Let’s start with that. The younger, right? You can’t be more than, what, fourteen?”

“Seventeen.”

“You should be graduating from the Academy, so why aren’t you there?”

I was kicked out, he thought, remembering the weight of his shame as his peers stood against the banisters and watched him leave the great hall. The look of pity from the professors, the sneers from the other students. It seemed that even with perfect test scores, the Academy frowned upon low attendance. He spent too much time sneaking away to find some clue—any clue—to his father’s whereabouts. He told himself he didn’t care that the Academy kicked him out.

And when he found his father, it wouldn’t matter what anyone else thought, either.

“With all due respect, why do you care?” He tried to keep his voice level, to stop the shaking, but it was impossible. He was so close to answers, and now he was going to be spaced because these pirates weren’t as dumb as he’d hoped. “I’m a Valerio, so I doubt you’ll believe whatever I say. You already have your ideas about me.”

“Same can be said about us. Your brother’s about to be Emperor, and we’re the thorn in his side. I have communications with at least half a dozen other vessels in the same line of work, and they all report to me. You’ve got your ruler, and your kingdom, and your crown, and we’ve got ours. Me. And life’d be a lot sweeter if the kingdom got rid of me. So how do I know you aren’t trying to bring me in? Or kill me? I’m right here, so what’s stopped you?”

Well, that was a simple answer. “I don’t care about the kingdom.”

“But it’s your legacy—”

“My brother’s legacy,” he corrected. “Not mine.”

“And what would your father say about that?” asked the captain, as if she knew what he would and wouldn’t approve of. Who was she, a criminal, to judge?

A muscle in his jaw twitched.

She went on. “He was killed in the Rebellion, wasn’t he? You would’ve been, what, ten?”

“They never found a body.”

“Never found the bodies of the Armorov boys either, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t mixed in with the ashes,” replied the captain. “Your father could’ve burned in the palace, too.”

The carelessness in her voice made Robb fist his hands to control his anger, the pain in his side becoming a numb throb. “He didn’t—I know he didn’t. The Tsarina was the only ship docked in the moonbay that wasn’t accounted for after the Rebellion. If there’s a chance he took that ship . . . if he’s still on it . . . if he escaped . . .” His words caught in his throat, because this was his hope. This was what helped him sleep at night, the thought that his father hadn’t burned, that he had survived. “My father didn’t die in the palace, sir. I will bet my life on it.”

“You’re stubborn like your father,” she replied offhandedly, putting her elbows on the desk. She steepled her fingers. “But now Ana’s the most wanted criminal in the kingdom and we’ve got half a million coppers on our head.”

“To be frank, sir, she’s the one who stole from me. I bought those coordinates fairly. None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t followed me to my family’s garden. So pardon me, but I think she deserves it.”

“Then why did you help her? On Astoria?”

He didn’t know why he had saved Ana. It was something a good Ironblood wouldn’t do. “I needed those coordinates,” he heard himself saying. It sounded truthful enough.

“I would’ve let you bleed out in some back alley of Nevaeh if I were her—”

“Then space me already,” Robb snapped. “You think you’re better because you cheat and steal from Ironbloods, but you’re no different than us. You just do it under different colors. So if you’re going to kill me, do it.”