Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(41)

A sigh whooshed through the ship as the gravitational systems shut off. Jax felt his stomach float first, then the rest of him. He tried to claw his way toward a wall.

Robb seemed perfectly at ease to float—he didn’t seem in a hurry to leave at all, actually. “Why’re you here?”

“Is that how you say thank you?” he asked, incredulous. Even with his long limbs, the walls were too far away. He couldn’t grab ahold of anything. Unless he wanted to grab ahold of the Ironblood. “I’m trying to save your pretty ass.”

“I didn’t ask you to—and stop with the backhanded compliments,” Robb snapped. “Leave me alone.”

“You honestly want to die here, then? On the forgotten side of Palavar?”

Robb finally looked up to Jax, eyes rimmed red—as if he’d been crying. “My mother would say I deserved it. Like my father.”

Jax recognized the note of bitterness in his voice, and despite his carefully built walls, his heart gave a lurch. You found him, then. “Robb . . .”

“Mother would say this was the legacy I earned.” His eyebrows knit together. “So yes, I want to die here. I deserve to die h—”

Jax took Robb by the face, fingers in his hair, so this insufferable Ironblood could look nowhere else but at him. Every speck of stardust in his being told him to let go. Being so close was a hazard, the thin gloves of his space suit the only thing separating skin from skin.

What Robb didn’t realize was that Jax knew something about legacy, too. How stories were never all true or all lies. How the Solani gift to read the stars had slowly faded over a thousand years into one of those many stories, and how he was the last bit of truth left.

“Screw legacy,” he said, the space between them barely a breath, but just enough to not touch, just enough to orbit without ever colliding. He pushed a curl behind Robb’s ear, but it sprang back. “I was worried about you.”

For a moment, it felt like the words didn’t register.

Robb blinked. Once. Twice.

Then the Ironblood bridged the gap between them and pressed their lips together.

Robb’s mouth was hungry and desperate, tasting like honey and salt and surprise. Jax’s skin buzzed at their nearness, and he wanted to sink into the kiss and rebel, to be closer and a thousand light-years away. He braced himself, waiting for the inevitable—

For a second, a second more before—

Solani could read the stars, but it wasn’t through the sky. It never was.

There was a jolt—like touching a live wire. A burn. A hiss. Then the star-stuff inside Robb swirled, brighter and brighter, sending his fate through Jax with the sharpness of a knife.

A black collar. A marble palace. Ana touching iron. Moonlilies. The glint of knuckle rings. A bloodied crown—

With a gasp, Jax tore himself away, the taste of Robb still on his tongue, the visions filling his head like sand. His lips stung. The pull of the stars was so strong it made him dizzy and weak.

“Goddess,” he said, breathless, shaking. “You—you have—you’re going to . . .”

“You said a kiss would do, remember?” Robb replied. He must’ve seen something odd on Jax’s face, because he looked away a moment after and fastened her helmet on. “Before we go, I want you to see something.”

Jax felt numb, trying to box away the images, but they were so fresh and raw. He hadn’t seen someone’s stars—touched someone—in ten years . . . and this was how he broke his streak?

“Did you hear me?” Robb said, and nudged his head back toward the door at the end of the hallway, where two Metals lay. “I said I’ve found something.”

“W-what?”

“Just trust me—you have to see it.” He took Jax by the arm and pulled him into the room at the end.

The room was pitch-black until Robb drew his lightsword, and it illuminated the small room. Dim holo-screens lined the walls, flickering as the ship used up the last of its energy, monitoring levels of oxygen and hydrogen and other vitals—like a hospital room.

The thought of Robb’s stars quickly fell to the back of Jax’s mind.

He fastened on his helmet, suddenly wanting to be anywhere else. He hated dark spaces. “Ak’va, what is this?”

“It’s in here,” said the Ironblood, motioning to a long white box in the middle of the room. It reminded Jax of the caskets used to jettison deceased crew members into space. Robb planted his feet at the base of the casket, worming his fingers under the lid, and with a heave lifted it open. The steam from dry ice spilled out and quickly swirled in zero gravity, like snaking clouds.

“It’s creepy, just so you know,” Robb warned.

“What is it? Some sort of new tech? Frozen animal? A weapon?”

“Worse.” Robb hovered his lightsword over the opening.

Jax peered into the box, not wanting to see what was inside. Wanting to leave. To get the taste of Robb’s stars out of his mouth.

But when he looked closer, his heart began to race.

Inside the box was a young man.

He looked slightly older than Jax—maybe eighteen—with a brush of freckles across his shoulders, and deep-red shoulder-length hair. Jax quickly pressed his fingers against the boy’s throat, but his skin was cold even through Jax’s gloves. And there was no heartbeat—