Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(49)
“It’ll be okay,” he said, his voice echoing like he was shouting to her from the other end of the hallway, even though he was right there. He bent to her and pinned something to her nightgown—a brooch in the shape of an ouroboros. “As long as you wear it, it’ll protect you.”
But the fire was too hot—suffocating. She could barely breathe.
There was a great shudder above them, and she looked up. The ceiling, heavy with fire, gave a groan.
The man grabbed her arm and darted through the flames, but she twisted out of his grip. He dove through the flames alone.
And then the ceiling collapsed.
She winced, closing her eyes, when someone scooped her up into its arms—except it wasn’t a person at all, but a Metal. And it was so hot—burning, bubbling hot—she tried to scream but nothing came out. The side of her face lit with unimaginable pain.
It hurt, it hurt so fiercely she could feel the fire against her cheek as she tried to claw it away. She felt her nails dig into her skin, scratching, drawing blood, but she couldn’t wake up.
She wanted to wake up.
And then the Metal monster who had burned her let go, and there was a broken look to the Metal’s face, something familiar, like a memory she couldn’t quite place. She thrashed away from it, but the android grabbed her wrists, moonlit eyes shining.
“It is a dream, Ana. Wake up,” he said in Di’s damaged voice. “Wake up, Ana. Wake up!”
She lurched awake.
The memory of the fire prickled her skin. She couldn’t catch her breath, dizzy from the smoke in her nightmare. It had been so real—there were faces now in the burning hallway. There were words and voices. Where had they come from? Her hair stuck to the back of her neck, slick with sweat, the taste of ash still in her mouth. And—and there was Di.
Frantically, she looked around. She’d heard him—she knew she had. He was right there in the fire, telling her to wake up. But the further her nightmare slipped into the past, the fainter the memory grew. Because it couldn’t be Di.
Di was dead.
Her eyes focused—
She was in a small room. Steel walls. Worried Erosian-sky eyes watched her. He had a hand wrapped around her wrist, as if he’d shaken her awake instead. Robb Valerio. Her last memory on the Dossier came flooding back. Her crewmates were dead—or dying—and she was about to die, too.
She quickly jerked her hands out of his grip, and his worried expression fell away to an indifferent mask again.
The cell door opened behind him, and two Valerio guardsmen entered.
“We’re here,” Robb said, his voice steel and stone.
“W-where?” The guards pulled her to her feet, binding her hands behind her back again. Her thumb was sore, but it had been reset, and Wick’s blood had dried on her pants. How long had she been asleep?
“The Iron Palace,” the Ironblood said as he adjusted his disheveled coat, “to turn you in.”
Robb
The Iron Palace looked like a shard of black glass against the otherwise pale landscape of the moon, a gloomy fortress. The North Tower looked like the other three, but it stood as a hollow shell with burned insides. It had never been rebuilt, and instead the doors were locked—the halls never to be trod in again. The rest of the palace, however, was immaculate in its marble walls and golden trim—the pinnacle of opulence. Surrounding the palace lay terraformed gardens blooming with moonlilies, and in the largest garden stood the kingdom’s first Iron Shrine.
Robb hadn’t been back to the palace in seven years, but he quickly realized as he stepped out onto the docks that nothing had changed. It was frozen in time—a broken relic from a terrible rebellion.
He wished he were anywhere other than here.
Two of his mother’s finest guardsmen led Ana down the length of the docks to the waiting Royal Guard, passing large starships with sails that shone like spun gold. They were all warships built in a time of peace, as if Ironbloods ever had to worry about battle.
At least not the physical kind.
At the end of the docks, Royal Captain Viera waited, a bandage on her cheek from their run-in a few days ago. She looked just about as pleased as a wet cat.
Robb caught up with the Valerio guards escorting Ana and dismissed them. “I can take it from here,” he told them.
“But Lady Valerio said—”
“Did I stutter?”
The two guardsmen gave each other hesitant looks before relinquishing Ana to him, her hands bound with wire behind her back, greasy hair stuck to her face and neck, clumped together with sweat and dried blood. She looked like a dead girl walking.
He turned back to the Royal Captain, inwardly cursing his luck that Viera Bastard-Born Carnelian was the Grand Duchess’s Royal Captain.
He gave a slight bow. “Vee, it’s a pleasure.”
“I am glad you managed to apprehend her,” replied the Royal Captain, knowing very well that he had escaped with Ana instead of after her.
“One of us would’ve caught her eventually.”
“Of course.”
Royal Captain Viera led them into the palace gates and through the empty square, the palace towering over them like a shard of black glass. The palace doors opened into the great hall, lined with pillars as thick as three men. The hall seemed endless, or maybe it was just his wishful thinking.