Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(91)

He took her hand tightly, brown to pale skin, where there used to be silver, and she thought how different they both were now.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, his voice strange—tight. Afraid? Did he sound afraid?

“How can you—you know? You can’t feel or—I mean you couldn’t. Because—you can’t—it’s not . . . you’re . . .”

One side of his lips twitched up. He raised their joined hands and rubbed his thumbs against her knuckles. “I can feel that,” he said, flipping her hand over to trace her lifeline, “and that as well . . .” Then he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the tender spot on her wrist, and she shivered. “And that.”

A warm, ravenous feeling burned in her stomach.

“But I assure you,” he said, turning her hand back over, “I am ninety-nine-point-nine-eight percent me.”

“How about that point-oh-two percent?”

“Everyone needs a little mystery.” And he smiled. The way he looked at her made her want to stay in this moment until the sun exploded and the cosmos caved in on itself. He was here. He was alive.

Di was alive, and it felt like she could finally breathe again.

But looking at him, a stranger with the heart of her best friend, reminded her of what she had discovered in the dark lab. About Rasovant. About the HIVE. And painfully—achingly—she stood, her hand slipping out of his, which left the ghost of an impression on her skin.

“I can’t stay here,” she muttered. “I have to go tell Robb about the lab, and the Metals, and—and you.”

“He already knows about me,” Di replied matter-of-factly, rising to his feet too. He dusted off the knees of his trousers. “Well, this me. In this body. We had quite a good conversation—”

“It doesn’t bother you?” she asked him. “What we learned in that lab? Don’t you wonder who you were? Don’t you care what the Plague took away—what Rasovant stole?”

He sighed, and said quietly, “Of course I do, Ana.”

“You used to be human.” She tucked a piece of his red hair behind his ear. “You used to be alive. And then Rasovant took your memories, your life—and used you to make a Metal. Goddess,” she gasped. “I destroyed the computer. It had everything on it!”

“It needed to be destroyed.”

“But I could have shown it to the rest of the kingdom, Di. I had proof! Rasovant killed my father because he was afraid the Great Dark would come back. He’s taking away Metal sentience—your sentience—because of some story. He’s a madman.”

“Yes,” Di agreed, “and a madman with a lot of power is very dangerous. Imagine if other bad people got their hands on a way to create Metals—people worse than Rasovant. Ana, it needed to be destroyed.”

“But Rasovant murdered the entire royal family—”

“No. You are still alive.”

She jabbed a finger back at the door. “Then I want to make that bastard sorry he ever let one little girl get away!”

Di pursed his lips. Ana hadn’t meant to snap at him—but she didn’t know how else to feel. Happy that Di was alive, heartbroken to have remembered her brothers and watched them fade again, angry that she had destroyed the evidence of Rasovant’s corruption? The Iron Adviser had killed her father—and Mercer Valerio had found his body. That was why Robb’s father called the guards, but before they could arrive . . . the HIVE set the fire.

And so no one knew—everyone believed Lord Rasovant and his lies. The kingdom let him HIVE innocent Metals and pretended not to notice.

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not angry at you. I just . . .”

“It is okay. I understand,” he replied, pulling his bloodred hair back into a ponytail. It was such a strangely human thing to do, as if he’d done it half his life. “But try to understand me, too. The HIVE will do anything to protect its creator. It set the fire in the North Tower—and then on the Tsarina it tried to kill us for finding the ship. There is no telling what else it will do if you provoke it.”

Her hands curled into fists. “The HIVE is a monster.”

He winced at that, and her feet slowed to a stop.

“It is, Di.”

“No more monstrous than I,” he replied to the floor. “I would do anything for you, too.”

“It’s nothing like you, Di. You saved me when the fire broke out. We ran with Robb’s father onto the closest ship we could find.”

He glanced up at her, surprised. “You remember?”

She looked away and gave a slight shrug. There were so many strange memories in her head, trying to fit together like puzzle pieces with the wrong shapes. “But the HIVE—the malware—was on the ship. The only way to get us out was to eject our escape pod manually. He said he would be in the next one, but he lied . . . he just ejected ours.”

“Then Siege found us,” Di filled in, and Ana scoffed at the mention of her captain. “She told me what had happened.”

“She lied to me.”

“Siege wanted to protect you.”

Ana’s brows furrowed. “I wish she could’ve.”

Di rubbed the back of his neck, his lips pressed into a thin line as though he heard something she couldn’t. “I asked her to keep you hidden, and to wipe my memories—I do not think I will ever get them back. But that led to my glitches.”