“Yes, well. Now I do.”
“And I’m alive.”
To that, Viera smiled, but the expression never quite reached her eyes. “That you are.”
Emperor
He was just about to sit down in the Moon Garden, the charred remains of the Iron Shrine in the distance, to read a book he had found in the library, when the Iron Council called an emergency meeting. Glancing up at the sky so he would not be tempted to roll his eyes, he put his book down on the side table and stood from the white wrought-iron chair.
“I did not know you read,” Mellifare commented from her perch on a nearby bench. She had been in the head of another Messier a few moments before, her body rigid and still. She flicked her dark eyes to him.
“It passes the time,” he replied, but he honestly did not remember why he wanted to read it. The book sounded interesting. It helped him forget about that Solani boy—but something about the C’zar still bugged him. He paused before he left the garden, judging that the steward was still out of earshot, and turned back to Mellifare. “We could have turned him into a Metal.”
“Who?”
“The Solani prince.”
She blinked, pulling herself fully back into her body, and gave him an annoyed, pointed look. “And why would we need him?”
“It seemed like a waste, is all,” he replied. “We could have used his talents to locate your heart. The girl now knows you are searching for something in the shrines. It would be . . . beneficial if we found your heart before she did.”
She sighed and came over to him, placing a hand on his cheek. “Oh, brother dearest, do not worry.”
He began to argue, but the moment he found the words, the song in his head stole them away. He blinked, frowning.
What had he been worried about, again?
Her gaze drifted behind him to the impatient steward. “I believe you are expected.”
“Yes, sister,” he mumbled, and left her in the garden.
The herald hurried after him, carrying a navy suede evening coat with sapphire cuff links, which he shrugged on over his starched white shirt. Then he tied his hair back with a black ribbon, and made his way to the council’s chambers.
“Your—Your Excellence!” the steward added, raising up the Iron Crown.
Oh, he had almost forgotten it. His mind felt strange and cloudy, but he tried to shake it away as he put on the crown.
As he entered the council’s chambers, the holograms of Ironbloods rose to their feet and murmured greetings. He quickly moved around to the head of the obsidian table. Their images wavered a little, their projections grainy against the one Ironblood who had actually decided to show up.
It had to be Wynn Wysteria. He was quite certain that she was the reason this council was called to begin with.
For the last few weeks, Wynn Wysteria had requested multiple meetings with the Emperor at the palace—in person, no less, so her being here again did not surprise him. It only annoyed him. Every evening she would return to her ship docked in the moonbay, and her personal guards would keep watch until morning. She did not trust the palace.
Perhaps she knew more than she let on.
He sat down at the head of the table, and the holographic images of the other Ironbloods in the meeting followed. “To what honor do I owe this occasion, Lady Wysteria?”
Wynn curtsied to him. “I am glad to see you well. I heard of the assassination attempt on Astoria. It would seem we were lucky to have Lord Valerio there.”
Her voice grated on his nerves. “Indeed.”
She nodded. The young woman was dressed in black, her long strawberry-blond hair pulled back in intricate braids. Perhaps if she were a bit more demure, her late father could have sold her off with the right dowry to breed instead of infuriating him—
A shard of pain sliced through his head, knocking him dizzy—as if something inside his own code scolded him. The glitch? He rolled his shoulders back to disguise the discomfort.
“So why did you call us?” he asked her.
“I have troubling news. A number of citizens had reported seeing the late Empress in Neon City—alive.”
He set his mouth into a thin line. “A rumor and nothing more.”
“It’s our sworn duty to these citizens to hear their voices,” said Wynn. “What if this rumor is true, and she’s alive? The citizens have not been kind to us lately. Your taxations on trade and travel to fund your pledge to gather these rogue Metals have taken a toll on each of our worlds’ economies. The poor are dying and the rich are doing nothing, and our Iron Shrines are burning. Who are we if not in service to our people—and our late Empress?” she challenged him. “If she is indeed alive, we should find her.”
He drummed his fingers on the obsidian table. He could just kill Wynn Wysteria. It was tempting. Her and Erik Valerio, but the HIVE pulsed gently in the back of his head, Mellifare telling him to play their game.
He leaned forward and steepled his fingers. “You have a fair point, Lady Wysteria. I’m sure we could entertain your parlor gossip, if you so wish.”
Her eyes widened. “It is not parlor gossi—”
“But to expend such resources, I would need council approval.”
The other dozen members looked at each other, murmuring in soft tones. One chair was empty, he noticed, the one belonging to Erik Valerio. He wondered where that unreliable snake was. Plotting behind his back, no doubt.
Trouble—all these flesh sacks were trouble.
“Well,” he said after a moment, waiting for another Ironblood to rush to Lady Wysteria’s defense, but no one did. “It seems as though the rest of us will not entertain your rumor—”
“There is footage,” Wynn interrupted hurriedly, “of the Empress, or someone who looks like her.”
The murmurs grew louder across the table.
His lips drew into a hard line.
She lifted a panel on the obsidian table in front of her and pressed a button. A holo-screen popped up in the middle of the table. The video had been captured from one of the taverns in the Theo District—the slums, most of Neon City called it. It showed a girl racing down the street, pursued by—
He tapped his first finger on the table again and made the holo-screen glitch. The video froze, pixelated, the only thing discernible Neon City’s skyline.
“All I see is a corrupted file,” he said.
Wynn paled and tried to upload the video again. “It was just there!”
The other council members began to mutter, shaking their heads at her. He hid a smirk behind his hand and lounged back in his chair. “Lady Wysteria, your efforts to discredit me are astounding. I applaud your creativity, but perhaps you should be a little more subtle.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I—I wasn’t . . .”
He stood from his chair. “Now, if you will excuse me, I am sure we all have most pressing matters to attend to today. Thank you for your diligence, Lady Wysteria,” he added, trying not to sound too snide as he left the room.
The lady had been correct about one thing: he did need to find the Empress. She was becoming a thorn in his side.
When he returned to his chair in the Moon Garden, Mellifare was gone. To the palace, she was still a chambermaid, and her body was off cleaning one of the rooms, no doubt, but she was hosted in a myriad of Messiers on Cerces, tearing down the door to another tomb. Empty, like all the others—and he heard her scream through the HIVE, light fire to the shrine, and kill the abbesses who begged for their lives.
He opened his book—The Swords of Veten Ruel—to where he’d left off, licked his finger—although he had no saliva—to turn the page, and tried to ignore Mellifare.
Robb
Zenteli was a city unlike anywhere he’d ever been before. It shone alabaster white in the sun, almost indistinguishable from the clouds surrounding it. The city was one of the last safe havens away from the HIVE and Messiers, because of an age-old treaty with the kingdom that barred kingdom influence in the Solani city.
Located on the peak of a mountain range near the northern pole of Iliad, it should have been cold, but the sunlight kept the city warm and comfortable. Beneath the mountain was a valley where the original Solani ark had crashed over a thousand years ago. As the Dossier broke through the clouds, the sight of the ruined ship was monstrously large—more like the carcass of a living creature than a ship at all.
A small fleet of Solani ships sat in the dock when the Dossier came in to land, shining slivers of silver that looked as sharp as arrows. A team of doctors took Jax away on a hover-stretcher, and two guards—Solgard, Elara had called them—in obsidian armor escorted the rest of them through the city to the Shining Spire.
The moment the Solgard saw Xu and Elara, they reached for the swords on their belts, and Captain Siege reached for hers.
“They’re with us,” said Siege.
The Solgard spat something in the Old Language—Robb could make out exile and ark and Metal, but the other words were too fast—that made Siege purse her lips.
“Then they’ll stay here, won’t you?” the captain added to Elara and Xu for confirmation, and both of them nodded. He wasn’t as surprised as the rest of them to learn that Siege knew the Old Language.
He knew her last name, after all.
“Lenda will make sure they don’t go anywhere,” she said, motioning to the muscular blonde to her right.
“I don’t do well in cities,” Lenda agreed, eyeing Elara and Xu. “Besides, I’ve got repairs to do on the ship. You two can help.”
The Solgard sneered but agreed. It must have been because Xu was a Metal. The Emperor’s lies even reached as far as Zenteli, it seemed. The rest of them followed the Solgard through the streets to the Spire. People paused in the street and leaned out of windows to get a look at them as they passed.
“That’s them—the ones who brought the C’zar back,” he heard a fabric vendor say to a customer.
Another said, “Those are the kidnappers.”
“Wait until the Elder Court gets to them.”
The whispers unnerved Robb. It seemed like everyone had known who Jax was except Jax’s closest friends. He felt like a fool.
While the outer walls of the city were made of sandstone, most of the buildings built into the top of the mountain were made of marble. The city was clean and well kept, far older than most cities on Eros. It also had one of the only Iron Shrines that still stood untouched, a shard of white blending in with the rest of the buildings.
Robb caught Viera looking out toward the shrine in the distance. “Reminds me of the Academy a little,” he said to her as they were escorted through the city.
She was quiet.
“Do you remember that time—”
“Yes, Robb, I remember,” she interjected, annoyed, and excused herself from the procession. “I would like to go pray,” she said as she disappeared into the crowd, a Solgard following as escort.
He frowned. He and Viera had never been close, but something was strange about her. Perhaps six months in a dreadnought did that—but then why had the HIVE kept her alive? Not that he wasn’t glad she was alive. It was just . . . odd.
The guard led them through a large archway into the Spire. It was just as bright on the inside, the scratched walls so thin the soft midday light bled through them. But on closer inspection, the scratches were names—of millions of Solani. On every wall, in every hallway. The guard led them up a few flights of wide stairs and into a bright garden filled with plants he recognized but couldn’t name, long-petaled flowers and swirly-stemmed bushes. Where the Valerio garden was cluttered with so many beautiful flowers they all seemed to blend together, the ones in this garden were chosen carefully and planted around a dais in the center, with stone pathways spreading from it like rays of light. The ancient dais turned slowly with the fall of the sun, telling time in the ancient way.
Ana went ahead and explored the garden. He hung back, feeling into his pocket for the old iron ore his father had given him, and began to spin it between his fingers. Rust coated his fingertips, but he felt safe doing it. He knew what would happen when he touched iron. He was certain of that, while it felt like the rest of the world was spinning out of control. From the garden, he could see the bones of the Solani ark well, lying at the base of the valley like the carcass of an ancient creature.
A little way away, on a bench, he heard Siege and Talle whispering between each other. He had half a mind to walk away before he heard too much until—
“Is this my punishment?”
Talle drew Siege into a tight embrace and kissed her cheek. “Shhh.”
“I heard him, starlight. When he . . .”
He tore himself away from their conversation. What had Siege heard? Robb had been with Jax the whole time in the medical ward. Had he contacted the Dossier while on the dreadnought?
It didn’t matter.
He finally sat down on a bench and stared out at the green valley, and everything was quiet and beautiful and still. Here, for a moment, he could pretend the kingdom was not at war with itself, and that his clothes didn’t still smell like gunpowder, and his arm didn’t ache with phantom pains.
And he would trade it all for a firefight if only Jax was with him.
It felt like hours passed before someone came to get them.
“You must be the crew of the Dossier,” said the woman. Her dress looked as if it doubled as armor, with wide epaulets that curved up like horns, a breastplate decorated with images of constellations he didn’t recognize, tapering to a long skirt that trailed behind her in a train. Her skin was pale like Jax’s, and glittered in the noonday sun with the radiance of Cerces’s diamond mines, her short hair cropped in jagged edges, making her square jaw all the more striking.
He knew this Solani before she even introduced herself.
Jax’s mother.
Siege stood, her fingers intertwined with Talle’s tightly. “Ma c’zar,” the captain greeted her.
“Siege, is it?” The ma c’zar’s voice was as warm as the recesses of space. Before Siege could confirm or deny it, the Solani woman raised her hand and struck it across Siege’s face.
Robb stood, dumbfounded, until Ana went to lunge for her, and then he took her by the arm to hold her back.
“What was that for?” Ana snarled. “We brought him back so you can help him!”
“Ana,” the captain said softly.
The woman turned her cold violet-eyed gaze to Ana. “Empress,” she greeted her.
“She didn’t deserve that,” Ana said. “If anyone does, it’s me. Jax risked his life to save me, and now he’s here. Why don’t you stop slapping people and just help him?”
The ma c’zar looked away, and Robb felt the ball of panic in his chest tighten. “Child, there is no cure for the dark fever.”
The dark fever.
Jax had talked about it a few times, but only in passing, like when he was trapped in a dark room for too long, or when he felt sick or cranky. It was a passing thing, like a head cold, and the moment starlight touched his skin again he was fine.
He was always fine.
Ana blinked at her as if she didn’t understand. “. . . What?”
“There isn’t a cure,” Jax’s mother reiterated. “It comes to all of us in time, usually when the light inside of us finally goes out. It is also this light that grants C’zars the power to read the stars, but at the cost of their own life span. Most C’zars aren’t fortunate enough to live past their second decade. That was the future my son ran from, and yet he will die early all the same.”
Robb heard a sob hitch in Talle’s throat, and she turned away. He felt numb. He couldn’t comprehend. Jax was—he was out of light?
“Is there any way to refill him?” he asked, and the ma c’zar gave a soft chuckle.
As if it was a joke, and he was a child.
“Your life support only gave him borrowed time, and for that I must be grateful. Will you please follow me, Captain? You and your wife are the ones who raised
him. I would expect that you would want to see him before . . .”
“I think Robb should see him,” Siege said absently, and motioned to him. Her hair had lost its glow somewhere between the woman slapping her and learning of the dark fever. He realized, quite suddenly, how gray her hair had become over the last few months.
The woman looked surprised. “The Ironblood?”
“Robb,” the captain corrected. “Your son calls him Robb.”
No, Jax called him ma’alor.
And he never would again.
The woman didn’t seem to understand, but she agreed to it all the same. She led Robb, numb and aching, to the very top of the Spire. Cloudy crystalline walls separated one room from another, the doors clear as glass. It was so bright, his eyes watered. The medical ward looked more like the inside of a star. Robb followed the ma c’zar to the end of the hallway, to the last room, where two Solgard stood guard.
He was afraid to go inside—afraid of what death looked like in these brightly lit rooms. He was afraid that the last image of Jax he would ever remember was one where he was dying. He didn’t want to remember Jax like that. He wanted to remember Jax . . .
He wanted . . .
He didn’t want to have to remember him at all. He wanted to be able to wake up every morning and see his face on the pillow next to his, trace the lines of his sharp cheekbones, and know he would be there again tomorrow.
That was what he wanted.
His mechanical arm jumped, twisting, and he quickly grabbed it by the biceps to hold it still.
The hospital room was small and bright, without furniture. Medical apparatus and holo-screens reading off Jax’s vitals hung on the headboard wall. In the middle of the room rested a familiar boy in a bed, the antiquated Dossier’s life support device still suctioned to his chest. It pulsed faintly.
He stepped into the room, one foot at a time, slowly releasing his mechanical arm, and reached for Jax’s hand. It didn’t matter now, whether he could see the stars or not, because there was no light left to see them with.
Soul of Stars Page 8
