Soul of Stars

by Ashley Poston

  A small group of Solgard lingered behind, poking through the weeds and undergrowth in the ark, looking for her and Elara, who began to wake up against her. She groaned, and Ana shoved her hand over her mouth to quiet her—but not quick enough.

  One of the guards came near, jabbing his spear into the underbrush. Her heart thundered as he poked a spot just over her shoulder, and another by Elara’s knee—

  And then walked on.

  She quietly lowered her hand from Elara’s mouth. The girl was fully awake now, and they stayed as still and quiet as they could as the Solgard inspected the area, the ancient rings, the glass-clear crystal, until they were satisfied. They seemed a little jumpy, spooked by being in a place like this—a relic of their ancestors—so they didn’t stay long, thank the Goddess, and hurried out without so much as a glance back.

  When they were gone, Ana and Elara slipped out of the ivy.

  “What happened? Where did everyone go?” Elara asked, rubbing the back of her head. Her hair was matted with blood, and she hissed as her fingers touched her wound. Ana had gotten enough stitches to know Elara needed them.

  Ana told her what had happened as they moved through the ark to where the bones met the grasslands and looked up to the watchtowers.

  “We have to get them out of prison then,” Elara said, pulling back a handful of vines to judge the distance between them and the edge of the forest. The sun had already begun to set, but for some reason the visibility wasn’t getting any dimmer. The bones themselves were glowing. Like giant sunsticks. And the little flecks of scales that littered the ground reflected the light in a beautiful oily sheen. Elara kicked one, and it skittered out into one of the shadows cast by the glowing bones. “We should be able to stick to the shade if we hurry before the sun sets.”

  “Do you think you can make it up the mountain?” Ana asked, motioning to the hacker’s head injury, but she just waved it off like it was nothing.

  “I’ll be fine. Let’s go.”

  They hid in the shadows cast by the incredible allahlav, keeping to the contour of the hills, until they reached the forest. The way back up the mountain was marked by small marker lights to show the path. Neither of them spoke much as they ascended to Zenteli, until finally Ana said, “I’m sorry. About Koren Vey.”

  To that, Elara shrugged. “You said they touched hands, right? And Jax was glowing afterward?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then I don’t think she’s really dead. I think she might’ve given her light to Sparkles. Quite genius, really. She redirected her light into Jax from the crystal, depowering the engine.”

  “Solani can do that?”

  She nodded. “I think she could only because Jax didn’t have much light of his own left. So I don’t think she’s dead—she’s just . . . different now. Something else. Energy or light or stardust. Whatever we become after. She had the best stories, though, about who we were. About our old kingdom before the D’thverek came.”

  “Can you tell them to me?” Ana asked, and Elara smiled. As they climbed, she told her the stories Koren Vey had told her, about cities built in the clouds and creatures that swam in the air. Of great ships like the one in the valley that shimmered all sorts of colors as it floated among the skies, and brilliant parties in lavish crystalline palaces, and the more Elara talked about it in her out-of-breath, wistful voice, the more Ana began to dread what the Great Dark would do to her kingdom.

  If it could destroy a place so beautiful and powerful as the Solani kingdom, then how could the Iron Kingdom stand a chance?

  She needed to find the heart. She wanted to see Jax first, to make sure he was okay—but there wasn’t time. The higher the twin moons of Iliad rose into the night sky, the more the voice in the back of her head itched that she needed to go. To make sure, no matter what, that the Great Dark never found its heart.

  By the time the city gates came into view, the moons were high in the sky, coating everything in a bright silver that reminded Ana of Jax’s hair. A Solgard stood guard out front, apparently stationed there to look out for them if they decided to come back to the city. He spotted Ana before she could duck into the bushes with Elara, and she quickly held up her hands.

  “I’m not armed,” she told him as he pointed his sharp spear at her. The end glowed a hot white—a lightblade.

  “You’re that girl—the Empress we’re looking for.”

  “If I said no, would you believe me?” When the guard narrowed his eyes, she sighed. “Could you just let me into the city? I won’t make any trouble.”

  “The Elder Court said to arrest you on sight.” He reached for his comm-link on the collar of his uniform. If he called to the rest of the guard, she doubted she’d be able to get into the city at all.

  “Wait—”

  A glowing boomerang arced into the air, narrowly missing his face. He stumbled back, eyes wide, and spun around to try to find the weapon. It arced into the air behind him and came back around with a fierce twist, slamming into the side of his head.

  He fell to the ground like a rock.

  Elara climbed out of the bushes behind Ana and took up her boomerang again, placing it on her waist, and then she rummaged through his pockets for some spare coppers and the keys to the gate.

  “Don’t steal,” Ana hissed.

  “That’s ironic coming from an outlaw,” replied the hacker, sliding the coppers into her pocket. The guard groaned. He’d have a good bruise on his head when he woke up with empty pockets. She tossed the gate key up into the air and caught it. “Okay, so if the heart’s in those ruins, then we have to get your captain out of prison and go find it—c’mon, help me pull him into the bushes.”

  They each took an arm and dragged him a few feet into a shrub.

  “I have to go find it,” Ana corrected, wiping her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand. “Alone.”

  Elara gave a start. “What? Princess, that’s suicide.”

  “We’re the only ones who know where the heart is—you, me, and Robb. I need to go now and get it before the Great Dark finds out the location. There can’t be many other shrines left before it gets to those ruins. And we don’t know how long it’s going to take to get the captain and everyone out of prison, or whether Jax even wants to leave.”

  Elara hesitated.

  “Trust me,” she added to try to win her over, but when she realized that Elara wasn’t going to come around she added, “You can’t stop me.”

  “Ak’va,” Elara groaned, rubbing her face with her hands. “Okay, but—help me get this uniform off him.”

  “Are you going to steal that, too? I don’t think you’ll be able to sell that without—”

  “I’m going to put it on,” Elara explained. “I can’t exactly sneak into the Spire looking like I am.”

  “Oh. But if you get caught . . .”

  “I know,” replied the Solani girl, and cast her eyes down to the unconscious guard, already unlacing his pauldrons. “But I’ve never really had a crew before—or anything to be a part of, really. It felt nice on the Dossier. You kind of welcomed me in despite—well, everything. I hadn’t had that before. So you get a head start, and I’ll go free your friends, and they’ll go running after you. I might not be able to stop you, but they can.”

  Ana didn’t point out that the crew had tried to stop her a hundred times before, but she’d always run off on her own anyway. It had been how this entire mess started, in an Iron Shrine going to meet Mokuba about a lost Ironblood ship. She didn’t want to go alone this time, but every second counted—and every second the Great Dark looked for the heart, it was a second closer to finding it. Ana helped Elara undo the rest of the guard’s uniform and put it on her. The breastplate was surprisingly light, as were the greaves, and every time she touched the curious metal, it rippled like water. When Elara was dressed, she stepped out of the forest, pulling her bob into a ponytail behind her head, and together they slipped into the city.

  The streets were sparse and dark
, the only sound coming from the taverns, casting golden light and the smell of sweet mead out onto the streets. They bade each other good-bye and began to go their separate ways, when regret tugged on Ana’s heart, because the last time she had gone alone, it hadn’t ended well.

  “Hey, Elara?”

  The girl turned. “What?”

  “They’re your friends, too. Not just mine.”

  To that, the hacker smiled. “Thanks, Princess.”

  “And can you tell Jax that I’m sorry? For everything.”

  “The dreadnought wasn’t your fault,” Elara had tried to say, but Ana was already heading for the docks where the Dossier sat, because it was her fault. That much Ana knew.

  Ana kept to the shadows and back alleys on her way to the docks, and when the sight of the Dossier, black and chrome, rose up in the distance, she felt a pang of relief. Hired workers were still, patching the hull and stringing up brilliant new chrome lightsails.

  The Solgard had brought back their skysailer from the ruins, and it sat wilting on one side of the hold. It was banged up, and she hated to think of how Jax would react when he saw it. That skysailer was his baby.

  Inside the ship, she didn’t see anyone, so she quickly climbed the stairs, took out her old rucksack from her chest in the crew’s quarters, and piled it full of provisions. Di’s sage coat hung on a hook where he had left it six months ago. It still smelled like rust and gunpowder as she shrugged it on and pressed her nose against the collar, inhaling deeply. It smelled like him. The coat was loose in the shoulders and too tight in the chest, but if she didn’t zip it up, it fit perfectly. She slipped Di’s memory core into one of the inner pockets and hurried to leave again before anyone found her.

  “I bought a new comm-link for you” came a voice as she crossed the hull.

  Oh, busted. Again.

  Ana spun around to find Lenda ducking out of the engine room with a grease towel tossed over her shoulder, followed by Xu. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  “Where’s Elara? Robb?”

  “We . . . ran into some trouble.”

  “How come I always miss the good stuff?” Lenda grabbed one of Talle’s flash grenades from one of the weapon workbench in the cargo bay and held out to her. Ana gave her a curious look, and the gunner rolled her eyes. “Rucksack, Di’s coat, sneaking around? You’re going somewhere, so instead of trying to stop you, I’m arming you. Be careful with this thing, yeah? I think Talle tweaked it to pack more of a punch.”

  “Thank you,” Ana replied gratefully, slipping the grenade into her coat pocket. She would be lying if she said that she wasn’t a little nervous. Her anxiety wound like a tightening rubber band, ready to snap.

  She glanced around the hull one last time, frowning. “Where’s Viera?”

  “She still has not returned,” replied Xu. “I believe she is helping at the shrine. She is a little . . . odd.”

  “She’s just—she’ll be fine,” Ana replied. “I just have a feeling the Great Dark did something terrible to her while they had her.”

  “Yeah, about that . . .” Lenda rubbed the back of her neck, leaning against the side of the skysailer. “Why didn’t they turn her into a Metal?”

  To that Xu said, “Perhaps she knows a secret they want. Metals do not have the function to retain their human memories. Or at least my memory core did not. Perhaps Lord Rasovant created others that could.”

  Like Di’s new body, perhaps? Had he remembered who he was? She wished she’d asked when he found her in the palace, before the HIVE took it all away from him.

  “Well, whatever secret that is, it must be important,” replied Lenda, and fished for something in her pocket. It was a star-shaped comm-link. “Here.” But when Ana reached for it, she jerked it away. “You don’t have to go and do this stuff alone, you know. I don’t know everything that’s happening, but I do know you think you have to do everything solo—”

  “I know,” she interrupted, unable to meet Lenda’s gaze. “It’s just safer this way.”

  Or at least, that was what she told herself.

  The burly woman gave a frown, seeing right through her where Elara hadn’t. “Riggs and Wick and Di weren’t your fault, so stop carrying them around.”

  Ana thought of Di’s memory core sitting deep in the pocket of her coat and shook her head. “I’m the Empress. They were my responsibility.”

  “And you were their family, so you were theirs . . . just like you’re ours. So don’t die on us, okay?” Lenda finally outstretched the comm-link again. Ana took it and pinned it to the collar of Di’s sage coat, syncing her earring to it.

  “Okay,” Ana promised, pulling the strings to seal her sack, and looped the strap over her shoulder. The gunner pulled her into a strong hug. Lenda was just a few years older than Ana, but sometimes she felt decades older. She never talked about her past or where she’d come from, but Ana always got the feeling that she hadn’t come from a place of love. Ana was glad she was here now.

  “I won’t die,” Ana promised. “Stars keep you steady.”

  “Iron keep you safe.”

  Ana didn’t look back as she left down the ramp and wove through the nighttime crowd toward the transportation vessel on the other side of the docks. It was the last one to Eros for the night, and she quickened her pace to catch it, rummaging through her rucksack one last time to make sure she had her fake ID—when she collided headfirst with someone.

  She stumbled back. “Oh, I’m sorry—Viera!”

  The ex–guard captain gave her a careful look, her gaze lingering on the rucksack over her shoulder. “You are leaving.”

  “Yeah—but the Dossier’ll be leaving soon, too. If . . . if you want to come with us. What’s that on your face?” she asked, pointing to a soot spot on Viera’s cheek.

  Viera slid her finger against the mark and smeared it. “I was praying in the Iron Shrine when Metals set it on fire earlier. I helped put it out, but I could not follow them.”

  “Are you okay? Did the smoke get to you or—”

  “I may not be a guard captain anymore, but I can take care of myself,” she snapped, and Ana took a step back.

  “I’m—I’m sorry.”

  Viera rubbed the bridge of her nose and gave a long sigh. “No, I am sorry. It has been a long few months. Where are you going?”

  “Oh, um. Eros. I gotta do something,” she told her. “I’m going to make sure that whatever the HIVE did to you they’ll never do to anyone else again. I promise. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop it—but we’ll stop it now.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  “Because I’m going to find its heart,” she replied cryptically. Viera opened her mouth to ask what the heart was, but the freighter had powered on its thrusters, and she cursed. “I’m sorry—Elara’ll explain everything. I’ll see you in a bit, okay?” Then she drew Viera into a quick hug and tore off through the crowd toward the freighter ship, and she didn’t looked back.

  But as Ana found a seat in the galley of the freighter, curling her fingers around a warm cup of coffee, her eyes darting to all of the people around her who could be human or Metal or HIVE’d, she wondered if maybe she should’ve brought someone with her—Lenda or Viera or even Xu. But that would’ve been asking them to risk their lives for her again.

  It’s fine, she told herself, pulling her hood lower over her brow. No one knows where I’m going.

  But still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.

  Emperor

  The golden-eyed girl left the freighter on a waystation near Eros and boarded an S-class transportation vessel bound for a small town in the Aragonian District called Calavan. An agricultural town—hardly worth the trip, except for its proximity to the Ironblood’s esteemed Academy. Most people going to Calavan were merchants and travelers and rough-looking mercenaries searching for business. The girl didn’t fit in, though she tried. She held herself too tall—like that captain of hers.

  He
struggled to keep himself planted in the Messier as he watched her buy a ratty cloak from a vendor on the ship and throw it over her sage jacket. As if that would disguise her.

  Was she just bad at hiding, or could he simply recognize her out of a crowd of thousands?

  She could make it a little more difficult—

  The glitch tore through his thoughts again, screeching like a stereo with a receiver too close, and forced him back into the redheaded Metal body. He despised this glitch with every number in his AI programming.

  He blinked and refocused his gaze on the entrance to the North Tower. It had burned to cinders almost eight years ago. No one was allowed in. He touched the bulbous lock on the door. He did not know what had led him here. A feeling, perhaps?

  It annoyed him. He was having a great many of those—feelings—when just a few days ago all he knew was hatred—for moonlilies, for people, and especially for girls with golden eyes. Whatever this glitch had done to him, he had to fix it before Mellifare found out.

  He was afraid that if she knew, she would think him no longer useful.

  He was not sure what she would do with him then.

  The two Messiers who stood guard by the door watched him with careful gazes. He recognized Mellifare in them. She was spying on him. He quickly turned away from the North Tower, setting a course to return to his room.

  He passed a closed door at the end of the hallway and paused, that strange feeling again, like electricity at the back of his molars. He turned back to it. The red light on the panel indicated the door was locked. Familiarity scratched at the back of his head like a dog at a door. He reached into the keylock and clicked the access to green.

  The room opened.

  It was a study.

  Dust-covered books lined the left wall, beside bone-white skulls and golden astrolabes. There was a desk on the right side of the room with a computer embedded into the wood, but it was long-since dead, blackened marks stretching out across the oak as if the computer had fried itself.

  He ran his fingers along a globe of Eros and spun it. The axis creaked, but he already knew it would.