Soul of Stars

by Ashley Poston

  She pulled out Lady Valerio’s decrepit holo-pad and powered it on. The screen glitched, warming to a neon green. When she had first seen the files, she could hardly believe her eyes. Lady Valerio had depicted the Great Dark’s heart in painstaking detail, rendering it in blueprints and meticulous descriptions, analyzing what it was made from and what could destroy it, but the most startling thing of all was that it looked just like any other Metal heart.

  She knew from the Goddess’s tomb it was small and square, but she wasn’t prepared for it to look like the memory core she kept in her pocket, made from an unknown metal that could be destroyed only if enough heat was applied.

  Lady Valerio could never do that. The possibilities are endless with this technology, she had noted. She had kept it as a leveraging tool.

  Ana now understood what sort of power she held over Rasovant. She had been a terrifying woman indeed.

  At the zenith of Astoria, look north across the city. I hid it in the hands of the Goddess, protected by years, she had written in the files, the only clue to the heart’s whereabouts.

  Astoria was at its zenith, in the center of the skyscape above Nevaeh, at the highest point in the sky. Four other floating gardens gently twirled around it, a hundred feet below, patches of flowering moonlilies and deep lavenders. She faced north and looked across the city, but all she could see were towering buildings that shone gold in the sunlight that poured from the lip of the harbor above, and lines of traffic, and—

  And the burned remains of a cathedral—the Iron Shrine—protruding up out of the city like a shard of obsidian.

  I hid it in the hands of the Goddess, Lady Valerio wrote.

  There was a statue of the Goddess in the shrine.

  That was it.

  She put the holo-pad away and quickly ran to the edge of the docks, calling for Jax and his skysailer. A moment later, a ship eased up from the traffic lines, though it wasn’t Jax at the helm. It was Siege.

  “Where’s Jax?” she asked, climbing into the craft.

  “Staying. Where to?”

  Ana nudged her head toward the Iron Shrine. “There.”

  The edges of her captain’s hair darkened with foreboding. “Aye, I was afraid of that.”

  Di

  Out in the garden, Erik Valerio climbed up onto the dais in the center of the garden.

  “It seems our Emperor will not make it today,” he started, and in the crowd Mellifare looked pleased, just as Di had hoped. There had been a spy on the Dossier, but it was not anyone in that private meeting Robb had called. “Though we do have another guest with us. I have told you that she is alive—and with Lady Wysteria’s help we found her. We have been lied to, friends, about everything. About our late Empress, about her death. You see, she is not dead at all, and I have brought her here to show you. Your Grace, if you would,” he called, turning everyone’s attention to the honeysuckle vines.

  Di steeled himself, willing his eyes to be Valerio blue one last time, and stepped out into the garden.

  Erik stared at him, mouth unhinged, one moment in surprise—and then he realized what was happening: he had been tricked.

  Of course he had. He had not actually expected Ana would show herself here, had he? She had more important matters to attend.

  “I am afraid Empress Ananke will not be coming,” Di began, earning the attention of the entire garden, and with him came murmurs, rumors rushing behind him like a tide. As he moved past the Ironbloods in their pretty frock coats and dresses swirled with galaxies, he caught their attention like a ripple in a placid pond. The crowd parted into a wide clearing, where Mellifare stood—as if she was waiting. Perhaps she was. And perhaps this was a trap. But like Robb said, they were quick on their feet, and they courted the impossible as surely as the worlds waltzed around the sun.

  Mellifare stared at him as if she had seen a ghost. He did not hear the song, but he knew it was there. “You.”

  “Me, sadly,” Di replied.

  He came to a stop in front of her, and oh how he remembered all those long nights sitting beside her in his bedchamber because neither of them needed sleep. He remembered how she braided his hair so tenderly and told him what she would do to this kingdom once she had found her heart. The promises of death and revenge and darkness. He could not even remember why she was so bent on destruction, and a part of him knew she did not remember, either.

  The Great Dark existed just to ruin. It had forgotten any other purpose.

  Di hoped to make sure it would never ruin anything again.

  He noticed Robb stepping back into the crowd, away from his brother, and disappearing around a bush and into the garden. On the other side of the crowd, Viera stepped back too—and followed, even though she was supposed to stay with Wynn. He curled his hands into fists.

  “I am sorry I am a little late—I am glad you started the party without me,” he said, taking a flute of champagne from one of the waiters’ trays.

  The chorus of murmurs grew louder, and Di turned to the Ironbloods, who got more confused and frightened by the moment.

  “I fear I have not been very truthful to you all these last six months. You see, I do not rust for the crown, but it is not because I am worthy.” He took off the Iron Crown with his free hand, and like before, he eased the darkness out of his eyes, like color draining from a tapestry, to pale moonlight. “It is because Metals do not rust.”

  As he’d expected, the closest Ironbloods recoiled, the gasps of monster and murderer falling from their lips.

  He pointed the crown at Mellifare. “And she is the Great Dark.”

  Robb

  He slipped behind a line of shrubbery, following the neatly trimmed bushes down the length of the garden. He ran his hand along the wall of leaves, feeling twigs catch against his fingers. The orchestra had gone silent. That could not be a good sign.

  Don’t think about it, he told himself, traveling deeper into the garden. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a flash of platinum hair, the pale blue of a Wysteria uniform, and he traveled deeper. He used to play in Astoria’s garden when he was little, getting lost in the hedge maze as his father pursued, playing hide-and-seek. He had been wicked good at finding Robb, but then again Robb never really made it a sport to hide all that well. It was one of the few blissfully untouched memories he had of his father.

  “Night star bright, where is your light?” his father used to call in his warm baritone, and Robb had to answer:

  “Out of sight!”

  Even now he felt his father in the garden. He could hear his laughter, almost picture him standing at the edge of the hedge maze in his royal best, crimson coat pressed and dark beard trimmed, waiting for Robb to come out.

  But he wasn’t playing a game anymore, and it wasn’t his father following.

  He stopped under a willow tree, the sound of Ironblood chatter dim voices now, and ran his hand along the names carved on the wood. Viera stopped a few feet away, and he turned to look at her—really look. He should have known. It had been too easy to find her on the dreadnought—alive, anyway, especially when Mellifare took and took. At first he had wondered why the Great Dark had spared Viera, afraid to think anything else.

  But now that he looked back at her, it all seemed so clear. The fire in the shrine on Zenteli, the ruins where the heart was kept, how the dreadnought had caught them so easily in Eros’s orbit.

  How Mellifare knew they would be here today.

  “Is the heart here?” Viera asked, putting her right hand on the holster of her Metroid.

  He studied her. They had been schoolmates once. He’d dueled her on the rooftop, lost to her in strip poker. He should have realized earlier. He should have recognized.

  “Since when have you been ambidextrous?”

  Her gaze narrowed. “You are worried about that now?”

  “You’re left-handed,” he pointed out.

  “This is not the time for casual chatter. Where is the heart?”

  He reached for his
lightsword at his hip, his mechanical hand curling around the hilt. “It’s not here . . . and you are not Viera.”

  The woman’s gaze darkened. “You tricked me.”

  “And you fell for it.”

  Her eyes flashed red—the color of the HIVE, the Great Dark, the heart of a burning coal—and before Robb could even take out his lightsword, she raised her hand and a bolt of lightning shot out of her fingers. He felt a flash of pain, his blood boiling, his muscles tensing—and then nothing at all.

  Di

  Mellifare’s eyes flickered red. He heard the whisper of the song—the HIVE—and he knew in that instant that she had caught on to their ploy. She bared her teeth. “You tricked me!”

  Di took a cautious step back.

  The Great Dark outstretched her arms and curled her fingers, as if gripping strings in midair, and pulled them taut. The garden suddenly shifted. Di felt it tilt just enough for a champagne glass to slide off a dessert table and go rolling into the bushes. A couple stumbled. A mumble rushed across the crowd.

  “What’s happening?” someone shouted. “Why’s the garden—”

  Mellifare raised her hands just a fraction, and the entire garden lurched. “I must say,” she said with a smile, “he is not incorrect. I am the Great Dark. Too bad no one ever lives to tell.”

  Like a tug of kite strings, he felt the HIVE.

  Its commands spiraled out like a spiderweb.

  He felt them like a thousand red needles through him, so painful it made him stumble and catch himself on a tree, the song no longer sweet and melodic but a cacophony of out-of-tune notes screeching—screeching—so loud he could barely think. He winced, pressing his palm against his temple.

  Foolish Dmitri—Mellifare came into his head, her words like needles—you will give me my heart.

  No—no—

  Not again—

  Not—

  But you are not my tool this time, and the song left as quickly as it began, left his head ringing—but whole. He blinked, realigning himself, until a wave of command swept down like tethered strings, grabbing ahold of the garden itself. He tightened his hold on the trunk of the tree and began to tremble.

  Where was Robb?

  Below him, the HIVE tore down the programs to align the magnets, erasing the guidance system that kept the estate in stationary orbit around the station, dismantling every bit of code that kept it running. He felt the garden bleeding out as sure as he felt the song itself.

  It was going to fall.

  He lurched toward the middle of the garden the moment Astoria dropped from the sky. It would only take moments to reach the ground. Faster than a breath, a blink—and they would be dead, crushed from the weight of the fall—

  He reached out, like he had on the dreadnought, and took hold of the garden. Spread his reach across it, rearranging the scattered code in its simple computer core, warming the magnetics, realigning them with—with—

  Something.

  The city itself. The city was metal. Not as strong. Not as charged. But made of metal. And if he rewired the magnets underneath Astoria, he could put out enough friction to slow down the garden’s descent—not by much—but slower than it was and—

  He did not have the luxury to guess.

  He had to act.

  Sparks burst across his body as he reached the middle of the garden and caught the tethers that kept it floating. The magnets groaned, catching themselves again, still dropping but not as fast. Electricity sizzled over him like scattering cobwebs, his hair levitating from the power of it.

  Overheating, a warning blazed in the back of his head.

  He boxed it away.

  “You cannot choose both, Dmitri,” Mellifare said, and from the hedge Viera dragged a prone Robb by the collar of his coat. Her eyes blazed a terrifying red. She tossed Robb onto the grass in front of her, and he groaned, slowly regaining consciousness. There were blackened marks across his coat like lightning blooms.

  Viera . . . was a Metal?

  How had he not sensed her before?

  Now, where is it, brother? He winced as the Great Dark tore through his thoughts, picking through his memories, his programs. He tried to stop her, but with his functions split between trying to fend her off and keeping the garden afloat, he was not strong enough.

  She found the node of information and picked it from his head.

  So, the shrine.

  No, no, no no no—

  From Viera’s mouth came Mellifare’s voice: “Do you save the Ironbloods, or do you save her?”

  Then they both turned away. He tried to stop them, but if he moved and let go of the garden, it would crash. He did not know how many casualties, but was he prepared for that? His grip on the garden began to falter, lean to one side, imaginary tethers snapping off and disintegrating into nothing.

  Mellifare and Viera were ten feet from the edge, then five.

  Then Mellifare pulled up her hand, as if commanding a puppet, and a skysailer swirled up from below and settled down level with the floating garden. Mellifare boarded, Viera behind her—

  And they left.

  Straight toward the heart. The shrine. Ana.

  Di watched the skysailer become a pinprick in the Nevaeh sky, too far away to do anything, and he gritted his teeth. He sank his anger down into the garden and pulled as hard as he could to stop its descent. He could feel the ground close, but not close enough.

  His arms began to shake.

  Ironbloods were clutching the ground around him, crying, curling into each other waiting for the impact. For death. It reminded him so terribly of the Plague hospital, of the rows and rows of people just waiting for the inevitable, hope growing thinner and thinner until it snapped.

  He had had enough of hopelessness.

  OVERHEATING, the warning in the back of his head said again, and he could feel his insides this time beginning to burn. It hurt somewhere in his chest cavity.

  With a cry, he pulled all the energy in the garden into the magnets. From the lampposts, the electric doors, the skysailer docking clamps, the levers for the irrigations systems—everything. And with an enormous groan, the garden slowed its descent foot by foot, until its bottom clanked against one of the market streets of the city of Nevaeh and began to tilt over like a top that’d stopped spinning, and settled on its side.

  Di waited a moment for the garden to move again, but when it did not, he slowly drew himself out of the control systems and relinked electrical currents. The fountains began spurting water, and the lampposts flickered on with a pop.

  He sank to his knees, trying to stand but unable.

  His vision narrowed.

  Around him, Ironbloods uncurled themselves, looking at him in horror. But he could not make out what they said, nor did he care. Mellifare had the coordinates to her heart. They had tried to mislead her, buy Ana some time, but—not enough. It was never going to be enough time.

  His fingers curled around the grass beneath him, blades springing between his fingers. He had been a part of Mellifare for months. How could he have let his emotions get in the way? The thought that they could defeat her? Outsmart her? It was never to be that simple.

  He had been a monster. He should have thought like a mon—

  “He saved us,” one of the Ironbloods said, helping her partner up. “The Emperor.”

  Another said, “What did he just do?”

  “. . . And he stopped the garden from falling! What is he? A Metal?—”

  “—A monster—”

  “He saved us.”

  Slowly, he got to his feet again. He had to go after Mellifare.

  “Jax.” He reached out a comm-link to the skysailer in question. “Mellifare is heading your—”

  Suddenly, a lightsword slid between two of his metal ribs and came out the front, and a voice hissed in his ear, “This is for my mother.”

  Robb

  “NO!” Robb cried, his head spinning as he scrambled to his feet, but it was too late.


  Erik wrenched his lightsword out of Di’s back, and the redhead sank to the ground. He twitched, sparks hissing from the wound, and then lay still. Erik sneered, flipping his sword the other way to thrust the tip into Di’s head—

  When Robb slammed his shoulder into Erik’s side, tackling him to the ground. The lightsword went skittering to the edge of the garden and then tipped over it.

  “What are you doing?” Erik hissed, shoving him away.

  “You killed him!”

  “I took revenge—more than what you could do!”

  “He didn’t kill her! Mellifare did!”

  “He stole my crown,” Erik snarled, his voice shuddering. “My throne—he stole everything!” Then he lunged at Robb, fist pulled back in a punch.

  There was a split second between dodging and watching Erik stumble past when he did the wrong thing. He should have dodged the other way. He should have grabbed his brother by the coattail, he should’ve pinned him to the ground. But it was a split second in which Robb dodged, and his brother stumbled past and slammed into the railing. And by then it was too late. Erik lost his balance and went tumbling over the garden rail, but he managed to catch himself.

  “Erik!” Robb cried, racing to the railing, and outstretched his hand. “Grab on!”

  His brother, dangling from the edge, glared up. “I don’t need you.”

  “Don’t be stupid—”

  But then Erik reached up and knocked Robb’s hand away. “I said I don’t need—”

  Erik’s fingers slipped off the rail.

  Robb dove for his brother, snagging his gloved hand, and tipped over the railing, catching himself on the edge. His mechanical arm whined with the strain. No—he could hold on. He could definitely. It was a metal arm, for Goddess’s sake. It couldn’t—

  His hand began to slip.

  Oh, just curse his luck.

  Below him, Erik snarled, “Let go—I said, let go of me!”

  He gritted his teeth, willing his mechanical arm to stay together. “Not on your life.”