The next few days were filled with classes and lectures and learning. The gray-mustached steward from the other day rattled off her schedule while Mellifare poured a cup of morning tea. Ana hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet, her eyelashes still crusted with sleep. The steward seemed to think that she was as dumb as rocks. No, she’d never been to school before, but she was not illiterate.
The Dossier was where she’d learned. Her maths were made up of the perfect calibration for Riggs’s mechanical leg. Her words from pages and pages of Di’s favorite books and Wick’s word-scramble games. Her history lessons were learned in every world they visited, every city they slept in. Her decorum from every shore leave on Nevaeh, every waystation hustle.
The steward told Ana that she had to learn the proper history of the kingdom. No less was expected of a future Empress, as if everything she’d learned as an outlaw was inferior and dangerous. She needed to be taught. She needed to be groomed and polished, like silverware to set a table.
“You only have a handful of days before the coronation,” the steward went on, “so if Your Grace has any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them.”
“Have you heard anything about the Dossier?” she asked, surprising him. It wasn’t the question he was expecting, but it was the only one on her mind. Robb had said he had overheard his mother talking about how her guards lost the ship and ended up in a mine on Cerces.
He looked happy. “Absolutely nothing. If we’re lucky, that old ship is finally done. You see, it’s been a pain in the kingdom’s rear for quite some years, Your Grace.”
“Oh,” she said.
It felt like a story now, those years on the Dossier when she had been happy.
The Grand Duchess had ordered Viera to be her personal shadow. So Ana did the only thing she could think of—she made the Royal Captain swear her loyalty under penalty of death. Since Viera didn’t seem like the kind to break her oaths, Ana only mostly believed her.
The Royal Captain was merciless in her job as she followed Ana around the palace. Between classes, between meals—everywhere. Ana couldn’t even shake her to go exploring.
“You have tutoring beginning in a few minutes, Your Grace,” said the Royal Captain, following Ana down another long and winding corridor toward the North Tower. “We should return before your tutor informs Her Grace of your tardi—”
“Lord Whatever-His-Name can wait,” replied Ana, coming to an intersection. She watched the lanterns bob above her. They seemed to turn left, so she did, too.
“Understanding Iron Law is a crucial part of ruling, Your Grace.”
Ana rolled her eyes. “I’m a criminal. I think I know something about Iron Law.”
“Learning to evade the law isn’t the same as learning to pass judgment inside it,” the Royal Captain replied. “At the Academy, we spend years going over the doctrines. There are intricacies and amendments that take years for scholars to understand—”
“You’ve never broken the law, have you?” Ana stopped, turning back to face her bodyguard.
“I’m not like Robbert Valerio.”
“I bet he knows the law better than you. Captain Siege always taught me that you learn the law so you know how to break it.” She paused, looking down an adjacent hallway. It was a lot wider than the others, and at the end stood an intricately carved set of doors that were padlocked and sealed tight.
Two Messiers guarded the doors, one on either side. She started to turn down the hall when the captain stopped her.
“It’s the North Tower, Your Grace,” said Viera.
“Why’s it still closed off? It’s been seven years.”
“Lord Rasovant thought it best that the North Tower be kept as is, a monument to what we lost.”
“Even the Metals?”
“Hmm?”
“Are the Metals who burned my family still in there, too? Since none survived?”
The Royal Captain faltered. “I . . . am not sure, Your Grace.”
The Messiers that guarded the empty tower kept staring, staring, and for the first time Ana actually thought they were looking at her instead of past her. As if daring her to come investigate.
“And why are there Messiers standing guard over it if it’s just a monument?”
“They stand guard everywhere,” the Royal Captain’s replied. “Now please, Your Grace, we must get back before anyone notices you’re missing.”
Because Ana was just so scared of that. But she didn’t want anyone gossiping about where she was snooping, and if she came back later than usual, someone would be nosy enough to find out. So she gave in and followed her guard back to her room in the South Tower, unable to shake the attentive gazes of the Messiers as she left.
Every evening, Robb would come to her room and they would have dinner out in the garden. They never went to the moonlily grove again, but ate on the benches beside the moondial, the stoic shadow of Royal Captain Viera keeping watch over them.
Robb couldn’t seem to find the visitation logs for the day of the Rebellion.
“It’s like they’ve disappeared,” he said between mouthfuls of roasted chicken.
“Or someone destroyed them,” Ana replied, turning back to the captain. “Do you know who has access to the palace’s records?”
“Only the highest personnel,” replied the young captain. “Myself, the Grand Duchess—”
“And a good majority of the Iron Council,” Robb finished for her before explaining, “The Iron Council’s only called in a crisis. It’s composed of the heads of all the Ironblood families, so anyone could have taken or destroyed those records.”
Ana felt like they hit a barrier at every turn.
She couldn’t get any answers from her tutors either. They—and everything they taught—ran together like watercolors: history, intrigue, economics, Iron Law, policy. . . . She relentlessly asked questions about the palace, the Rebellion, her parents, but most of the stuffy-looking Advisers diverted her questions, or ignored her completely.
All except for one.
Lord Machivalle, her royal demeanor and conversation tutor, never seemed to shy away from any question. Ana often overheard her other tutors gossiping about him. He wasn’t even from a proper Ironblood name, they said. He had skin baked dry from the sun and wore so many jewels he glittered like the mines on Cerces. He looked Siege’s age, with hair the color of starlight—like Jax’s, but his skin didn’t shimmer like Jax’s did.
“Flattery is not something given lightly,” Machivalle lectured, discussing the proper decorum for interacting with other Ironbloods. “Keep it simple and straightforward—you never like a person that much. Your mother was the queen of flattery. Then again, she was also a Valerio . . . but she was the best of them.”
She glanced up from picking at a loose thread on her trousers. She didn’t feel like herself in dresses. And she couldn’t run in them if she needed to. “Did you know them? My parents?”
“Of course,” replied her tutor. “They were rare. They treated everyone with as much dignity and grace as they treated each other, you see. Some say it was why they never saw the Rebellion coming. They trusted too much.”
“They trusted Metals too much? Or someone else?”
Her tutor hesitated for a moment. “They had a dear friend who was a Metal, but he disappeared after the Rebellion.”
“Do you think he set the fire?”
Machivalle’s eyebrows furrowed, his jaw working, not sure what to say. But when he finally opened his mouth, another voice interrupted.
“May I come in, Lord Machivalle?”
Ana whipped around in her chair.
The Iron Adviser, Lord Rasovant, stood at her door, a glowing holo-pad in his grip. She hadn’t seen him since the throne room, the day the iron crown didn’t rust. It felt almost like a lifetime ago, although it had only been three days.
“Lord Adviser,” Lord Machivalle greeted Rasovant. “I didn’t realize I had run over time. I thought Lord Charone was her next tutor?” Her economics tutor.
“I’m afraid he is indisposed today,” the Adviser replied coolly.
“Indisposed or relieved?”
The Iron Adviser smiled politely. “He is sick.”
“He drank too much Ilidian brandy, eh? Ah, well, we all have our vices. Some of us are just better at hiding them.”
“Yes, well.” Rasovant blinked and then pressed a thin smile across his lips. “Pleasant day, is it not, Machivalle?”
Lord Machivalle leaned forward and whispered, “Take note of the forms of redirection,” with a wink, and closed his old leather tome and stood. “Don’t forget to practice your articulations, and I’ll see you tomorrow, Your Grace,” he said, and nodded to the Iron Adviser. “I hope you have Charone’s lessons for today. The burgeoning disadvantages of the Erosian economy thanks to the influx of Messiers will be quite a treat to talk about today, I feel.”
Then he left without so much as a glance at the Iron Adviser.
Such sass. Ana approved.
Until she realized she was alone with Rasovant, and her courage spiraled into a cold knot in the center of her stomach.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” Rasovant began, gliding toward her, and her skin crawled the closer he came. “We will not be going over your economic lessons today. Instead, I thought we could get to know each other a little better before your coronation on the Holy Conjunction. You need to know your duties.”
She stood as the Adviser approached, a wrongness settling in her stomach. His eyes reminded her of cut obsidian—shallow, stagnant. “What kind of duties?”
“I’m sure your other tutors have already said what’s expected of you. I am here as more of a spiritual Adviser, simply to remind you of your duties to the Cantos and the Iron Shrines. We are a kingdom of many, after all. We are of different planets and different beliefs, but we will all be stronger with an army under the Goddess.”
Ana’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“Once you are crowned, and with your blessing, we shall begin the acquisition of all remaining Metals by force—”
“What?” Her voice was louder, brittle. The Adviser gave her an impatient look. “You can’t just order innocent Metals—who have not broken the law—to be HIVE’d! What kind of army do we need?”
“In these dark times, we need to be united—”
“Dark times? Haven’t they always been dark? Look around you! We’re surrounded by space!”
“Metals cannot see the Goddess’s light. They will go astray. They have already. They have the Great Dark inside them. You of all people should know that. The Rebellion cost you everything you knew.”
“It’s a good thing those Metals died in the North Tower, then,” she replied, trying to keep her voice level.
“And if there are more?” asked Rasovant. “We are not safe until they are all HIVE’d.”
“Why did you create Metals to think, then? If you just wanted to control them?”
The edges of the old man’s lips twisted. “I was arrogant and young. I assure you, the HIVE does not hurt—”
“I said no,” she snapped, balling her hands into fists, trying hard not to punch the old man in his crackly old mug. “I will never be a part of that. Find a different Empress.”
She turned on her bare feet, because she refused to wear shoes in her own room, and left. Like a shadow, Royal Captain Viera pushed off from the wall and followed her out.
Why did Lord Rasovant insist that all Metals be HIVE’d when the ones who’d burned the North Tower had died? And why was the North Tower locked?
Because Rasovant lied about the Rebellion, and for once she hated that she’d been right.