“Yes,” he replied roughly, surprising himself with the truth. A knot formed in his throat. “Yes, I will be.”

Ana

Mellifare walked, slow and steady and patient, toward her.

It was the first time Ana remembered being this afraid. At least, since she was very little. When the fire broke out in the palace, she had been scared for her life—but this was different. This was the sinking, settling sort of fear. The kind that nailed itself to her heart and told her that it would stay.

Her captain told her it was okay to be afraid—that it just meant she had something she didn’t want to lose.

But this was the kind of fear that told her that she would lose it, anyway.

She wasn’t the Goddess. She didn’t have celestial powers. She couldn’t stop the Great Dark. She was just . . . she was . . .

She was Ana of the Dossier.

She was Siege’s daughter.

That did not mean nothing. Her fingers gripped the terrible heart so tightly, her hand shook, and she pressed it against her stomach—against the scar she had survived. She had plenty of those now, each a story, each a part that made her stronger.

I’m Siege’s daughter, she repeated to herself as she reached for the Metroid under her arm, the fit of the pistol so familiar it calmed her nerves, and unholstered it. She knew what she had to do, and Goddess damn her forever for doing it. She spun out her barrel to check her ammunition. Five. She had five shots.

Count your bullets, Siege had once said.

She aimed at Mellifare’s left shoulder. “One.”

She fired.

The bullet clipped the girl’s right shoulder, but the impact made barely more than a punch.

“If you kill me,” said Mellifare, “you kill all the Metals in the HIVE. All those innocent people dead—”

“Two—three,” she counted.

She fired again, slamming another two bullets into the exact same shoulder. Sparks hissed from Mellifare’s shoulder this time, and her arm fell limp, but her other fisted.

“You will not kill them,” Mellifare hissed. “You are too soft.”

The pistol in her hand began to shake.

“Four,” Ana whispered.

The bullet slammed into the left side of Mellifare’s chest, and the monster’s face crumpled into a feral snarl. “You missed.”

She couldn’t again. She had to steady her aim, even as the knowledge shook her to the bone. If she killed Mellifare, the thousands of Metals in the HIVE would cease to exist. But if she did not kill Mellifare, then the kingdom would fall to ruin.

“Why do you fight so much? Give up, Ana. Everyone you love—your captain, your lover, your friends and family—all of them,” Mellifare said, so close now Ana could see the cracks in her skin and the metal underneath.

A shadow rose behind her, and Ana recognized the shape as surely as she did her own.

“Your loved ones are are dead—”

A bullet, straight and sure, pierced through her chest and came out the other side.