Metal

She was raised to be the Empire's blade. She gave her heart to a boy the Empire would hunt.

Rosalyn Storm is the Heir of House Storm, daughter of the Empress, and the most carefully made weapon in Elysium. At six she is sent alone to the shrine of the Saint Beasts to have her blood read. A Spartan shield-master knocks her down until she stops breaking. Shogun Amara teaches her the sword. Her soul weapons are Wilt and Thorn. By seventeen she has killed on her mother's business and stood through the triumphs with her hands folded.

There is one place her mother's machine cannot see. In a cave by a river, a boy from the Rust Belt mends fish traps and never asks what she has done. She gives him one word, her name, and nothing else. His name is Neko Ren.

In the Empress's office every folder ends in one of three words: watch, close, or nothing. Rosalyn learns the machinery the way an Heir must, and she learns what it would do to a boy from the Rust Belt. She has a word for what she feels. She decides never to say it.

Then the Empire's night comes to District Six, and the Grand General of Elysium must choose between the throne she was built for and the one place the weight comes off.

Metal: Rose is one of the concurrent prequels of the Elemental Saga in The Gaia Chronicles. Each follows a different member of the HIVE to the same night in District Six, and they can be read in any order.