Heavenbreaker (Deluxe Limited Edition)

PART I

the rabbit

0. Ignesco

ignescō ~ere, intr.

1. to start to burn; catch fire

in the same year, on the same space Station orbiting the green gas giant Esther, three children turn five years old.

One of them is a girl, black-haired and skipping barefoot along a steel pipe belching sulfur fumes. Weathered crosses suspended by barbed wire and half-broken holoscreens watch her journey from above, coffee and air-purifier ads winking down at her like fond parents. In one hand she holds a basket of scavenged treats for her mother—burned bread and the parts of fruits no one wants. She has never met her father, but she dreams of him.

One of the children is a boy, platinum-haired and much smaller than his peers. His coat is embroidered silver and his shoes are shiny and new, but his face is smeared with his own days-old blood and excrement. He cries and cries as his mother leads him by the elbow through the marble halls of their mansion and into the cockpit of a red metal beast. The cockpit door slides shut behind him, and he slams his fists against it, begging to be let out. He dreams of freedom, but he has never had it.

The last child is a girl with eyes as deep and blue as a shadowed lake. She’s snuggled under a white-feather blanket, squealing with glee when her father pokes his head in before bedtime. By the light of a holocandle, he reads her the tale of the Knight’s War on old Earth—four hundred years gone and with five billion dead in its wake—and outside the girl’s window, there is only black space and silver stars and a great green planet with a white silica storm rotating slowly across its face. She dreams of great honor, and she will have it.

But then she will lose it all.

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER

1. Acies

aciēs ~ēī, f.

1. a sharp edge

2. a battle line

When I met my father for the first time, we talked about roses, the theoretical feel of rain, and the lilac perfume that used to waft from Mother as she brushed my hair. Oh, and the dagger in my father’s back. We talked about that, too.

But only briefly.

Now he’s dead. And I probably will be soon, too.

I inhale and turn the gold-plated handles of his sink. Under the gentle water, I scrub my hands and watch his blood circle the drain. Bit by bit, I scrape him out from under my nails.

The lights of his office bathroom are soft, steady. Nothing like the constantly flickering fluorescents of my apartment in Low Ward. In the bright light, I can see every unraveling seam in my patched tunic beneath my janitor coat disguise, every old tear Mother fixed with plastic fibers as thread.

I shiver at the face staring back at me in the mirror. It looks like Father’s. Same black hair, although his was salt-and-pepper. Same cheeks set at a sharp angle.

And we both have the same thin blue eyes that look dead inside.

No. Not “have.” Had.

A knock at the office door jumps me out of my skin, then a silken voice on the other side calls out, “Duke Hauteclare?”

My heart catches in its own beat. Father’s attendant.

For a moment, my insides twist in anticipation, my breathing shallow. Is it now?

Do I die now, when he comes in and sees the blood pooling on the rug and draws a hard-light pistol? Do I die when he calls the guards and they airlock me into space to join Father’s corpse? Or do I get to wait in a cell before receiving their so-called justice—an excruciating death burning beneath a plasma vent?

I, Synali Emilia Woster, have killed my father, a duke of the glimmering court of Nova-King Ressinimus the Third. After so many months of planning, waiting, watching…I’ve done it. All that’s left now is to escape back into the alleys of Low Ward.

The attendant’s voice is guileless. “Your steed awaits in hangar six, Your Grace. They’ve issued the twenty-minute warning, so please send your chosen rider out shortly.”

Footsteps in the marble hall outside signal the attendant leaving—small miracles—and yet still my guts writhe. He’s not the only one out there waiting for me. The guards, the cameras… I planned my entrance route into the tourney hall down to the minute, but with revenge burning in my blood, my exit route was only ever a vague idea.

Only now do I realize it with cold finality—there is no exit.

I glance at the sleek white riding helmet on the marble counter, a gold lion with wings gracing the visor. The flying lion is the emblem of the noble House Hauteclare—my House, a House I didn’t know I was a part of until six months ago.

My father, Duke Hauteclare, ruled it like a despot, like all noble Houses are ruled—underhanded deals and drug rings and protecting weapons dealers. I grew up watching the noble Houses pillage and destroy Low Ward: slowly, insidiously, and then all at once when the honorable duke sent an assassin to murder Mother and me.

I survived. She did not.

My gaze falls onto the bloodstains on his office carpet, viscous and dark. Footsteps in red, drag marks in red. I turn away, my shoulders shaking. Space lingers outside the office window, even darker. Our Station is one of the seven made during the Knight’s War—a giant ark protecting the remnants of humanity after the enemy razed Earth’s surface with their laserfire. The knights eventually won, but in their last attack, the enemy flung the seven Stations across the universe with some mysterious power—and so we remain here, alone, orbiting the green gas giant Esther and trying desperately to terraform it and make contact with the other Stations.

I stare at Esther until my eyes water. I don’t know what to do now. My life since Mother died has been clear-cut: eating, sleeping, preparing—a list of steps I followed to the end. I touch my right wrist, the rectangle of implanted blue light blooming beneath my skin and projecting my vis into the air in a perfect hovering holograph. I tap the timer and set it for sixty seconds. One minute of weakness. That’s all I will allow myself.

I clutch Mother’s cross pendant around my neck until I feel it biting into my palm.

“It’s all right to cry, dearheart.”

I let my tears wash his blood splatter off my face. His blood ruined everything.

He killed her, and he tried to kill me. My father, my family, the man I never met, the man I dreamed about as a child, the strong and good man Mother always said he was… Why? No—I know why. I traded my body and soul these last six months to find out why.

Muffled sobs impact in my chest like half-swallowed pain, like fury, like despair. It all rises up again like a terrible wave as the blue vis digits count down starkly in the air: Five. Four. Three. Two.

One.

My tears slow and then stop. It’s not over. I killed Father, but he isn’t really gone. I’ve destroyed his body but not his world. My world was Mother, but his world was his reputation, his credits, his power and pride. He killed her for power. For his House. So long as House Hauteclare stands, he yet lives on.

I can’t dissolve a noble House; no one save for the king himself can do that. But I can disgrace one.

There is no escape, but I can still die on my own terms.

Suddenly, a dim roar pierces the office walls: the arena crowd. They wait outside for the greatest show of all—a riding tourney. Only pureblooded nobles are allowed to ride in such tourneys, but I will ignore this. I am the shame they whisper of in the Nova-King’s court, half Father’s noble blood and half Mother’s commoner blood—his bastard daughter.

And if I’m the reason Mother died, then I will be the reason House Hauteclare meets the same fate.

I have never ridden. Steeds—the giant mechsuits the nobility rides in tournaments—are not for commoners; they were killing machines designed for knights in the War.

Nobles must train from childhood to ride a steed, or they’ll die in its saddle.

I swallow down a stab of fear. Like most everyone in Low Ward, I’ve spent my childhood watching noble tourneys on my vis. I know what they look like from the outside and only the outside. Nobles participate, and nobles spectate. Bastards do not ride. It would be an unforgivable disgrace on whichever House let a bastard like me ride.

The extra rider’s suit in my father’s cabinet gleams, white tipped with gold. He used to ride for House Hauteclare before his age caught up with him, and the irony isn’t lost on me; now his old suit will allow me to disgrace his House once and for all. I will not die quietly. My death will be a blaze of revenge.

The massive sheaf is made of a patent leather–like material and double my size, but when I drape it over my head and press on the golden wrist cuffs, it conforms to my body with a single hiss as it snaps tight against my half-starved flesh.

I slide the pompous helmet onto my head, and in the cabinet’s reflection, the opaque visor consumes who I was and turns me into what I must be.

I will hide our family’s bloodstains as Father did—with white and gold all over.

2. Aureus

aureus ~a ~um, a.

1. covered with gold, gilded

I redouble my strides as I head down the tourney hall toward hangar six. I have to move fast—I lost precious minutes shoving Father’s body out of the airlock. The cavernous walkway looms in cold marble and steel. The Station is large enough to house three wards—Low Ward, Mid Ward, and the Noble Ward—but the tourney hall is grander than any building on the Station save for the king’s palace. As riding is the only sport approved by both the king and the church, the tourney hall is a beacon of entertainment and leisure—one of the few places commoners are welcome to spend their credits and fill the stands.

I pick up my speed as I take a left down to hangar six, following the orange lights carved in the shape of angels. How easy the nobles must have it if they can waste time making lights this beautiful. They have food aplenty and medicine enough to heal whatever sniffle they may catch, while the red pox ravages the rest of us with no end in sight. The pockmarks on my own cheeks burn—I caught it long ago and barely survived. My father’s face, on the other hand, was terrifyingly smooth. Nobles never have to survive. They decide who survives.

A duke is the highest position within a House. He oversees a handful of lords, and the handful of lords then oversees the many barons who keep the rest of us impoverished, at the mercy of the aristocracy and their myriad friends in all places. They decide who lives, who gets protein rations, and who dies.

But this time, I’ve decided. From now on, I’m the only one who gets to decide when and where I die.

And it will be inside a steed.

I glare up at the stately banners of the noble Houses lining the tourney hall: the purple-gold dragon of the king’s House—House Ressinimus—hangs more prominently than any other. Fans aren’t allowed near the hangars, but a group has snuck in anyway, waiting with hothouse flowers and autograph books—real, precious paper; real, unprecious fanaticism—for their favorite riders to pass by.

“Who’s that?” a girl whispers, eyes on me.

“Hauteclare’s rider,” a man next to her asserts. “The only House who wears a white that bright is Hauteclare.”

“But…she’s a girl. I thought Duke Hauteclare rode their steed?”

The man shakes his head. “Lady Mirelle Ashadi-Hauteclare rides for them now. The duke retired three years ago. His head injury in the last Supernova Cup—”

I tune them out as easily as turning the dial down on a vis. I used the vis on his dying wrist to ping this “Lady Mirelle” and told her the tourney match was delayed by thirty minutes. She will be the least of my problems.

Riding is a pure noble’s profession with an entire academy dedicated to it. Steeds themselves are highly tuned, highly complex machines—and one wrong move spells the end. Despite watching the sport, I will surely make many wrong moves that end in my own death today.

Still, the court won’t know I’m a bastard until they crack open the steed’s cockpit and take the helmet off my dead body. The pockmarks on my cheeks will prove me a commoner without the credits to fix them, and the DNA test will prove me worse—House Hauteclare’s bastard. They will be the first and only House in history to taint the hallowed world of riding.

A shiver races down my spine. This death will hurt more than the judiciary plasma-vent burning, but it will hurt them more than me.

A tall rider with broad shoulders draws my attention as he walks toward me. He’s in a red rider’s suit so crimson it hurts to look at. Blood in Father’s carpet; blood on Mother’s throat. A brown hawk sigil screeches over the rider’s crested helmet, but I’m ignorant of the House it belongs to—there are fifty-one Houses in the king’s court, and only nobles bother with memorizing the sigils of dozens of their fellow assholes.

I lift my chin. Once, I might’ve felt fear at this rider’s sheer height looming over mine, the way their tight crimson suit highlights every hard-won muscle on their impressive body. I might’ve felt unease at how seamlessly they move over the marble floor—like liquid fire. Something that big shouldn’t move that gracefully. But all I feel now is the end, pulling me in as inexorably as a gravity generator.

We draw even, and Red Rider’s shoulder collides with mine. On purpose. I stagger, but they don’t so much as raise their visor to apologize. A deep voice comes out flanged by the in-helmet speakers.

“Tipsy, Mirelle? Interesting way to start your season. Should I send you a bottle of nice old Earth whiskey? Let’s toast after I beat you in a single round.”

I keep silent. He circles me like a hungry dog.

“Huh—you look thinner. Been skimping on your veggies?”

My voice will give me away, but if I don’t react at all, it’ll draw even more suspicion. Red Rider reaches for me, and I shoot my hand out to intercept him instantly. Our palms freeze flat against each other’s, and adrenaline surges hot in my stomach. He cocks his helmet, the hawk sigil’s eye watching me beadily.

“Feisty today, aren’t we? We’ve still got fifteen minutes till launch. Should we take this to the showers, just you and me?”

He tries to lace his fingers between mine, and he might be taller and stronger, but my time at the brothel digging for information on my father taught me the art of the armlock very well.

I crank his elbow back, his grunt of pain resounding as I kick forward with the momentum and slam him to the ground, pinning him beneath me. My chest heaves as I look down into his soulless black visor, my gold-white helmet reflected back at me.

The only hint of human in Red Rider is the way his broad chest caves with every shallow breath. My wrists are nothing but bones compared to his. He’s so ridiculously massive that breaking this pin should be child’s play, but for some inscrutable reason, he stays beneath me far longer than he needs to. A breath. Three.

The heat of his torso burns the insides of my thighs. A heat moves on the small of my back…his fingers, trying to get the upper hand. I grab and twist, slamming his arm to the ground above his head. Our helmets are suddenly too close, black visor on black visor. The feeling of a band stretching too far tightens in my chest.

He breaks first. He raises his visor just enough, the shiny black hard-light dissolving to reveal brown eyes the color of redwood—like Mother’s pendant, warm and auburn and rich, with dark eyelashes.

“If you wanted me like this”—he laughs softly—“all you had to do was ask.”

He’s a noble through and through—pleasure-seeking, arrogant, ignorant. The sports cup does little to hide his excitement, but that excitement does a terrific job of distracting him from the impostor who sits atop him. My disgusted sneer behind my visor is the first expression I’ve made at another human in…weeks? Months?

The tourney fans close in around us to record everything on their vis, wrists flashing with the blue glow of a dozen projected holoscreens.

“A bodily altercation between riders before a match is a foul!” someone cries out.

“Should we call a ref?” another asks.

Ref. It’s less a word and more a stab into my brain, a warning—authority is the only thing that can stop you now. I stand up and move off him quickly.

“No,” Red Rider blurts as he hefts himself to his feet. “Don’t call the ref—it’s my fault. I was pretty much asking for an ass-kicking.”

“But she twisted your—”

“You all saw,” he interrupts the shrilling fan, his gaze holding mine. Assessing me. He continues without looking away. “I tried to get touchy-feely without asking for the lady’s permission first. I’d consider her reaction justified.”

He presses the button on the side of his visor and hides his eyes behind the darkness again, but like every noble who swears fealty to King Ressinimus, he’s painted a blacklight halo on his forehead. With its dim blue glow, I catch the bare outline of his lips quirking into an affectionate smile—affection meant for Hauteclare’s real rider, Mirelle.

I press onward down the hall, leaving Red Rider to drown in his own fans, his deep laugh scraping against my ears.

Finally, hangar six comes into view. The Hauteclare winged-lion banner undulates above in white and gold. A row of Hauteclare pit crew in bright-white uniforms bows as I walk up. The crewhead takes his goggles off, face smooth. He should be heavily scarred by constant laser-torch exposure, but I suppose the nobles pay for even their pit crews to be kept “beautiful.”

“Just in time.” He grins. “Ghostwinder’s in fine form today, milady. Decon is ready and waiting for you.”

I nod, hands trembling as I push past the crewhead. I need to get into this Ghostwinder steed as fast as possible—the ping I sent from Father’s wrist won’t keep Mirelle away for long. Thankfully, she must have a similar figure to mine; otherwise, I would’ve been discovered by now.

My eyes find the white door of the steed’s hangar. Something is carved in it, embossed gently and grandly—a story, but not of the church’s usual angels and demons. This is a man riding a horse, his projection spear aimed at what looks like a thousand undulating snakes. I squint—not snakes at all but tendrils, joined at a labyrinthine central mass, each with a row of fangs on its underbelly.

The enemy.

There are no true pictures left of them—the king’s ministers insist the War razed all the databanks, and the priests echo them by saying evil’s work is often difficult to see. The twisted enemy whom Saint Jorj rides against depicted on the hangar door has no real shape, fewer defining features than the typical overblown church metaphor. I’ve always had doubts that’s the enemy’s true form; history is rarely accurate and written only by the victors.

“Saint Jorj looks well today, does he not, milady?” the crewhead asks. When I’m silent, he presses. “Always comforted by him. Reminds me of the War—all those steeds and brave knights lost against the enemy. Reminds me there’s a great sacrifice what came from riding and…well. I’m just honored to be a part of it all, milady.”

Of course you are. The nobles gladly hand out their table scraps to keep us grateful.

I give a nod, and the crewhead presses a button on the synth-marble wall. The hangar door slides up slowly, and I walk into the bright light alone, embossed tendrils weaving shut behind me. There is no war anymore. The enemy is gone. We won. We fight against ourselves now.

I am no knight.

But I will die like one today.