Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak Read online

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  For Annalee, who gave me a ride on their starship

  PROLOGUE

  (27.8.33.12 of the Age of Despair)

  Princess Evanescent (she/her) knows her ship is under attack before the crew does. She flinches awake, as if a pleasant dream just went sour all at once.

  Her moss-covered Yarthin face twists into a mixture of sadness and amusement under her glimmering crown, and she speaks into a slender flower twining around the nearest lacquer screen, next to her brocaded chair.

  “All hands, this is Princess Evanescent. The Questionable Decency will be boarded by the Compassion shortly. They’ve sent their flagship, the Unity at All Costs, and thus I am afraid we are very much outgunned. Please abandon ship. I will greet our guests alone. It has been my honor to journey with you. Goodbye.”

  A moment later, alarms and crewmembers both start screaming as the assault begins.

  A young Scanthian attendant named Orxyas (he/him) appears in the doorway. “Your Radiance, come with us. Please. Or you and I could switch places. I could stay, and you could…”

  The princess shakes her head. “I’m their primary objective, and they will not be easily deceived. This will end badly for me, but it needn’t for you. I imagine they’ll let you depart in peace, so long as I remain.”

  Orxyas starts to protest anew, then just bows his head and takes his leave.

  The air rings with the sound of alarms and the frenzy of the crew—who are still trying to fight an unwinnable battle, in spite of the princess’s orders. Then all of the evacuation modules launch, and the ship goes quiet.

  Princess Evanescent takes one last bite of Zanthuron coral. She plays a few poignant notes on her qhynqhun, a musical instrument with a long curved neck and a flat body.

  A sharp crack rings out.

  Footsteps approach.

  The princess rises to greet her visitors.

  Princess Evanescent is seized by heavily armed people in matte black armor with a red slash across their chests. They drag her through the gold-dappled walkways of the Questionable Decency as her slippered feet try in vain to touch the ground.

  The Unity at All Costs stretches so far above and below, it appears endless. Princess Evanescent takes in every detail of the echoing superstructure studded with crooked spikes. Here, in the heart of the Compassion’s power, she is alone—except that she’s never alone, even for a moment, because she is a princess.

  The soldiers carry the princess to a room full of prismatic clouds that scatter dark rainbows everywhere. Her resolve—to show no fear—evaporates as they deposit her in front of an apparatus with a dozen bent legs and a long sharp drill.

  Her breath comes faster and shallower.

  “You know what I want,” says a treacly sweet voice.

  “I know who you are,” the princess says. “Kankakn. The founder of the Compassion, and its self-styled spiritual leader. As to what you want? I cannot say.”

  “I’ve come to take your crown,” says Kankakn (she/her). “For this process to work, I must peel away everything you are. I will unchoose all your choices, unthink all your thoughts—until all that remains of you is a weeping husk. You will be lower than all the misshapen creatures your Royal Fleet has striven to protect.”

  The Compassion soldiers lift the flailing princess and carry her toward a set of restraints, facing the sharp blade on legs.

  “Don’t!” the princess shouts. “Don’t do this. The Firmament and the Royal Fleet have only tried to help, to bring peace—”

  “My poor child, try to clear your mind,” Kankakn says. “Let me remove your crown without causing you too much suffering.”

  Acolytes in cream-colored robes shove Princess Evanescent’s limbs into restraints, and she seems to reach a decision.

  “Petals in a deluge,” she says in a low voice. “Sparks in a whirlwind.”

  The crown atop her head catches on fire. Wisps of smoke waft into the air, and delicate filaments crumble and smolder.

  Kankakn sees too late, and rushes forward. “No! No, you pampered fool—”

  One of the acolytes tries to seize what’s left of the crown and comes away howling, with a burnt hand.

  Princess Evanescent smiles. Her scalp is on fire, the remains of her crown turning into a wreath of golden smoke.

  A few heartbeats later, the princess’s head is utterly consumed by flames.

  Joinergram, 90 Days Before Newsun, From: Tina Mains To: Rachael Townsend

  Hey Rachael, I’m going to let you off the hook right now. You don’t need to be the glue anymore.

  You did it. You brought us all together, you kept us going when we traveled into the hot sweaty armpit of death. You made us a family, and you saved all of our lives.

  Let us take care of you for a change. Please.

  This isn’t like eighth grade, when I decided I was going to be your bodyguard, and I went around staring down Walter Gough and Lauren Bose, until you told me I was embarrassing you. Nobody thinks you can’t take care of yourself, we just want to be there for you. The same way you’ve been there for all of us.

  The rest of us are making our scary beautiful fantasies come true. Me, Damini, and Yiwei are learning so much at the space academy—and I thought I knew every weird fact already. Kez looks so good in those trainee ambassador threads, I can’t even stand it. When Kez makes it back to Earth and leads everyone into the light, there are going to be Kez T-shirts and posters and TikToks and movies, and I can’t wait. And Elza? She’s going to blow everyone’s mind at the Palace of Scented Tears.

  We’re all becoming our best selves—thanks to you.

  Every now and then, I have to stop and look at my life, and I can hardly believe that I’m here, in the greatest city that’s ever existed. (Don’t worry, not gonna subject you to me singing Hamilton off-key again.) It’s not the life I used to dream of, back home on Earth. It’s better.

  I only wish you hadn’t paid such a high price.

  Or there was something the rest of us could do to help you pay it.

  I would go back into the stankiest part of death’s armpit, if there was a chance of helping you get back what you’ve lost.

  1

  RACHAEL

  Rachael Townsend used to have a mighty superpower: anything she saw, she drew. She traveled from world to world, and sketched every mind-blowing vista.

  Until she woke up from a coma, and the one thing that gave meaning to her life was gone.

  * * *

  This is the most outstanding sight Rachael has ever seen—and it’s wrecking her heart.

  Rachael’s boyfriend, Wang Yiwei, lies across her bed wearing nothing but his blue Space Underpants, which fit like a glove because they were made for him specifically. (Yiwei’s muscles look even more cut after a couple weeks of Royal Space Academy training.) His lovely brown eyes are full of warmth, though he’s probably getting a cramp from staying in the same position for so long, with his leg bent and his chin resting on one hand.

  Rachael has never felt so helpless in her life.

  “I’m sorry,” she says yet again. “I’m trying. I’m trying so hard. I just … can’t.”

  “You’re fine.” Yiwei smiles bigger. “Take all the time you need.”

  Rachael perches on the edge of the bed and tries to put on a brave face.

  In between her and her half-naked boyfriend is a plastiform pad and a pile of lightpens and styluses.

  She picks up a stylus and tries to put the outline of Yiwei’s spiked hair and square jaw on the page. This used to be so easy. Just … turn what you see into a shape. Light and shadow, texture, colors, all of it.

  Rachael’s stylus touches the page, and … nothing. Her mind freezes. She loses concentration.

  “It’s okay,” Yiwei says. “I can hold this pose forever.”

  Something is hollowing Rachael from the inside, eating away at her willpower. Her self-esteem.

  Who am I, if I can’t do the one thing I was always good at?

  “You are giving me lots and lots of inspiration,” she tells Yiwei. “Just not the kind that turns into drawings on a page.”

  “Relax,” he says. “Nobody but you and me here.”

  This time, Rachael picks up a lightpen. For a moment, muscle memory takes over, and she can feel the picture take shape. Turning vision into execution—but as soon as the lightpen touches the page, it’s gone.

  She
lets out a roar of frustration and throws the lightpen at the wall. Xiaohou picks it up with one of his little front legs and tries to drum on the floor until Yiwei tells the musical robot to cut it out.

  “You can stop,” she tells Yiwei. “We’re done here.”

  Xiaohou looks up and warbles a few bars of Rachael’s favorite K-Pop song by Blackpink, like the robot wants to cheer her up. She glares at his round opaque metal face, with its gumdrop eyes and pouty little snaggletooth mouth. His little ears wiggle. The music stops.

  Yiwei hasn’t broken out of his pose. “Don’t give up yet. We barely got started.”

  Rachael is already putting away her art supplies, with a throatful of sour. “No point bashing my head against the wall. There’s something seriously wrong with me.”

  “Your brain got jacked by that doomsday machine,” Yiwei says. “None of us could have done what you did, and of course it took a toll on you. I bet the aftereffects will wear off eventually.”

  Rachael shakes her head. “If it was going to wear off, it would have.”

  The best brain experts from a hundred planets did every test twice, and they all said there was nothing they could do. Rachael used the art-making part of her brain to control an ancient superweapon at the head of a butterfly made of starlit threads—and now, every time she sets out to create art, her brain tries to connect with that weapon, and she freezes.

  She’ll probably never make art again. This is killing her.

  “Everyone owes you a debt that’s impossible to calculate.” Yiwei maintains eye contact with Rachael as he puts on his Space Pants. “You saved all our lives—not only me and the other Earthlings, but everybody, everywhere. You’re the galaxy’s number-one hero.”

  Whenever Yiwei says things like that, it’s like he’s lowering a huge weight onto the space between her shoulder blades.

  * * *

  Rachael steps out of the Royal Academy dormitory (where she’s sharing a suite with Tina and Damini) and winces. She would give anything to be able to draw this skyline.

  Off in the distance, she can see the curved crystal fingers of the Palace of Scented Tears, the walls of the Wishing Maze, the multicolored lights of Gamertown, and the truthspike at the center of the Space Academy campus. More walkways crisscross underneath the one she stands on, as far down as she can see.

  The whole city is at her fingertips, thanks to the blue-and-white-striped puff that floats next to her. Her Joiner has little googly eyes and a slanted grin, and it bounces when it delivers a new message.

  JoinerTalk, Damini to Rachael: Rachael, everyone at the academy wants to meet you!!!! You’re famous! In a good way, I promise. Can I bring some kids over to the dorm later???

  When Rachael gets a “text” from one of her friends on her Joiner, the words appear in a cloud that only she can see. But also? She kind of “hears” their voices in her head, and “sees” their faces, like living emojis, in her mind’s eye. When she replies, she sometimes forgets to smile back.

  Wentrolo, the main city in Her Majesty’s Firmament, has 150 million people living in it, from a few thousand planets. Everybody has a place to live, because the buildings are constantly changing shape. (Today, a bunch of the nearby buildings are shaped like ampersands, but a few days ago, they were teardrop-shaped.) There’s no money—you can get anything you want for free, as long as you help other people occasionally.

  Even if all you want is just to hide from everyone.

  * * *

  Stuff Rachael thinks about when she’s hiding out in her room and not making art:

  I hope my parents checked on Tina’s mom. Maybe the three of them are better friends now?

  What if someone farted in the middle of the Javarah Smell Ceremony?

  If I had all my old Supernatural AU fanfic with me, I could publish it on the JoinerShare and nobody would know what it was based on. A whole bunch of aliens would think I invented Sam and Dean, and they always worked together at a truck-stop diner.

  Even though we’re all here together, I miss the other Earthlings so much.

  If I stare at the wall long enough, I can see patterns in the tiny cracks.

  * * *

  * * *

  Wentrolo feels like a small town most of the time. Rachael only sees the neighborhoods she’s interested in, and she has her Joiner set to maximum privacy, so nobody notices the “war hero” walking among them.

  Most of the time, anyway.

  Right now, a familiar voice comes from behind her.

  “Honored Rachael Townsend!”

  She ignores the shouts. Instead, she gazes down at a family of Javarah who are playing with their kids, one level below. Adult Javarah look like fox-people, but their kids are shiny and blue, with no fur yet.

  “Esteemed Rachael Townsend! Please wait up!”

  Here comes Senior Visioner Moxx (he/him), a large Ghulg (with tusks going up the sides of his face past his eyes). The left sleeve of his cranberry-colored uniform scrolls with his medals and commendations from the Royal Fleet, under an insignia that reads WE GOT YOUR BACK. He strides toward Rachael, as if he’s about to take command of a planet.

  The sight of this swaggering warthog-man brings back memories of high school. Moxx isn’t going to fat-shame Rachael or throw her stuff in the trash, but his body language is way too familiar.

  “Gracious Rachael Townsend, may you walk in gentle sunlight and sleep under bright stars.” That’s how a Royal Fleet officer greets a civilian in the Firmament.

  Rachael knows the correct response, but she only gives him a tiny nod.

  “You haven’t been responding to my messages!” Moxx grimaces, making his tusks lift up to his neon-red hair. “We want to give you the Royal Fleet’s highest commendation, the white half spiral, for your role in the Battle of Antarràn.”

  Sometime in the past few months, people started talking about the Battle of Antarràn. Rachael prefers to call it “that time we got trapped in a mausoleum and a bunch of people died for no reason.”

  “There’ll be a ceremony, and you will deliver a speech. Everyone will attend,” Moxx says.

  Ugh. Hard pass.

  “Why am I the one getting an award?” Rachael stammers. “I bet Tina would love the white half spiral. Or Damini, or Elza.”

  “You’re the one who actually saved us all.” Moxx fidgets. “Additionally, your friends are enrolled in the Royal Academy, the princess selection program, and the ambassador program. It wouldn’t be appropriate to single out any of them.”

  Rachael’s stressing out, which is when the headaches start.

  Moxx is still talking. “You are the only one who’s ever communicated with the Shapers. I mean, uh … the Vayt. You told us that they warned you about some terrible threat. Something that we don’t know how to fight is coming for us. Everyone is more scared than they want to admit. We need your help!”

  And with the headaches come glimpses of … something. A terrible presence scritches at the underside of Rachael’s brain, leaving an impression of distorted flesh, glistening like lukewarm soup—things no human was ever meant to see. Rachael can almost hear them shriek, the way they sometimes do in her dreams.

  Rachael always had a little voice in her head feeding her anxiety, telling her that everything was already ruined. Now that voice has a personality of its own, and it’s the people who took away her ability to make art. The Vayt.

  “I told you everything I know,” Rachael mutters. “I don’t exactly get a clear message from the Vayt, and the connection only goes one way.”

  She takes a breath, and then another, until the headache fades.

  When Rachael wasn’t being examined by doctors to figure out why she can’t do art anymore, she was getting prodded by experts trying to understand the Vayt, the mysterious creatures who rigged the entire galaxy to put human-shaped people on top. The weapon Rachael controlled was part of the Vayt’s plan to protect against some mystery threat to everyone, everywhere—all she knows is, the danger is already here, and time is running out.

  So they attached brain-gargoyles to Rachael’s head (she still has bite marks on her scalp). She spent a day doing Aribentoran poetic meditation, where she tried to doubt everything. She went inside a smoke-cocoon. She even got a hug from a one-eyed Oonian cuddle-priest who was way too handsy.