Heavenbreaker

by Sara Wolf

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.

I, Synali Emilia Woster, have killed my father, a duke of the glimmering court of Nova-King Ressinimus the Third.

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.

Steeds—the giant mechsuits the nobility rides in tournaments—are not for commoners; they were killing machines designed for knights in the War.

I’ve always had doubts that’s the enemy’s true form; history is rarely accurate and written only by the victors.

I have learned that when fear bites, you must bite back, or it will eat you whole.

It used to be years between manifestations, but in the last four months alone, we’ve had three. Some of us think it could be an outside stressor, but in my opinion it’s most likely a matter of entropy—even suns die. There’s only so much energy this core can produce before the insenescent fibrils unwind—”

What on earth does any of this mean???

The Station imperative is, and always has been, this: 1. Terraform Esther and establish a stable colony. 2. Using Esther’s resources, create a method by which to communicate with the six other Stations scattered across the universe. 3. Reunite and return to Earth together.

“We are spiders, brother,” Green-One says. “We make the Web. And we must protect it.”

I am so lost. Are these people??

grav-gen

Who is still alive who remembers Earth?

It’s been 400 years!

“—in the early hours of the morning, a tragic accident on highway seven occurred between two hovercarriages—one of them noble. I’m here at the scene, and you can just see the remnants of the carnage all around us—”

A highway???

He ducks beneath the moth-smelling curtain,

They have moths in space???

“The chicken or the egg, miss?” he asks. I stare blankly, and he makes a little cough. “Apologies. It’s a silly old Earth saying.” “What does it mean?” “It’s an existential question—was the chicken born first, or the egg?” “The egg,” I answer. “Ah.” He smiles. “But then who laid that egg, miss?”

I’m rolling my eyes

lucitricians—

Another weird thing she doesn’t explain

Mirelle shrugs one shoulder. “You won’t be murdering anyone else; we’ve tripled our security.

And why haven’t they had her arrested? Had someone else kill her? Do something! This noble family just sits by and lets her kill them off. 🤦🏼‍♀️

“One must sin to learn the true light of God; to experience the full power of His loving mercy and ecstatic forgiveness, one must first err. This is how we draw closer to Him in our limited lives as sinful beings of the flesh.”

The religious references in this book feel so out of left field. They add nothing to the plot. These nobles “pray” and go to church but they kill each other off? Where does this even fit in?

“I’m not yours to lose, Your Highness.”

Before she called him old man and now he’s your highness?

I am a rider in the Supernova Cup. I’m going down in a dark blaze of unglory, and I need fuel to continue burning. Enemies, friends, love and hate—I will experience it all and burn brighter for it. Before I die, I will live.

the smell of singed hemoglobin,

What???

Queen Astrix was trying to make a true AI to turn the steeds into her soldiers—soldiers that didn’t need riders. Soldiers that would help her take the throne, maybe. But she failed and was killed for treason. And her son is trying to finish what she started.

No explanation of true AI/false AI

betwixt

Who the eff says betwixt?!

“I wish you could meet Mum,” she says. She means her mother, not Astrix—the queen cloistered for her fragile health. “She’s ill, right?” “Yeah. I didn’t get to see her much.” She frowns. “That’s why J made her for me.” I blink. J—is that the boy’s name? “‘Made her’? What do you mean, ‘made her’?” “He made her overload in Hellrunner, and now I get to see her all the time! Way more than when she was sick. I had to sit in its weird saddle for a while, though.” I stare at her in disbelief. At last, she giggles. “Oh geez. Wow. You don’t know, huh? I thought Brother would’ve told you by now.” “Told me what?” “They don’t die. The enemy.” She flips her hair and sighs when I stare at her blankly. “If their bodies get hurt, they go into, like, hibernation—turn into nerve fluid. But they can grow back if they get food. And their food is memories. Brain stuff—stuff we give them in the saddle. And growing back makes, like, a lot of energy. That’s what the saddle is—us feeding them, them trying to grow back and making energy.” My breathing stops. The princess rolls her eyes. “How did you think the steeds moved? Plain old electricity? That’d never be enough.” “The nerve fluid is dead.” I numbly repeat what Rax told me over Sevrith’s bed. “That’s what the steedcrafters tell people so they don’t freak out. They’re still alive—the little wiggly things. If you overload in the saddle, they eat all of you, and they remember you. Keep you there. They’re not allowed to grow back, obviously, beca...

WTAF?????

Helmann

I think of mayonnaise every time I hear this name 🤣🤣

“Leyda said the enemy isn’t really dead. When they’re injured, they turn into the nerve fluid and try to grow back from there…by eating our memories. Our minds.” The prince smiles mildly. “Thoughts, memories—whatever is in a mind, they evolved to eat it. Pre-humans, they would eat one another’s minds. Mass cohabitative parasitism, I believe it’s called. Like ants if they could raise other ants to eat, and if those ants did not die but continuously grew back.” I stare at his shoulder blankly, letting his words wash over me and through me and trying not to give in to the rising panic. “Because of this, they are mentally connected to one another.

Brain eating parasite aliens. That’s what this whole space station is for??

“Contact the Westriani fuel depot,” she says into her vis. “Tell them I need all the heads they have. Immediately.”

Just collect up all the heads. No biggie. 🥴🥴🥴

Nova-King Ressinimus

draviticus aster de ressinimus

I think she came up with all these freaking long names just to confuse us

Rax Istra-Velrayd’s

Mirelle Ashadi-Hauteclare.”