Heavenbreaker

by Sara Wolf

“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...

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