The Heart is a Universe

by Sherry Thomas

  But even as she leaned in to kiss him, her expression changed. He turned and followed her line of sight. At the edge of the horizon, the fabric of space-time itself tore apart.

  The sky liquefied. The sea boiled. He reached for her, but she refused to budge.

  I was supposed to stop it, she whispered, her face blank with horror. I was supposed to stop it.

  Eleian bolted upright, his heart pounding.

  His chamberlain’s voice immediately rang out. “Your Highness—”

  “I’m all right.”

  He took himself to the recovery tank, just in case. Once inside, he was bathed in a gentle light. A symphony of chirping birds and distant waves unfurled upon his eardrums, the sounds of home, of his remote refuge awakening to a new day.

  The recovery tank was an apparatus meant to bolster not only his failing health, but his flagging spirits.

  And he could barely breathe.

  The dream. The horror on her face. The catastrophe that awaited Pax Cara was beyond his capacity to imagine, but it would be all too real for her. Her family. Her friends. Her neighbors. All the children who had looked upon her in awe. Everyone who had ever trusted in her steady nerves and stalwart heart.

  The recovery tank tilted up. Its door opened. Eleian stepped into a robe held out by his chamberlain.

  “Breakfast is served in the garden, sire,” said Alchiba.

  His suite came with a large private garden, a surprisingly low-key and peaceful space, considering the number of exotic species it featured. Eleian’s first instinct was to decline: He wasn’t hungry—and he’d never cared for the suspension gel that delivered his nutrients.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  No point in underscoring his distress by childishly refusing meals.

  He dressed, noticing as he pulled a fresh tunic over his head that her glass of honeymoon ambrosia was gone—helpfully cleared away by his staff, no doubt. Who were also no doubt shaking their heads this morning.

  But they’d forgotten to check the nightstand drawer. His first-day gift to her still sat in its diamond-and-titanium lattice, sparkling with yesterday’s hopes.

  He closed the drawer and trudged out to the garden, stopping twice to catch his breath. In her presence last night, he had felt unusually energetic and purposeful. But this was far closer to normalcy, this plodding yet inexorable procession of hours, weary from the moment he awakened, with little to lighten the shadow of death that always stalked nearby.

  He stopped two steps into the garden. He recognized the aromas, of course—he had been to state dinners and banquets. He had also been to the kitchens of his own retreat, where his chef prepared mouthwatering meals for the staff. He simply wasn’t accustomed to such heavenly smells when he dined alone.

  Had his staff taken pity on him and decided to serve him real food this morning? Had they cleared the matter with his physicians? And had the physicians actually given their consent, they who had emphasized from the beginning that he must not tax his digestive system with just about anything he found delicious?

  Halfway to the table that had been laid out, he stopped again. Someone sat with her back to him, already busy eating.

  Vitalis.

  No, it had to be someone else. Besili of Terra Viridis. Or one of his own physicians who decided that he ought not be completely alone this morning.

  The woman turned around. “I thought you were never coming out of the recovery tank, Your Highness. I was too hungry to wait any longer.”

  Vitalis.

  Did he gape? Did he say anything in greeting? He had no idea. Somehow he found himself sitting across the small table from her, still staring.

  She had on a fitted silver tunic, its high-collared severity relieved by a V-shaped décolletage that was enticing without being too revealing. A beautiful garment, one fit for a princess.

  She noticed the direction of his gaze. “I bought this on Luna Majoli. Do you like it?”

  Luna Majoli was Terra Antiqua’s larger moon, exactly where she had gone, according to the liner’s logs. Except he hadn’t believed for a moment that she’d had shopping on her mind.

  Had he been completely wrong?

  “No need to look so paralyzed. If you don’t like it you can say it—we are married, after all,” she teased, as she lifted the glass to the right of her plate.

  The glass that contained the honeymoon ambrosia she had taken care not to touch the night before. Now she downed it at a determined pace. The glass was half empty. Three-quarters empty. And then, completely drained.

  She had sealed their marriage.

  Setting the empty glass aside, she peered at him. “What happened? Did you turn into a pumpkin overnight? Is that a common occurrence when princes get married?”

  He realized that he still hadn’t said a thing. “I—I do like the dress. It’s beautiful.”

  She grinned, her eyes bright. “See, that wasn’t so hard. By the way, ‘it’s beautiful’ should be what you say no matter what I wear.”

  “I—I see.”

  “If I want an honest opinion, I’ll ask your chamberlain. Which I already did, by the way. He declared it a perfectly suitable outfit in which to farewell the assembly.”

  Right, of course. Now that they were married, there was no more reason for them to remain at the Courtship Summit.

  “I also bought you a first-day gift. I’m beginning to believe marriage is something invented by merchants—so many milestones that mandate presents.” Her gift to him was a lightweight titanium cane. “Most men need one after they spend a night with me. I assume you’re no exception.”

  He smiled in spite of himself. “Not at all. I also have a gift for you, but I—”

  Alchiba appeared at his elbow. “I believe you asked for this, Your Highness.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  His gift was a traditional one of seeds. “When you grow them in special nutrient pods, they germinate immediately and flower in less than twenty-four hours.”

  The implication of that haste was not lost on her—the light in her eyes dimmed. But then she beamed, half-rose, and kissed him on the lips. “Thank you. And by the way, I hope it isn’t too inconsiderate to eat normal food? I had a taste of your gel and it’s—”

  “Boring, I know. When I was younger, my head physician used to always eat the gel with me, to make me feel better. But later she confessed that as soon as she was out of my sight, she’d devour some spicy pickles.” He sighed. “I’ve never had spicy pickles.”

  How strange to speak of himself this way—as if they were but two ordinary lovers getting to know each other.

  She gazed at him a moment before putting a piece of tiny, delicious-looking pastry into her mouth. “I, on the other hand, have eaten everything that’s edible and some things that aren’t. Remind me to tell you about the time I was the runner-up in a clay-eating contest.”

  He laughed—it was so unexpected.

  But then again, he could very well imagine her participating in such a contest. The Quiet Girl had captured its share of lighthearted moments as it followed her about, including a trip to a festival that celebrated the innumerable beverages beloved in their locales of origin and considered gag-worthy everywhere else.

  She had tried a sip of everything, no matter how dubious the description. Until finally something so vile had crossed her tongue that she’d spat the whole thing out, an expression of absolute disgust on her face.

  Watching her, he had laughed aloud.

  A silence fell in the garden. Time, as precious and oppressive as ever, slipped away second by second.

  She picked up a crumb from her plate, and handed it to him. “Try this. It probably won’t kill you.”

  Small as the crumb was, its richness stunned. He was living dangerously. Every moment with her.

  “When did you change your mind?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “When you left, you had not meant to return.”

  She selected a small cake, which looked like
a flower, except covered in a mirror-bright glaze so blue it was almost purple, and asked, as if she hadn’t heard his question, “What’s this?”

  He searched her face and saw only a smooth mask. “It’s a Mundi Luminare wedding specialty. Meant to look like a wildflower called summer eternity, which sprouts only two blossoms apiece. They open at the same time, bloom the entire summer, and fade together at the onset of autumn.”

  She nibbled at a petal of the cake. “I like the obvious symbolism—and the taste isn’t so bad either.”

  She didn’t offer him a crumb to try and he didn’t ask. Instead he took a few spoonfuls of his nutrient gel and drank half a glass of water.

  “I was buying an out-of-Sector passage,” she said into the silence, half-startling him. “The machine was a chatty one. It told me that there had been problems with the stability of the Bridge, leading to delays. A passenger who couldn’t wait anymore requested a refund and left. But just then the Bridge became open and stable.

  “Had I come before the machine an hour earlier there would have been no passage for sale, because it had looked as if the entire flight would be cancelled. Had I arrived any later, someone else would surely have snatched up that empty berth.

  “So I showed up at the exact right moment. The passage was mine; I had but to brandish the passport you gave me, finish the transaction, and head to the prep rooms. And . . . I couldn’t do it. Maybe if someone had got there a step ahead of me, maybe if the flight had been cancelled and I had to scramble for an alternative, it would have kept my mind focused on the mechanics of my escape. As it was, all this luck, and I was left with no more obstacles—and nothing to do except think of the consequences.”

  The consequences—he remembered his nightmare.

  She took another bite of the summer eternity cake. “So I did some shopping instead. And came back.”

  He could not begin to guess her state of mind—all these momentous decisions, one after another. Believing for one minute that she had her entire life ahead of her, only to again face certain death, now only fifteen days away.

  “Are you all right?”

  “There’s ever been only one path for me,” she answered, her voice flat, her words mechanical. “It’s not the path I wanted, but at least now there is nothing left to do but walk the rest of it. That’s simple. Time itself will take care of it.”

  For most of his life, he had been the one who needed comfort and encouragement. When he hadn’t been a desperately ill child, he had been a young man in a perilous political situation, a survivor of multiple assassination attempts. Now he at last understood how his parents must have felt when they’d embraced him—and the archbishop, when she’d cupped his face and touched her forehead to his.

  He wanted to will her all the strength and resolve he possessed. He wanted to shield her from every last one of life’s cruelties. He wanted to lift the despair from her shoulders and carry it on his own.

  He clasped his hands together in his lap. “Don’t give yourself so little credit. You took care of it. You made the choice.”

  As if she hadn’t heard him, she pulled part the summer eternity cake and examined the small creamy center hidden inside. “Now what does this symbolize?”

  His heart pinched. She meant to close herself off. To remain alone from this day until her last day. “That’s just my chef showing off, since he seldom has a chance to prepare anything that poses a challenge to his skills.”

  She smiled. “He’s welcome to push himself to the limits of his talent and imagination, now that he has me to feed.”

  Her smile did not last. Her gaze turned as frosty as an autumn morning. “I did the right thing—I didn’t run away. But that is not to say that I am happy to be here. Nor am I happy with you, Your Highness.

  “You have a talent of getting what you want, all the while appearing extraordinarily selfless—don’t think I haven’t noticed how you wield your generosity and understanding. They are gentle weapons, but all the more powerful for that. Truly, you have been ill served by your health. Had you been well, had you wished it, you could have ruled and your subjects would have all believed that it was by their proclamation.”

  Her rebuke hit him with the force of a plasma grenade. And he knew exactly what the latter felt like, having lived through one such explosion, and would have died if his security team hadn’t thrown up a battle shield. Even with the shield, the impact had cracked two of his ribs.

  “I have never wished to rule,” he said quietly. “But I will not deny that I did intend to influence you, as much as I could. And I would have done so even if my life weren’t at stake.”

  Her expression turned derisive. “Because my soul was imperiled?”

  He willed himself to meet her gaze. “Yes. And my heart.”

  Matter meeting anti-matter led to the annihilation of both. What happened when a declaration of love met with a response of indifference?

  She ate the rest of the summer eternity cake, her expression inscrutable. Then she rose. “Come, Your Highness. We should be at the assembly in ten minutes.”

  Eleian did know how to leverage his better qualities to achieve the outcomes he desired, should the occasion arise. But his bride was a true master in the art of manipulating her public image.

  They arrived at the assembly at the perfect moment to walk down the grand staircase to the applause of the crowd. A minute earlier they would have had to share the descent with others; any later and their appearance would have appeared too strategic and mannered.

  When they had bid farewell to the gathering, they sat with media representatives. To questions concerning the swiftness of their courtship, he spoke of his delight in having for his bride one of the bravest and most beautiful women who ever lived. She returned the compliment. “I have long admired His Highness from afar. It is a dream come true to admire him in close quarters.”

  And on the presumed brevity of their union, he asked for forgiveness from his people—and hers—that they would keep what little time they had to themselves, rather than meeting the public, as would have been expected under normal circumstances. She only said, “When his people needed him, His Highness rose to the occasion. I intend to do the same when my time comes.”

  “You had them eating from the palm of your hand,” he told her, when they were at last alone in his private cruiser.

  “That has always been the easy part. All my life, I’ve known the right things to say.” She gazed at the rapidly receding luxury liner. “For some people, to speak is to act. But for me, to speak is to pretend. How pretty they are, the cascade of words, the affirmation of honor and commitment, the reverberation of lofty ideals that make one glad to be alive.”

  She glanced at him before returning her attention to the starscape again. “It really is too bad I must do more than speak.”

  Her dark hair grazed her jaw. Her slightest movement was grace and strength. Her features were the beautiful smoothness of an emperador marble bust. He had never met anyone who looked more like a great heroine—and had to restrain himself not to take her hands and let her know that she was not as alone as she believed herself to be.

  It was too soon. Anger still radiated from her, an infrared frequency, invisible but potent. Searing. She was not yet ready for solace, companionship, or any further avowals of tenderness and devotion.

  He gave her a minute. “I need to be in a stabilization tank for the duration of the transit. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?”

  She turned to face him. “Your chamberlain said something earlier about extra precautions. I didn’t think to ask then, but . . . is Bridge travel dangerous to your health?”

  Everyone must be strapped down and dosed with einstol for the transit. But these days the vast majority of passengers no longer bothered with other protective measures.

  “Bridge travel produces unpredictable effects on my health. Sometimes it doesn’t matter at all; other times it’s been known to put me in a coma.”

>   “Then why are we going to Mundi Luminare? We could have gone directly to Pax Cara.”

  “I didn’t think you wanted to return directly to Pax Cara.”

  In fact, he believed that she desperately didn’t want to go back to Pax Cara. Not yet, in any case.

  Something flickered in the depth of her eyes. “Is that enough reason to tax yourself with unnecessary Bridge travel?”

  His physicians had been aghast at his choice, nearly mutinously so. But he had held firm: Mundi Luminare first.

  “I want to show you my home. And I won’t mind seeing it one more time myself, since there’s a good chance that I will not return alive from Pax Cara.” He hesitated a moment. “But they are secondary reasons. If I thought you wanted to be on Pax Cara, we’d be headed for Pax Cara.”

  Was that too close to another declaration of love?

  “There’s no need for anymore grand gestures,” she said coolly. “I’m not running away and you’ll get your chance at your cure.”

  “Can I not make a gesture simply to please my princess? There is little enough I can do.”

  So little, when he wanted to do so much.

  “You wish me to be grateful?”

  Her tone was bland, yet he heard a challenge. “You misunderstand me. I am grateful. And from that gratitude stems my desire to be of service.”

  She stared at him for a minute, as if marveling that he could be so dense. “You are not the reason I will fulfill my role during the Pax Cara Event.”

  “I know. And I’m no less grateful.” He leaned in and kissed her on her cheek. “Forgive me my part in bringing you back.”

  5

  [Vitalis drives around the training compound.]

  Vitalis: That building houses the classrooms and the simulators. Over there is the gym.

  Voice off-camera: Huge gym.

  Vitalis: We spend a lot of time training in there. Mess hall to your right. Next to it is the rec center.

  Voice off-camera: This looks like a military base.