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Space was vast, and cold, and more empty than not. Squish all the universe together, sieve it through, and there was more space between planets than people. Life was a rarity, and nature had rolled the dice again and again to let it survive.
Maybe the dice were loaded for some people. It certainly seemed that way now, from the vast emptiness that swept through the woman’s body.
She was changing, already. Moments longer, and she’d forget who she’d been. What she’d been looking for. All that’d be left was what she was becoming, and she didn’t know if she’d like that. The colors and music and echoes of pain raced through her still, lancing through her body like knives, and she knew—
Whatever she’d been looking for, she wasn’t going to find it. Not the way she was. If she did find it somehow? She might not even recognize it.
Cinders closed her eyes, holding tight to the ring on her finger, and tried to remember. Tried to hold onto everything. All the memories that were slipping away, second by second. But—
The Bifrost clung to her skin, and Cinders clutched her ring. She’d remember. For— for Rose.
—
She’d been searching for. . . for too long, now.
Longer than she knew Rose, all things considered. A thought that left her feeling cold and far, far too alone.
The ship was too slow, though, or she didn’t know where to look. Every planet, every moon, every star she’d sailed by, her ring had stayed the same. Rose wasn’t there, and she was alone, with a colorless ring on her finger.
Cinders had been used to being alone, though, before. Her family had either left her or thought of her as less than a pebble underfoot. Betrayed her, and her world, and everything she’d ever loved.
But that had led her to Rose, and Rose had been worth it. Would be worth it, if she could just find her.
Another planet. Three moons. A comet, passing the window, twin tails fading into the distance. Cinders thought fleetingly of Rose, of Snow, of the differences between them. She’d only met Snow briefly, a conversation before the wedding. Whispered arguments between Rose and Snow in a corner, while she’d looked down at her hands and tried to tell herself that maybe, just maybe—
Maybe Snow had spared a thought for the bride, after all these years, and would look for her if things went wrong. Maybe Rose was on the next planet over, or the next, or the next. Maybe Cinders would recognize her after all this time, among the army of Rose’s identical counterparts that had her face.
Rose had to still have her ring. The king wouldn’t have taken it from her, wouldn’t laugh at the thought of Cinders thinking Rose was one of the many Rose Reds in the infantry.
They— the soldiers— they didn’t have Rose’s memories. Didn’t remember Cinders. It didn’t really matter, when Cinders saw the love of her life firing at her. Didn’t matter when she had to fight back, again and again and again. Looking down at her hand and hoping that the ring hadn’t changed color mid-firefight. Heart stopping sometimes, if her hand had been covered in blood.
Another planet, another moon. Time passed, slowly and surely, and Cinders realized she was growing older. If Snow remembered her sister’s bride, she wasn’t going to come for her.
There was no guarantee that Snow had survived, either. But Cinders didn’t think Rose’s sister would have died that easily. Besides, she knew enough of King Cole’s style of combat to know better. She had survived in chains. Snow would survive, devastated, just in time to watch as the peace she fought for was destroyed piece by piece.
On top of that, Snow was Rose’s twin, even if they weren’t identical. King Cole had spent all this effort on cloning Rose a thousand times over. The genetic material wasn’t something he’d waste that casually. Rose was alive, even if just as a source for cloning material, and Snow would be alive too.
Cinders hated thinking that, even as much as it gave her hope.
Another planet, covered in trees and jungle and wild bird calls. A part of her wondered if Rose would have liked the place. She’d known Rose for less time than she’d been searching, she reminded herself once again. The chances that Rose would hate it were equally likely.
There were flowers here, though, untouched by war and blood and death. She picked one, gently, and put it in her hair.
Rose was named for a flower, she thought. One with dark petals and sharp thorns. Beautiful and dangerous, just like Rose had always been. Cinders had never seen one, but she thought they must have been captivating. Rose had always been, after all.
Even now, she could picture her almost-wife in a million scenarios. Rose in the light of cannon fire. Rose through the bars of a prison doors, medals on her jacket and eyes startled. Rose at the altar, the first sounds of gunfire coming from outside the chapel.
Rose in her dreams, dead in her arms in a million ways. Poison and dagger and gunshot and sword, just as Cinders found her again. Weeks or months before, sometimes. Just out of reach, but close enough to touch, and Cinders always woke up crying.
—
Another planet, another star, and—
And the space around the next star was strange.
Space shattered and warped and twisted around the edges, a million different colors bursting from the void. Reaching out like ribbons, like the dresses that Cinders remembered from her parents’ court. The very fabric of reality seemed to echo like song, and Cinders couldn’t listen, couldn’t feel it, couldn’t look to the stars through it. Everything and anything but the colors seemed dull and pointless, except. . . except there was something else she was looking for, something important.
Cinders swallowed, and she turned on the radio. Looked away from the broken space, and listened.
There wasn’t any good word to describe the voices on the radio. Old, crackling radio signals, from civilizations centuries old. Begging for help.
“— the doors have opened, and I’ve seen a man scream for help as he melted into the floor. Still alive, still aware, still screaming—”
“— This is a class nine alert, all available units— there aren’t available units, are there? Shit. They’ve barricaded the corridors with dead bodies, and the remaining alive— prisoner or guard, doesn’t matter, they’ve joined forces and they’re coming—”
“This is Hoddmimis mining colony. We’re ready. Inspector Edda, thank you, and good luck—”
She didn’t even notice when she turned off the radio.
Everyone talking, Cinders knew, was already dead. Or would be, soon after sending those messages. Whatever twist of time and luck was leading her to hear them, she couldn’t help. It was like if someone had heard a cry for help from Rose’s wedding now, when they were light years away and unable to do anything but watch.
Rose. She wouldn’t be here. She wouldn’t know about this place. Whatever was going on here, it wasn’t related to Rose and her search. Cinders— Cinders should leave now.
The radio crackled again, and a different voice spoke. Distorted by the radio waves, but still audible.
“You’re never going to hear her speak again,” it said.
Cinders paused.
“Your love you search for. You’ll never hear her voice as hers again. Her echoes. . .”
This couldn’t be about her. The voices before this, they’d been dead already. Never known she was there. But the idea of never hearing Rose speak again, only hearing her echoes— the Rose Reds, the clones made with her— it ached.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cinders whispered, checking the radio again. Not turned on. No sign that anything should be whispering through it. “I’m going to find her.”
“Too late. And how well did you know her, really? Hours? Days?”
Cinders looked out the window once again, at the twist in space and the rainbow light. “What do you want?” she asked. Her lips felt too dry, and her throat ached, and— and she’d been searching for Rose for so long. So very, very long.
“Nothing,” the voice said, still crackling through the impossible radio. “But you want far more, don’t you, Princess?”
“I haven’t been called princess in a long time,” she said, sitting down. Looking at her ring, which was glowing now the impossible, wrong color blue. “And— you’ve told me I’ll never hear Rose again. All I want is her back.”
“You can change that path,” the voice whispered through the air waves.
Cinders clenched her hand tight, trying not to look at her ring for once. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “I’ll find her.”
Then, she leaned forward, changing her course. Leaving the twist in space behind.
—
The problem was, it was harder than it seemed to leave that wrong space behind. It seemed to follow her, twisting around her ship and tangling space around her. The stars burned ever brighter through the rainbow glow, but Cinders could not watch them, couldn’t search them, couldn’t even look through the windows most days with the bright glow of color and shape ensnaring her ship.
It wouldn’t let her leave, and she wouldn’t let herself stay. The only way out would be through, and Cinders— she remembered the radio signals. To go through this space was to welcome that change. To possibly never see Rose again.
But she might not ever see Rose again either way. Not Rose as Rose, not a Rose who remembered her and loved her. Not a Rose that was ready to keep the promises they’d planned to make on that wedding day.
If the only way out was through, then Cinders had to try. For Rose’s sake, if not for hers.
“If you’re listening, Voice,” she whispered, adjusting her course once again, “this isn’t for you or anything you said. I’m going to leave you behind, and I’m going to find her.”
The radio crackled, but no answer came through. Why would it? No one living should be there. No ships in the vicinity, no planets with breathable atmosphere. No possible way for anyone to be alive in there at all.
But she’d be in there soon enough. Alive, as much as anyone could be in that twisted space. And she’d have to be ready.
Cinders gripped the pilot’s controls tightly, her ring shifting colors in the corner of her vision. Green, purple, blue, gold, but never red. She’d make it through. Find Rose. See her ring turn red again eventually.
She had to.
—
The colorful space didn’t behave right.
There were plenty of hazards to avoid. Rocks and debris from space vessels to dodge, and they seemed to move on the wrong sort of paths. Like the twisted space had a gravity all its own.
“Rose,” Cinders said quietly, steering the ship with an iron grip, “Rose, what would you do in this sort of situation? You’d— you’d probably fire on them, or try to fight through this somehow, but—”
There weren’t weapons on this ship, were there? Not the sort of caliber that Rose would have used for this sort of thing, and—
And she was alone. She didn’t know weapons the way Rose did. The last time she’d used weapons, it’d been against a version of Rose, even. Someone with Rose’s eyes and Rose’s smile and Rose’s curls, but none of Rose’s memories. None of the things that made Rose Rose.
“You’d make it through this or die trying,” she decided. “And I— I can’t die trying. Because that’d leave you stuck wherever you are, and I’m not leaving you.”
Rose had left her like this. Alone.
Rose hadn’t meant to.
The ship sputtered, the engine died, and Cinders closed her eyes.
“I can’t die trying,” she repeated, “but— I don’t know if I can make it either, Rose. I— I hope you forgive me, wherever you are.”
—
The memories danced in Cinders’ head, twirling and fading and sparking in the night.
She was changing still, she knew. The ship had fallen apart, and she’d fallen apart with it. She barely looked humanoid anymore. She doubted anyone would recognize her, even her closest and most dear. The night sky she’d watched so long danced across her skin, sparkling in her teardrops whenever one fell like a shooting star.
Whatever she was, she was falling too.
Her ring was still intact. Not colorless, never colorless again, but still not red either. She— she knew it should be red, if the world was right, but—
But she was starting to forget why, and that terrified her.
“I’m searching,” she said. She’d been repeating a sentence earlier. Searching for— searching for— but how had it ended? “Searching. . . searching the stars for you, my love. . .”
The wanderer— what had her name been again? Did it matter?— began to search again. She didn’t know what she was looking for. If she’d recognize it when she found it. If it’d recognize her. But maybe— maybe it could drag her back from whatever had happened.
She could hope, and she could search. It would have to be enough.