I love staring at my mother’s butt. Iona is jealous of parades, like the planet unfurls before us god-beings walking down the middle of the street, then avalanches to bury the spectators cheering from the sidelines.   

That’s only something you can believe from the crowd. The domos squash any hope of sightseeing with their mechanical insistence on procession. It’s always the same: a sultry march through the scorching heat, watching the ornate bustle jiggle with each step, because the banners and foot soldiers on the periphery block any sense of place trying to seep through. Spires of sleek, modern cities, huts in rural villages, sacred stones lining ritual paths: the effects evaporate before they reach the rulers packed inside the columns. We don’t care about individuals’ problems because we never see them; if the domos can parse the parade route, nothing else matters.  

The atmosphere hangs thick today, clogging my pores with sulfur. I can’t even sweat for relief.  

My consort grips my elbow. Is it Azeo or Valen? There’s no way to tell, but it doesn’t matter; the symbolism of the heavy galena helmet plodding along beside me is the same.   

“The route swings left in five-hundred paces, Princess Titra.”  

Valen. It’s gotta be. Only Valen thinks he needs to announce every bend, like I can’t follow the moron in front of me.   

“Four hundred.” I catch his lips moving. Is this asshole actually counting? “Three hundred.”  

I have to make it stop.   

“So, Valen, if we weren’t trudging through this lowland soup, where would you rather be right now?”  

It works… kind of. He stops breathing numbers and lifts his head. But he’s just a stumpy, chartreuse chin beneath starbursts of mirror-bright metal; I can’t follow the directions his mind is flowing, if it’s churning at all. The shiny, blank face of the helmet suits Valen’s sense of devotion perfectly.    

The galena glows with the igneous weight of the sky. Is the air in this valley so thick it’s learned to swallow thoughts along with sound? He’s staring like he can peer through the clouds.   

When he finally speaks, his voice is thin. “I used to be terrified of night-winds, so my mother would tell me stories of other worlds, hanging above ours.”  

I scoff at the crimson rump swaying in front of us. “My mother has no imagination.”  

His mask continues to search the bleak expanse. “She claimed they were real, mathematical certainties she had proven by studying the path of the light.”  

He lost me at “math,” but between his blabbering and intense, mirrored stare, I got “real.” I scan the thick pillows for anomalies: a dark spot or an eddy in the fulvous swirls. Nothing. Just carbon dioxide, reaching up to infinity.   

The elders see the faces of the dead, singing on shifting winds; my consort sees another world bobbing above us. Either suggestion is probably pareidolia, but it’s a pleasant dream.  

I could use a good dream. “Well? What did she say about it?”   

The gleam shifts as he shakes his head. He’d better be careful; the spectators will notice. “Not one, but many, drawing wide loops around us. Some are huge, balls of clouds deeper than these.” 

My turn to crack the facade. Braids tug as my head jerks their delicate lattice. “This sludge makes you wish for more clouds?” 

Chuckles echo from the mask. “Not at all. She had other stories. Some are rocky globes we might even recognize. Our nearest neighbor is almost our twin, but it’s covered in water.”  

I gag. “Water? How could anything live there?”  

He shrugs, smaller this time. “It probably can’t; not with that much poison. But next to it, there’s a planet with no clouds at all. A whisper of wind tosses dust across its surface.”  

My gaze jerks up to the sky as my mind spins.  

A world with no clouds. No atmosphere pressing down on your back, digging into your skin. Air thin enough to carry solid particles, no matter how small. Rocks that don’t glow at night with heat.  

I shiver. “What would that feel like?”  

“Unbelievably cold. Colder than the tallest mountains.” His voice is distant, but reverent. “It’s the one I think about when parades get too hot.”  

I try to imagine his alien vision. Wind reaching through the atmosphere; a breeze my skin tastes. Cold I can’t comprehend. A wide vista, stretching forever, revealing something new every time I turn my head. Not this sticky fog, constricting until rank dictates my view. No domos barking orders. No stiff, phenolic dresses or helmets heavy with ancient magic.   

No expectations.   

Weightlessness.   

A cloudless sky, dark as a void.  

How would that much freedom feel? Could I stand it? Or would I dissolve into dust like the crust of the planet itself?  

I step on the Royal Train before I notice the clod of marching feet has stilled. Instinct pulls me back, though I’m sure some hovering domo will be along to scold me.  

Valen shrugs off the gleaming galena and smiles, showing adorably crooked teeth. His cobalt eyes dance in a way I’ve never noticed before.   

“You just have to remember to stop.” He throws me a wink and then follows the other troops, streaming toward their commander. 

Author’s Note: Princess Titra was imagined by my six-year-old daughter, who also loves staring at her mother’s butt.

Editor: Lucy Cafiero