Thousand Petal Song
ShortStory 4,824 words Recommended by 2 award/anthology sources
"The Lightning Road cuts far across the Cosmos, a streak of dazzling gold amidst the star-studded void. Paved in otherworldly stone, the road climbs over sleeping giants, past ringed planets and frozen worlds, connecting one unknown to the next. Xiaofei used to like watching it from the hills outside home..."
Content warnings 1
war
Quasar links out; the story lives on Strange Horizons, where the author gets the click.