Dalen Merswick woke to the sound of banging. Not the soft knock of a parent hoping to rouse a sleepy child, but the hollow clang of iron on wood. His mother was standing in the doorway with the bottom of a dented kettle, smacking it hard against the frame.

“Up, boy. Don’t make me come in there.”

Dalen groaned, dragging the pillow over his head. The air stank of last night’s ale, sour and heavy. His tongue was furred, his eyes gummy. He’d barely made it home after the tavern, and even then, he couldn’t remember if he’d crawled or staggered the last stretch.

“Not now, Ma…” His voice was a muffled whine.

“Now,” Edda snapped. “There’s a meeting on. Hunters say monsters’ve been seen in the woods. The reeve’s called the whole village. Every soul who can stand is to be at the square. That includes you, Dalen.”

With a sigh, he rolled onto his back. The rafters above were stained dark with years of smoke from the hearth. Cobwebs hung in the corners. It was the same ceiling he’d stared at since he was a boy, the same beams, the same sagging thatch. And still, he thought bitterly, he had no better prospects than the day he’d first opened his eyes beneath it.

His mother’s footsteps receded, the kettle still in hand. He could picture her: wiry, hair pulled tight under a scarf, face lined deep from years of work. She wasn’t cruel, not really. Just tired of having to prod him out of bed as if he were still twelve.

Dalen sat up slowly, clutching his head. His stomach rolled. A jug sat half-drained on the table by the window, proof of last night’s humiliation. Mira had pressed the drink into his hands at the tavern, laughing when his [Tipsy Sway] sent him reeling back into a chair instead of flat on the floor. Everyone had laughed, of course. Mira, Farlan, even old Hedric, wheezing so hard he nearly choked.

It was always funny, wasn’t it? Dalen stumbling, Dalen slurring, Dalen nodding along like a fool. A year past majority, and his only Skill was good for drinking contests and cruel jokes.

He could still remember that night when the System first revealed itself to him, the warm light in his chest, the words glowing before his eyes. [Susceptible]. For one brief heartbeat he had thought it might mean something else — that he was open to magic, or gifted with some hidden potential. Then the laughter started, and he knew better.

Now Mira was apprenticing to her mother, learning delicate stitches that made the whole village proud. Farlan had his hands in the soil, coaxing the fields to thrive with the ease [Tilling] gave him. Others his age were already carving out places for themselves, secure and respected.

And Dalen? Dalen was a drunk. A layabout. A boy who hadn’t grown into a man, whose name was muttered with pity at best, contempt at worst.

He tugged on yesterday’s shirt, grimacing at the sour sweat. There was no point trying to wash before the meeting. The whole square would reek of livestock and smoke anyway.

When he stumbled outside, his father was already hobbling down the lane with his cane, jaw tight against the pain in his bad leg. Jorn Merswick had once been a man people respected — broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed, quick with both a plow and an axe. But the accident had left him twisted, limping and bitter. His silence toward Dalen had grown heavier with every passing year, as if the sight of his son was another reminder of everything broken in his life.

Dalen trailed after him toward the square. The village of Hallowreed was no grand place, just a scatter of timber houses and thatch-roofed barns around a muddy square. Chickens pecked in the dirt. Dogs barked from behind low fences. The bell on the chapel tolled three times, its cracked tone rattling through the air.

A crowd had gathered, dozens of villagers pressed close. Farmers in roughspun tunics, hunters with bows slung over their backs, even the miller wiping flour from his apron. All of them turned when Dalen shuffled in. He felt the stares prickle against his skin, half-curious, half-derisive.

The reeve stood on the steps, a stout man with a heavy voice. He raised his arms for silence.

“You’ve heard the word. Monsters’ve been spotted in the wood, closer than they should be. Our neighbors say the same. We can’t wait for the Queen’s soldiers — they’ve been pulled elsewhere. We’ll form a band, march the woods, drive the beasts back before they settle. Better to meet them now than wait for them to come scratching at our doors.”

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Farmers straightened their shoulders. Young men exchanged eager glances. Already they were imagining the tales they’d tell when they returned: monsters slain, villages saved, women swooning.

And then a hand clapped hard against Dalen’s back.

“About time you gave something back, eh?” It was Farlan, grinning as he shoved a spear into Dalen’s arms. The haft was rough, splintered where it had been hastily carved. Dalen stared at it as if it might bite.

He opened his mouth to protest, but the jeers came first.

“Don’t drop it on your foot!”
“Try not to stab yourself, Dalen.”
“Maybe the monsters will die laughing when they see him.”

Heat crept into his cheeks. He tightened his grip on the spear, though his hands shook.

The reeve barked for quiet, then called the names of those drafted. Dalen’s was among them, of course. How could it not be? Every able body. Even his father, with his limp, had stepped forward, though no one pressed a weapon into his hands.

And so Dalen found himself at the edge of the square, spear in hand, shoulder to shoulder with men and women who wanted glory. He wanted none of it. But when the crowd surged forward, he followed. Always following. Always swept along.

The spear was rough-hewn, more of a pole with a knife lashed to the end than a soldier’s weapon, and it sat awkwardly in Dalen’s hands. His palms were already damp, though they hadn’t even left the village square yet. A few of the other boys laughed, spinning their makeshift weapons like toys, egged on by the old men who slapped their backs and told them they’d make fine militia. Dalen tried to mirror the mood, but the wood felt heavier the longer he held it.

“Keep your chin up,” Farlan muttered beside him, hefting his own spear like a farmer would a hoe. His friend’s sun-bronzed face carried the same grin it always did. Farlan had gotten [Tilling] when he turned eighteen, like his father before him, and now he was next in line to inherit the mill and its fields. He belonged.

Mira walked with them too, the hem of her patched cloak brushing the grass. She carried no weapon—just a sling and a pouch of stones—but she didn’t seem nervous at all. Her sharp little eyes roved the crowd with detached amusement. She’d gotten [Needlework], and her hands were moving faster and cleaner each day until the seamstress herself admitted the girl would soon outpace her.. She’d been the one to patch Dalen’s shirt last winter, and she’d done it so well he couldn’t even find the seam.

Dalen tried not to think about how everyone else seemed to be becoming something.

The militia gathered in a loose line and started down the rutted track leading into the forest. Some of the older farmers sang marching songs, voices thick with ale and bravado, while younger ones jostled each other like colts. Spirits were high. They said it would be a simple hunt, maybe a stray wolf pack or a few goblins that had wandered too far south. Nothing a dozen stout lads with spears couldn’t handle.

Dalen lagged behind a step, letting the rhythm of boots on dirt drown out the hammering in his chest. After a moment he muttered a thought, and a faint shimmer rippled in his vision as his System panel unfolded before him.

[Name]: Dalen Merswick

[Race]: Human

[Age]: 19

[Level]: 4 – 106/336 XP

[Class]: —

[Skills]: [Susceptibility], [Tipsy Sway]

The sight never failed to sour his stomach. A year gone, and still no class. No helpful knack, no tidy little blessing of the System to mark his path. A hollow [Susceptibility] that made him bruise too easily, and [Tipsy Sway], which made him charming only after too much ale.

His thumb rubbed against the spear shaft, slicking it with sweat. “Maybe…” he muttered, voice lost beneath the tramp of boots and the clatter of mismatched gear. “Maybe this’ll change it. A monster hunt’s noble, right? Protecting the Queendom’s people… that’s the kind of thing the System respects.”

For a heartbeat, the thought glimmered, a fragile candle against the dark. Maybe [Militia]. A steady, respectable class. Something to hold his head up with when he walked past the square. Something his father might—

He let the breath out in a laugh too thin to carry. Who was he fooling? He couldn’t even keep his hands from trembling. The spear felt heavier with every step, like it already knew he’d drop it when things turned ugly.

Around him, the chatter of the other villagers rang with bravado. Farlan’s loud guffaw at some joke carried down the line, Mira’s voice piping in sharp reply. Dalen tried to smile, but the sound hollowed him instead.

Dalen shuffled at the back of the line, spear clutched loosely, feet crunching against the gravel and damp leaves. He kept his gaze low, studying the forest floor as though it held answers he wasn’t brave enough to read. The others marched ahead a steady stream of laughter and chatter filtering back to his ears, they traded quips and boasts, nudging one another as if the monsters were already taken care of.

He thought briefly of the ale waiting back home, and a deep yearning twisted in his gut. A drink to steady his nerves, to make him less… him. But the thought curdled almost immediately. What would it look like? Dalen Merswick, staggering drunk while the others—Mira, Farlan, the farmers—faced a real threat? He shivered. A drink would only make him more of a laughingstock, if not a corpse before the sun set.

He let out a short, humorless laugh, shaking his head. Focus, Dalen. Focus.

And then he thought of the monsters. Or rather, the lack of them. He had seen one or two low-level critters steal a goat here, a chicken there, nothing more. Maybe a wild boar on a bad day.. But monsters that could threaten trained soldiers? He didn’t even want to imagine it. The thought of real danger, real death, felt like a story someone else would tell him about later. His mind shrugged. Soldiers would be here to handle it if this was a real threat. Some fool kid probably saw an oversized pack of wolves and got scared.

So he watched.

The way Farlan held himself taller than usual, striding with exaggerated confidence, chest puffed out, as though every branch snapped under his command. Mira, arms folded over her basket of herbs, muttering corrections to the hunters on how to carry their supplies. Dalen tried not to wince at their competence, at their certainty in a world where he felt more and more adrift.

The forest here was almost welcoming. Trees were spaced evenly, branches trimmed where villagers had cleared brush. Paths crisscrossed the undergrowth from years of gathering herbs, hunting rabbits, and taking shortcuts to the next village over. Sunlight broke through the canopy in warm strips, dust motes dancing in the shafts. Birds called from hidden perches, unaware of the dull, nervous tension trailing behind in Dalen’s heart.

The further they went, the more the forest changed. Dalen noticed subtle shifts in the smell of the air, a dampness that clung to his clothes. Branches grew denser, roots sprawled like tangled veins across the path. Fainter paths diverged from the main track, many marked by old signs: blazes, notches in trees, trampled ferns. He’d been here before, yes, on errands for his mother or errands for the village, but never this deep.

Still, he told himself it was nothing to worry about. Monsters? Hah. He had a spear. He had his wits. And anyway, the soldiers would take care of the big stuff. This march was just… a jaunt, a bit of excitable heroics from the villagers.

He fell back a little more, letting the line of villagers lead the way. The march was easy-going for now. Laughter drifted back to him, confident voices that could fool anyone into thinking this was a simple walk, a pleasant jaunt into the woods.

The march continued deeper into the forest, and the comforting sunlight gradually thinned into mottled shadows. Dalen trudged along the edge of the path, eyes half-closed, thinking of what a joke his life had become. He pictured Mira stitching neat rows of embroidery while he spilled ale over the table, Farlan coaxing the stubborn soil into life while he spilled more ale over his own boots.

A faint hum drifted through the trees. At first, Dalen thought it was the wind through the leaves, the whisper of branches brushing together. He ignored it, shaking his head. It’s nothing. Just the wind.

Still, it tugged at the edges of his mind in a way he couldn’t name. A faint warmth, like being watched by eyes too large to see, tickled his skin. Gooseflesh prickled along his arms, though the air was still warm with spring. He blinked and looked down at his hands, then back to the line of villagers ahead, where laughter and boasts still carried.

The hum didn’t grow louder—at least, not in a way he could pinpoint—but it pulsed irregularly, a subtle rhythm under the beat of his own heartbeat. Dalen found himself twitching, shrugging his shoulders, trying to ignore it. Focus. Focus on the march. Don’t let the wind make you paranoid.

And yet, there it was again, threading through the sound of birds and the snap of twigs beneath boots. He realized, with a faint shiver he tried to pass off as chill, that his stomach had tightened, that he felt… drawn, though to what, he couldn’t say. A little thrill tickled the back of his spine.

He glanced at the villagers ahead. Farlan was grinning, chest thrust proudly forward, carrying his spear like a conquering knight. Mira whispered to one of the trappers, correcting how he carried his pack. Everyone else seemed unbothered, unaware, as if the forest were exactly as it should be. And maybe it was. Maybe he was imagining things.

He shook his head again and muttered under his breath. “Get a grip, Dalen. You’re being ridiculous.”

And yet, the hum clung to him, soft and constant, a low vibration that seemed to wrap around his thoughts even as he tried to bury himself in self-pity. He felt it in his chest now, an almost soothing pull, like a warm hand resting on his shoulder. He brushed at it instinctively, but it wouldn’t go away.

A branch snapped somewhere ahead. He jerked upright, staring through the undergrowth. Nothing moved. No shadow passed. The hum continued, rhythmic and faint, as if the forest itself were breathing around him.

Dalen swallowed. Probably just nerves. Just nerves. He trudged onward, letting the line of villagers move ahead, feeling the faint hum threading along his spine.

The forest was still alive with birdsong and the chitter of squirrels, but the sounds rang strangely against the low hum threading through the trees. Dalen lagged a half-dozen paces behind the rest, spear dragging against his shoulder, and tried to convince himself the noise was nothing.

But it wasn’t nothing.

The longer he walked, the harder it was to pretend. The hum pressed against the back of his skull like the memory of a headache, insistent and steady. Sometimes it seemed louder, sometimes softer, as though it swelled with his own breath. His fingers tightened around the spear, slick with sweat, though the day was cool.

A few villagers glanced around uneasily. One of the hunters paused mid-step, cocking his head.
“Do you hear that?” he murmured to the man beside him.

The other frowned. “Hear what? Just the wind.”

“No,” the hunter whispered, voice pitched low, as if speaking too loud might invite something closer. “It’s… buzzing. Like bees.”

Dalen flinched at the word. Bees. The hum in his ears seemed to twist at the sound, becoming sharper for just a heartbeat before fading again. He swallowed, throat dry.

Ahead, Mira laughed at something Farlan said, though her laugh carried a brittle edge. A few others joined in, a little too loud, as if they wanted to drown out their nerves. It didn’t work. The forest seemed to lean in on them, shadows lengthening though the sun still shone.

Dalen’s chest tightened. He wanted a drink, gods help him, just one sip to loosen the knot coiled behind his ribs. But that knot wasn’t only fear. There was something else tangled in it, something warm and strange. A pull, faint but steady, like the hum itself was wrapping around his heart and tugging gently. He shook his head hard, trying to scatter the thought, but it lingered, insistent as a lover’s hand.

The line of villagers slowed. Murmurs passed up and down. Someone in the front called back, “Quiet. Just listen a moment.”

And they did. For the first time since leaving the village, the march fell silent. No boasting, no chatter, just the sound of thirty-odd villagers breathing in unison. The hum rose to meet that silence, louder now, unmistakable.

It wasn’t the lazy buzz of a few bees drifting near wildflowers. It was deeper, fuller, a sound that seemed to vibrate through the very ground beneath their boots. Dalen felt it in his teeth, in the marrow of his bones, thrumming like a hidden drum.

“Gods above,” someone whispered.

“It’s close,” said another.

Dalen wanted to run. The urge shivered through his legs, but his body wouldn’t move. His mind insisted on denial, clinging to it desperately. It’s nothing. Just bees. Just a swarm in a hollow tree. Nothing dangerous. Yet his [Susceptible] skill betrayed him, drawing his focus tighter and tighter toward the sound until it filled every corner of his thoughts.

The villagers shifted uneasily. Spears were lifted, shields adjusted, boots shuffled. Their bravado cracked, nervous glances darting through the trees. A few looked to the older hunters for guidance, but the hunters’ faces were grim, their eyes scanning the canopy with a wary sharpness that told Dalen what he didn’t want to hear: they were frightened too.

A shape flickered between branches high above, gone before he could fix on it. He blinked hard, breath hitching. Had he imagined it? A shadow? A trick of light?

The hum deepened. Louder. Closer.

Someone muttered a prayer. Someone else cursed under their breath.

Dalen’s heart hammered. His hands shook around the shaft of his spear. He tried to swallow but his mouth was dry as ash. His stomach churned. The pull in his chest tightened, warm and suffocating, and he realized with horror that part of him didn’t want to run. Part of him wanted to stay right here and wait.

The silence broke in a dozen small ways. A snapped twig. A sharp inhale. A hissed “there!” from the front of the line. Villagers clutched weapons tighter, eyes darting wildly. The birds had gone quiet. The squirrels, too. The forest held its breath.

The hum became a roar.

It started in the canopy, a black blur surging between branches, and then they fell upon the militia like a storm.

The first villager barely had time to scream before a lance of chitin punched through his chest, lifting him from the ground. Blood sprayed across the undergrowth in a crimson mist. The creature that struck him was not some lumbering boar or mangy wolf, but a towering, insectoid knight — black-and-gold armor that was no armor at all but thick, ridged chitin, wings thrumming with the power of thunder. Its compound eyes glimmered like shards of glass, its mandibles clicking in hunger or command.

Then there were more. A dozen? Two? Dalen couldn’t count. They swooped in from every angle, their wings slicing the air, their lances made of hardened chitin and barbed stingers. They moved with frightening precision, like soldiers trained for war.

The militia erupted in chaos.

Shouts and screams filled the woods. Spears jabbed wildly, shields raised too late, men and women breaking formation before they’d ever truly had one. The line collapsed instantly into a knot of individuals fighting for their lives.

Dalen’s heart stuttered in his chest. His spear felt like a twig in his hands, laughably small against the oncoming tide. He tried to lift it, to brace himself, but then one of the creatures swept low over the line. The rush of air from its wings knocked him back a step, and the sound was so loud, so alien, that his body betrayed him.

He dropped the spear.

It clattered against the roots and vanished into the feet of panicked villagers. He lunged for it, fingers brushing the haft, but a woman screamed as one of the creatures drove its stinger clean through her thigh, hoisting her up as if she weighed nothing. Dalen recoiled, bile rising in his throat.

“This isn’t possible,” he muttered. “Not here. Not this close to the heartland—”

Someone slammed into him from behind, knocking him to the ground. He rolled, dirt clinging to his cheek, and saw Farlan swinging his spear with both hands, wild and desperate, his boyish bravado shattered by raw terror. Another villager fell beside him, blood pooling beneath them.

Dalen scrambled to his knees. He had no weapon, no shield, no plan. Every instinct screamed at him to run, and for once he didn’t fight it. He bolted.

The woods around him were chaos — wings slashing overhead, villagers breaking and scattering, cries of pain cut short into gurgles. The buzzing drowned everything else, a wall of sound that pressed into his ears until he thought his skull would split. He stumbled over roots, slipped in the mud, hands clawing at the ground as he tried to crawl forward. His breath tore ragged in his throat, his heart hammering so loud he could hear nothing else.

Another body hit the ground behind him with a sickening thud. He didn’t look. He didn’t want to see.

They’re too strong. Sentient monsters. Knights. Soldiers. This isn’t a battle, it’s slaughter.

A shadow swept overhead, and he dove on instinct, throwing himself into the undergrowth. The brush whipped his face, thorns scratching his skin. He scrambled blindly until he found a gap beneath the roots of an ancient oak, wide enough for him to squeeze into. He clawed his way under, pressing himself against the damp earth, pulling leaves and dirt over his body like a child trying to hide beneath a blanket.

The battle raged on above him.

Every scream dragged its claws across his nerves. Every crash of bodies breaking against trees made him flinch and bury his face deeper into the soil. He could see only slivers of the world through the web of roots: a villager staggering past with blood soaking their tunic; a blur of wings; a spray of crimson on the leaves.

He covered his ears, but it did nothing. The buzzing was everywhere — inside him, through him, shaking his bones. It filled his head until he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Tears streaked his face as he pressed himself flatter against the ground, mouthing words that weren’t prayers so much as raw, mindless pleading. Make it stop. Please, make it stop.

Time became meaningless. Seconds stretched into eternities. Each scream lasted hours, each thrum of wings a lifetime. Dalen lost track of everything but the pounding of his heart, the hot salt of his tears, and the damp earth pressing against his face.

And then… silence.

Not at once, but in stages. First the screams thinned, then the clashing, then even the sound of bodies falling. One by one, the sounds of slaughter dwindled until only the buzzing remained, steady and constant, an ocean of wings moving as one.

Dalen didn’t move. Couldn’t. He trembled under the roots, whimpering softly, every muscle locked tight. He didn’t dare look. He didn’t dare breathe. The buzzing went on and on, until it felt less like sound and more like the pulse of the earth itself.

And then, slowly, even that began to fade.

He stayed hidden long after the last echo vanished, heart hammering, nails digging into the dirt until the soil caked under his fingers. He didn’t know how long he lay there — minutes, hours, it all blurred together. The world was muffled, dreamlike, as if it had all been a nightmare too vivid to be real.

But when he finally dared to crawl out from under the roots, he saw the truth written on the ground in blood.

Dalen’s hands slipped in damp earth as he clawed his way out from beneath the gnarled roots. His breath rasped, shallow, ragged, as if his ribs were bound in iron bands. For a moment, he simply knelt there, fingers digging into moss and mud, and then the smell hit him.

Blood. Coppery, sharp, clinging to the back of his throat.

He turned to retch before he even had the thought, his stomach twisting violently until bile splattered across the leaf-litter. It burned coming up, left him shaking and gasping, strings of spit clinging to his lips. He swiped them away with the back of his hand, but the tremor in his fingers wouldn’t stop.

The ground around him was darkened, slick in places. Shredded scraps of cloth, a boot, a splintered haft from someone’s spear—all that was left. No bodies. Not one.

His head whipped from side to side, frantic. The clearing was empty except for the trampled dirt and the stench of blood. Gone. Every last villager, every last buzzing knight-thing… simply gone. As though they had never been.

Dalen staggered upright, leaning against the tree trunk for balance, his legs like water. His chest hurt, and he realized he’d been holding his breath without noticing. He gulped air in greedy draughts, but it didn’t make him feel any steadier.

No bodies. Just blood.

The thought repeated itself in his mind like the echo of a bell. Wrong. Everything about this was wrong.

He thought about the village, about running back, about Mira’s quick smile and Farlan’s easy laugh—then his gut twisted again. If he went back, they’d see him as a coward. Worse, they’d see him as the only one who survived. What else could that look like, except guilt? Except weakness?

He pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes, groaning.

The buzzing was still there. Low, faint, a hum threaded through the silence. He barely registered it anymore—hadn’t, since the din of battle had faded.

It had sunk into the back of his mind until it became background, a constant like his own heartbeat. His [Susceptible] trait prickled faintly at the edges of his awareness, but he ignored it the way a drunk ignored a hangover.

He didn’t even notice the way it seemed to rise, just slightly, when the brush ahead shifted.

Dalen froze, half-bent as if he’d been about to vomit again, staring wide-eyed.

From between the ferns drifted a shape—not the chitin-plated horrors from before, not those towering knight-bees with blades for arms and faceless helms for heads. This one was… smaller. Rounder. Softer, somehow. Its fuzzy form glowed faintly in the late light, wings moving with a lazy, contented thrum as it hovered toward him.

Dalen’s throat worked, dry. His first impulse was to bolt, but his legs locked. He pressed himself back against the tree, hands splayed, eyes darting for another escape. But no other shapes followed. No armored swarm. Just this one, golden and strange, as if it belonged in some peaceful meadow rather than the aftermath of a massacre.

The soft hum deepened, washing over him like warm air.

His pulse thundered in his ears.

The little bee drifted closer, wings humming, the sound strangely warm against the raw edges of Dalen’s fear. It wasn’t the thunderous buzz of the knight-insects that had torn through the militia. This was softer. Lower. Like the deep vibration of a cello string carried through his bones.

Dalen’s breath slowed without his permission. The ache in his chest eased. His hands, still trembling from where he’d braced them against the tree, unclenched.

She wasn’t here for him. He could tell that much, somehow. The bee-woman—because that was what she was, not a beast but something sentient, something uncanny—was drifting across the clearing, head tilting as she surveyed the blood-slick ground. Her antennae waved as if tasting the air, and she moved with a dancer’s casual grace, her fuzzy body radiating warmth.

But then her head turned.

And she saw him.

Her eyes caught his, and his stomach dropped. He couldn’t look away. Some tether hooked deep in his chest, pulling taut, pulling him forward. His boot scraped against the dirt before he even realized he had moved, a step toward her. His mind screamed at him to stop, but his body leaned into that soft, golden hum.

The bee’s hands clapped together, delighted, like a girl pleased by a game. Her antennae quivered, weaving little arcs in the air. The hum deepened, sank into him, and Dalen swayed, caught in it.

Then she darted forward.

The world blurred; his stomach lurched. Before he could breathe, before he could even raise his arms in defense, her limbs were around him—strong, impossibly strong, her grip like iron wrapped in velvet fuzz.

“Wait—!” he gasped, the sound strangled in his throat. His fists thudded weakly against her chest, but it was like striking stone wrapped in wool. She didn’t even notice.

Her arms cinched him tighter, and then the ground was dropping away.

The rush of air whipped his hair, tore at his cloak. He squirmed, twisted, kicked—but the strength in her hold made his struggles useless, laughable. He might as well have been a child writhing in a grown man’s arms.

“Put me—down! Please! Please!” His voice cracked as he shouted up at her face, but she only looked at him with a serene, unreadable expression. The droning hum filled his head, smothering the edges of panic with something heavy, something warm.

Dalen twisted again, trying to pry her fingers loose, and then froze. He made the mistake of looking down.

The trees were already far beneath them, shrinking. The battlefield, the blood, the scattered spear-shafts—it was all just smudges in the forest floor now. His gut turned to ice. If she dropped him, if he broke free, it would be his death.

So he stopped fighting.

The fear of the fall was greater than the fear of her embrace. His breath came in ragged, stuttering gasps. His heart hammered against his ribs.

Dalen shut his eyes tight. He couldn’t look down. The world was already too far below, the forest reduced to rippling green swaths broken by jagged scars of rock and stream. If he looked again, he was certain he’d vomit all over the bee’s warm, furred chest—or worse, thrash himself right out of her hold.

So he pressed his face against her, knuckles white as his hands clutched at her arms, and tried not to think.

The hum of her wings filled everything. Not just his ears, but his bones, his chest, the hollow behind his eyes. It was… steady. Rhythmic. Warm, almost. Like lying in bed after too much ale, the ceiling spinning but the mattress keeping him pinned in safety. The fear of the fall was still there, a cold stone in his gut, but every other part of him was softening, yielding.

His thoughts came and went in sluggish fragments.
She’s not hurting me.
It’s just buzzing. It’s fine.
Maybe… it’ll be fine.

He drifted, lulled. Time was slippery. He might have been carried for minutes. Hours. He didn’t know.

And then the hum changed.

Deeper. Louder. The kind of sound you felt in your sternum before you heard it in your ears. His eyes flew open, snapping him back into the present. He twisted in her grip despite the lurch of his stomach, blinking against the rush of wind.

There they were.

The knights.

Two of them, their chitin gleaming in the sunlight, swept through the air nearby like dark streaks. Their scythes glinted with faint stains, their wings beating in sharp, martial rhythm. Dalen’s throat closed. His body jerked in panicked squirming, legs kicking uselessly, fingers clawing at her arms.

“No! No, no—” His voice cracked high, desperation shrill. “Not them! Please, not—”

But the knights didn’t even glance their way. They cut through the air on some mission of their own, vanishing toward the horizon. His captor didn’t break her pace, didn’t so much as flinch. She only hugged him tighter, as if to keep him from thrashing too wildly, the drone of her wings smoothing into its softer, lulling cadence again.

And then—he saw it.

The hive.

It loomed from the heart of the forest like something torn from a nightmare and planted in waking daylight. An enormous, tumorous sprawl of wax and resin, fused into the trees, swallowing them until the trunks themselves were just ridged supports for its golden bulk. It glistened wetly where the sun struck it, the openings along its face yawning like vast mouths. Bees—some the size of horses, others man-height—moved in steady patterns across its surface, a disciplined army swarming with purpose.

Dalen’s own breath left him in a shuddering wheeze. His mind balked at the scale of it, the wrongness. This was the kind of sight the border soldiers whispered about in taverns, the kinds of monsters you only found in the endless wilderness leagues to the north. Not here. Not in the heartland.

This can’t be here. This can’t—

He clutched at the drone’s arms, knuckles bone-white, voice breaking into a whimper. “No, no, no, no—this isn’t real, this isn’t—what are the soldiers doing? They’re supposed to—supposed to—”

But the hum drowned him again, gentle and inexorable. The hive swelled larger, swallowing the horizon, until it was all he could see.

They didn’t slow.

The drone carried him straight into the storm. The hive filled his vision, an impossible wall of golden wax, bristling with openings that pulsed with traffic. Dozens—hundreds—of bees streamed in and out, some burdened with glossy clumps of resin or armfuls of fibrous greenery, others armored and bristling.

The sound was unbearable. Not one hum, but a thousand, layered and braided together into a thundering chorus that made Dalen’s skull vibrate. He couldn’t cover his ears—his arms were pinned tight in her crushing grip. He could only grit his teeth and whimper, his head pressing hard against her chest, trying not to look at the chitin-clad knights whipping past.

But nothing touched him.

The swarm didn’t even acknowledge him. Not the warriors sweeping by with their killing blades, not the drones ferrying strange loads into the yawning dark of the hive. They parted around his captor with eerie precision, flowing past her like a river around a stone, as if she—and by extension, he—belonged.

Why?

His thoughts stuttered. They’d cut down the militia like wheat. Every single one. And yet here he was, carried like a babe in his captor’s arms. Alive. Untouched.

They passed through one of the openings. The world dimmed, swallowed by amber light. The air grew thick, heavy, laced with sweet, cloying scents—honey, resin, musk. It was warm, wet, alive, the walls close and gleaming with fresh wax. He could feel them thrumming with the hum, as though the hive itself breathed.

They wound upward. Deeper. Higher. The drone’s wings barely shifted in pitch as she navigated spiraling tunnels and cavernous chambers, never hesitating, never jostling him despite the press of traffic all around. Dalen couldn’t tell if it was minutes or hours before she finally turned into a smaller opening, ascending into a hollowed alcove high above one of the vast chambers.

And then, without ceremony, she set him down.

Dalen’s knees buckled the instant his boots touched the waxy floor. He stumbled back until his legs gave out entirely, collapsing onto his ass with a wet smack against the tacky surface. His palms stuck faintly when he braced them, a sticky sweetness clinging to his skin.

For a long moment, he just sat there, staring wide-eyed at his captor. She hovered a heartbeat longer, antennae twitching, compound eyes gleaming with unreadable light. Then—hands coming together in a strange, delighted clap—she zipped away, gone back into the swarm.

Leaving him alone.

Alone, in a golden alcove of alien wax.

Alive.

His breath came in shallow bursts, his chest rising and falling too fast, too tight. His mind clawed for sense. For reason.
Why? Why me?

The militia was gone. All of them. Every last one, cut down, their screams still ringing in his ears. And yet he was here, dumped like… like a foundling chick set in a nest that wasn’t his.

A bitter laugh tore from his throat, sharp and unsteady. “Still alive,” he whispered hoarsely, pressing sticky hands to his face. “Still alive. Gods above, why am I still—”

The hive’s hum pulsed through the alcove, steady and warm. Soothing, almost. A rhythm that seemed to answer him without words.

And for the first time since the ambush, Dalen realized he wasn’t sure if he should feel relieved… or terrified.

The silence after the drone’s departure was worse than the hum.

For the first time since the ambush, there was no hand gripping him, no wings cutting the air, no swarm pressing in on every side. Only the faint, ever-present vibration of the hive through the wax under his palms.

It should have been a mercy. It wasn’t.

Dalen scrambled backward on all fours until his spine hit the alcove’s curving wall. The wax clung faintly to his tunic, tacky and warm, but he didn’t care. He pressed himself into it as though he could bury himself whole, as though the walls could swallow him up and hide him away. His breath came too fast, ragged, every inhale scraping his throat raw.

Gone. They’re all gone.

Farlan’s laugh, Mira’s easy teasing, the chatter of the militia in the sun-dappled woods—snuffed out like a candle. He’d seen the spears shatter, heard the screaming, smelled the copper tang in the air. And now there was nothing left. No bodies, no friends. Just him.

His head dropped into his hands. His fingers trembled so hard they smeared sticky resin across his cheeks as he dragged them down. A dry sob wracked his chest, his ribs aching with it.

“Why me?” His voice cracked high, half-broken. “Why me? Why not them? Why—”

His throat closed. He sucked in a thin, wheezing gasp, tried again. “Why am I still alive?”

The question fell into the alcove and died there, swallowed by the hive’s low pulse.

[Susceptibility] thrummed in the back of his skull like a brand, raw and insistent. Every vibration of the hive, every ghost of scent in the air, every half-heard buzz in the tunnels—his cursed skill seized them and shoved them past his reason, past his defenses. He couldn’t tune it out. Couldn’t block it. It was all inside him, crawling under his skin.

Too much.

Too much.

He curled onto his side, dragging his knees up to his chest, forehead pressed against the sticky floor. His shoulders shook with every shallow sob. The wax smelled faintly sweet, cloying, like honey beginning to burn, and it coated his lips when he mouthed against it.

He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t even understand.

He was just there—small, broken, a trembling bundle of nerves pressed against the wall of a monster’s home—waiting for whatever came next.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, curled into himself, breath hitching in broken sobs. Time didn’t mean anything anymore. Only the hum, the warm pulse of the hive that throbbed through the floor and into his bones, refusing to let him be alone even in silence.

A shadow shifted at the alcove’s mouth.

Dalen’s head jerked up, eyes wide and wild. His throat closed on a whimper.

Another bee.

Smaller than the one that had carried him here. Her armor was thinner, her body softer, though still coated in golden fuzz. She hovered at the edge of the alcove, head tilted, antennae quivering as she studied him.

Dalen pressed harder against the wall, every muscle tensed like a bowstring. His pulse thundered in his ears. Any second now—he’d see the glint of a blade, the sudden lunge, the same wet end as the militia—

But she didn’t move like a knight.

She tilted her head the other way, antennae twitching again. The faint hum of her wings wove into the hive’s larger rhythm, a softer harmony that prickled along Dalen’s skin.

And then she floated closer.

“No—no, stay back—” His voice broke, his palms scraping uselessly against the wax.

She ignored him.

She landed beside him with a wet, sticky thump of her feet, the alcove dipping slightly under her weight. And then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she folded herself down and pressed against his side. Her fur was impossibly warm, her body humming like a great cat’s purr, low and steady.

Dalen froze.

Every nerve screamed at him to shove her away, to run, to do something, but he couldn’t make his body move. He was too tired. Too hollow. Too trapped.

The drone shifted, tucking herself against him with unselfconscious ease. One arm looped over his middle, not restraining—just there. Her antennae brushed against his cheek, feather-light, as if testing his scent.

The buzzing was louder now, so close it vibrated straight through his ribs. And gods help him, it was warm. Soothing. A blanket over raw nerves.

Tears burned his eyes again. He tried to choke back a sob, but it slipped free anyway, muffled against his sleeve.

And still the bee stayed. Humming. Warm. Present. As though she had every right to be pressed against him. As though he belonged here, with her.

Dalen’s body trembled, caught between terror and exhaustion, but slowly—against every desperate instinct—his muscles slackened by degrees. Not because he trusted her. Not because he wanted to. But because he didn’t have anything left.

And she didn’t seem to mind.

Dalen’s body finally gave out.

He hadn’t realized how long he had been curled against the drone, letting the hum of her wings and the warmth of her fur pull him slowly out of the raw edges of panic. His mind, frayed and spinning, couldn’t hold together any longer. With a final shuddering breath, he sank fully into the sticky wax, limbs splayed awkwardly, cheek pressed against the warm body that had become both anchor and cage.

The bee remained beside him, humming softly, antennae brushing lightly against his hair and face as he slipped over the edge of consciousness.

Sleep came in ragged, uneven waves. He tossed and turned, dreams jagged and fragmented: flashes of the militia, the forest, the hive, voices he couldn’t place, the thunderous hum of countless wings. Every waking fear bled into the dreamscape, but the drone’s constant warmth kept the terror from swallowing him completely.

When he finally woke, it was gradual. The alcove was dim, gold and amber light filtering through the hive’s walls. His muscles ached, every joint stiff from the night’s collapse.

And then there was the buzzing.

It wasn’t loud or alarming. Not like the knights’ battle-hum, not like the frantic panic of before. It was omnipresent, threaded through the walls, through the floor beneath him, and somehow… inside him. A gentle pressure, a constant pull, nudging him this way and that.

He pressed a hand to his temple, eyes wide. The sound was so intimate now, so understood, that it almost felt like thought rather than sensation. But his mind was too fogged with exhaustion to make sense of it. He blinked slowly, shaking his head, trying to chalk it up to lingering panic, exhaustion, or delirium.

The drone was there, her soft fur brushing against him, antennae twitching. Her compound eyes regarded him for a long moment, tilting with that unspoken attentiveness that made Dalen’s chest tighten in a strange mix of comfort and unease.

Then, without warning, she zipped away. A blur of gold and hum, leaving him alone in the quiet alcove.

Dalen swallowed hard, gaze tracking the fading blur of her flight. He felt… different. Not stronger, not braver, not safe. But somehow, subtly shifted. The hum that had once been a background vibration was now a gentle, guiding presence in his head. He tilted his head, pressing a hand against the side of his skull, wondering if he was imagining it, or if the hive—or something within it—was already beginning to reach him in ways he didn’t understand.

Dalen pushed himself up onto shaky arms, muscles stiff and trembling from the night spent pressed against the waxy floor. His knees wobbled beneath him as he crawled toward the edge of the alcove, the golden-hued light of the hive stretching out below like a dizzying ocean of movement.

He peered over the rim, and his stomach pitched.

The drop was enormous. Not a gentle slope or a navigable stair—sheer vertical walls of wax and resin that twisted down into the hive’s heart. Bees scurried across the surfaces, some burdened with resin, others moving in regimented formations, carrying themselves like soldiers along invisible streets. From here, it was impossible to even see the floor. The dizzying height made his stomach churn violently, and for a heartbeat he imagined letting himself fall, only to remember the sharp, bone-crunching inevitability that awaited.

He swallowed hard, fingers gripping the edge until the wax creaked faintly beneath his weight. No, no way down. Not without wings, not without death.

His gaze swept the chamber, trying to find another route, a tunnel, a passage, anything. But the alcove was isolated, tucked high into the hive like a secret corner of a fortress. There was only the way he came—up, through the swarm—or back into the interior of the hive’s structure, which would mean plunging into the endless chaos below.

The impossibility of escape sank into his chest.

Dalen sank back onto his butt, pressing himself against the wall of the alcove again, the warmth of the wax doing nothing to ease the knot in his stomach. His mind circled, desperate, grappling with the truth he had been denying.

The bees… they didn’t want him dead.

They could have killed me. The thought hit him like a splintered spear. Every part of him screamed that he should be lying broken among the militia, yet here he was. Alive. Unharmed.

His pulse hammered, a mix of fear, confusion, and disbelief. He pressed his palms against his face, inhaling raggedly, trying to slow the racing in his chest.

Why?

For some reason, he had been marked. Reserved. Something about him had caught their attention, something in the hive’s complex, unknowable order. And he didn’t understand why.

A shiver ran through him, and he hugged his knees close to his chest, forcing himself to confront it. The hum that vibrated through the alcove, through his bones, through the fog in his skull—it wasn’t threatening. It wasn’t a warning. It was… patient. Observant. Waiting.

He swallowed again, dry and bitter. Whatever this was, whatever purpose the hive had for him, he couldn’t fight it—not yet, not with this height, not with the swarm above and below.

Dalen barely had time to sink back into the sticky wax and press against the wall before movement drew his gaze upward. The nurse drone was back, darting toward him with the soft, hypnotic hum of her wings, body bristling faintly with purpose. Her compound eyes fixed on him immediately, antennae twitching like impatient fingers.

Before Dalen could react, she was at his side, hands already holding a small, shallow cup of viscous liquid. Its golden surface caught the faint light, glimmering thickly, invitingly.

“I—I don’t want—” he tried, but his protest came out weak, broken, lost in the dizzying hum of her presence.

She ignored him. Antennae flicking with subtle annoyance, she pressed the cup closer, nudging him forward. Her wings buzzed softly, insistent, warm.

Dalen hesitated, staring at the liquid. It smelled overwhelmingly sweet, with a sharp tang that made his stomach twist. He could almost taste a faint, bitter undertone beneath the saccharine scent, but the overwhelming sweetness dominated.

“I said no—” he started again, but she interrupted with a gentle, almost maternal hum and a firm nudge.

Before he could recoil, the liquid was pressed against his lips. He gagged instantly, coughing as it pooled in his mouth, thick and heavy. The taste exploded on his tongue—intense honeyed sweetness, tart, almost fruity in the sharpness beneath the syrupy coating, clinging to the back of his throat and coating every crevice. He tried to spit, tried to push it away, but the drone’s hands were steady, unyielding.

The hum of her wings seemed to grow louder, vibrating through his chest as if the hive itself were insisting he eat. Swallow. Accept. Be still.

He coughed again, spluttering, eyes watering as the sweet tang burned against his gag reflex. “I—can’t—”

Her compound eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and with a movement both firm and gentle, she pressed more of the liquid toward his lips. Eat. Her hum became a low, insistent vibration that filled the alcove, vibrating through his bones, and Dalen felt it—unmistakable—like a command he could not disobey.

His throat worked automatically. A thin, trembling swallow. The taste overwhelmed him: thick, sweet, tangy, heavy. It coated his tongue, his throat, stuck to the back of his mouth like molten sugar, clinging and filling him with a dizzy, almost cloying warmth.

Another swallow. And then another. His protests dissolved into muffled coughs as she continued, never cruel, never impatient, just relentless. She treated him exactly like a misbehaving larva, humming softly whenever he tried to turn away, guiding the cup to his lips with gentle, unyielding insistence.

Dalen’s body shivered, overwhelmed by the taste, the stickiness, the absurd softness of her presence, the insistence of the hive. Finally, breathless, trembling, he swallowed one last reluctant mouthful, leaning back against the alcove wall. Sticky gold clung to his lips and fingers, and his stomach churned with a mixture of disgust and bewildered satiation.

He glanced up at her, eyes wide. She simply hovered there, antennae twitching, hum softening to a soothing lull, as if nothing had been out of the ordinary.

And Dalen had no idea what to feel—relief? shame? terror? Or all three at once.

The nurse drone regarded him for a long moment, antennae twitching, eyes gleaming with that unspoken attention that made Dalen’s chest tighten in both awe and unease. Then, almost imperceptibly, she nodded, a deliberate, approving tilt of her head, as though his reluctant compliance had met some internal standard.

Without hesitation, she shifted closer. Her warm, soft body pressed against his side, larger than he expected, but somehow not crushing. Instead, it anchored him, folding him gently into her frame. Her wings hummed, low and steady, vibrating through his back and chest in a rhythm that seemed to sync with his shallow breaths.

She hugged him tightly, insistently, her antennae brushing across his face and shoulders like probing questions with no expectation of answer. Her warmth was relentless, enveloping, and the low, omnipresent droning filled his skull. At first it was background, but then it pressed into him, wrapping around his thoughts, nudging his mind toward quiet, toward surrender.

Dalen tried to resist. Tried to push away the cloying comfort, tried to focus on the terror, the chaos, the blood, the impossibility of his situation. But his body was spent. His nerves were raw. His muscles refused to obey. The droning seeped into every corner of his senses, warm, soft, insistent.

Minutes passed. Hours, perhaps. He couldn’t tell. The drone’s hold never faltered, her hum never ceased. Slowly, inevitably, his eyelids grew heavy. His chest rose and fell in long, ragged breaths, then shallower, steadier ones. The world narrowed to the soft pressure against his side, the gentle thrum in his skull, the warmth of her presence.

And finally, completely drained, utterly overwhelmed, Dalen slipped back into slumber. Not the fitful, fearful kind of before, but a deep, consuming sleep, carried away by the hive’s patient insistence and the drone’s quiet, relentless care.

When Dalen woke again, the world was a golden haze.

Light filtered through the waxy walls of the alcove, refracted by the hive so that everything shimmered and trembled at the edges, as if the world itself were a viscous liquid. He blinked, slow and heavy, and his thoughts felt… strange. Thick. Sticky. Like they were melting, slumping, dripping around the edges of his mind.

He tried to make sense of it, tried to figure out how long he had slept, what had happened, where he was. But the thoughts refused to line up, sliding past each other in slow, honeyed waves. It was impossible to hold one in place long enough to think it fully through.

He flexed a hand and watched the fingers, noting with a strange, detached amusement that they looked… smaller. Softer. His body felt oddly pliant, lighter, but not in a conscious or alarming way—just a curious observation floating lazily through the thick haze of his mind.

His chest rose and fell with the ease of sleep, yet even breathing felt different, oddly slow, as if the rhythm of his body had begun to echo the hive itself. The hum in his skull was no longer just sound—it was a gentle pressure, a constant presence, brushing at the edges of his thoughts, guiding them without words.

Dalen’s lips parted in a small, dumbfounded “huh,” the sound muffled by his lingering stupor. For a moment, he didn’t even notice that he was watching his arms bend with a slightly unnatural suppleness, or that his skin seemed subtly warmer, smoother. It was simply… there, slipping past awareness like an odd flavor on the back of the tongue.

He lay there in the alcove, limbs heavy, mind thick, caught between confusion and a slow, creeping acceptance that he was… somehow different. The world pulsed around him in golden waves, the hum in his skull gentle and insistent. And though part of him shivered in unease, a larger part simply… floated.

The low hum shifted, and Dalen blinked blearily as a shadow crossed the waxy light of his alcove. The nurse drone was back.

She lingered at the entrance for a moment, antennae twitching, watching him with that same unblinking patience as before. Then, with the soft rustle of wings, she stepped inside, her movements smooth and deliberate. She made a sound—bzzrmm—a complex vibration that washed over him like warm water.

And somehow… he almost understood.

Not words. Not quite. But the sound didn’t just rattle in his ears—it slid into him, as if the golden haze in his mind had been tuned to her pitch. His thoughts bubbled sluggishly, tumbling toward the impression that she was pleased, that she was calling him “awake” or maybe “safe.” The meaning wasn’t clear, not exactly—but it didn’t feel foreign. It felt like something he had always known, half-buried, waiting to be uncovered.

She approached with slow, steady confidence, carrying something glistening in her hands: a thick glob of that same honeyed substance, gleaming amber in the filtered light. Sweetness filled the air as though its scent alone had weight.

Another soft buzz rippled from her chest. The vibration pressed against his mind, coaxing. His stomach fluttered in a lazy pang of hunger he hadn’t even realized was there.

“Food,” his thoughts supplied vaguely, though he wasn’t sure if that was his idea or hers.

The nurse drew close, kneeling beside him, and offered the substance with all the gentleness of a caretaker coaxing a hatchling. When he hesitated, the sound came again—low, soothing, insistent—and he found himself leaning forward before realizing he had moved at all.

The honey touched his lips. Sweet, tangy, thick. It clung to his tongue, dissolved slowly, coating his throat in warmth. His thoughts fizzled further, everything sticky and heavy and soft. He barely noticed when the nurse guided more into his mouth, treating his weak protests like nothing more than fussing.

Somewhere in the haze, he had the silly observation that this was a treat. Something good. Something meant for new drones. The idea floated through him as though it had always been true. He almost smiled at it, bemused, before it slipped away again in the golden haze.

The nurse buzzed low, pleased. Her wings shivered faintly against his arm, and the pressure in his skull swelled, warm and comforting. Dalen’s body sank back against the waxen wall, his mind syrup-thick and pliant.

He didn’t even realize he was humming faintly back at her, a broken little echo of the hive’s song.

He barely stirred when the nurse’s hands tugged clumsily at the fabric on his body. His tunic, his boots, his belt—all the little trappings of a villager’s life—slipped away one by one, falling into an untidy heap on the waxen floor. Dalen made a faint noise, some vague protest, but his tongue was thick and clumsy, and the nurse ignored him with patient insistence.

She scooped him up in her arms, strong as iron and warm as sunlit wax, and carried him from the alcove.

The hive stretched endlessly around them. The air was alive with motion—wings beating, drones flitting back and forth, each locked into a rhythm of purpose. Dalen’s hazy eyes tracked them dully. Some carried glistening bundles of nectar. Others sealed chambers with fresh wax. A pair wrestled with something struggling, but the sight slid out of his mind before it could take root.

They descended lower and lower, through chambers that seemed to hum with heavier resonance, until at last the air itself grew thick with sound. The nurse’s wings quivered against him, adjusting, as though the hive’s pulse intensified here.

And then he saw her.

The Queen.

She dominated the space, immense and terrible and beautiful all at once. Her body was vast, gilded in plates of black and amber, wings folded like veils at her sides. Her abdomen curled heavy against the waxen dais, every breath of her vast thorax a thunderous vibration in the air. Antennae like living standards swayed slowly, tasting the very air, the very soul of the hive.

The nurse landed gently and set him down on trembling legs before her throne of wax and resin.

For a heartbeat, Dalen thought he might collapse. His body felt too small here, too fragile. His thoughts had no room in his own skull—the buzzing filled everything. He lifted his head, slowly, as though compelled, and met her eyes.

The world stopped.

The weight of her gaze pressed down on him like the sun itself had chosen to bear witness. The honey haze inside him convulsed, then latched, clinging desperately to her presence. All his thoughts folded inward, shrinking down to a single point: her.

She leaned forward, slow and deliberate, and the air grew hot. Antennae brushed toward him, caressing invisible threads in the space between. Her inspection was silent, yet absolute; he felt as though she peeled him open, sifted through the tatters of his mind, and found him wanting—and perfect all the same.

Something inside him broke. Or maybe it wasn’t breaking at all—maybe it was only bending, curving toward her gravity, realigning itself the way the flowers turned toward the sun. His lips parted in a shallow breath, reverent and dazed.

She did not speak. She didn’t need to. Her will filled the chamber, thrumming through the hive’s pulse.

And to Dalen’s honey-soaked thoughts, it was unbearable truth: she was the most important thing in the world.

The Queen lingered over him, her shadow swallowing the chamber, her gaze an immovable weight. Dalen’s knees pressed into the wax under him, trembling, his body too weak to bear even his own weight under the pressure of her regard.

Then—

The pressure shifted.

It rolled through him, deeper than sound, deeper than thought, filling every brittle crack inside him. It wasn’t a voice, but he understood. She was pleased.

Not just neutral. Not tolerant. Not sparing his life out of apathy. No—the Queen, vast and terrible and perfect, radiated satisfaction at what she had found in him.

Joy exploded inside his chest so violently he almost gasped. It hurt. It burned. His hands shook, pressed flat against the wax as if he might hold himself together by force.

She was pleased with him.

The words tolled through his head like a bell, drowning out everything else. His thoughts crumbled under their weight.

When—when—had anyone last looked at him that way? Not his parents, weary of his uselessness. Not Farlan, who only laughed at him. Not Mira, who smiled kindly but had never once chosen to linger. No elder, no villager, no one had ever seen him and found worth.

But the Queen had.

The Queen, the most important being in existence, the axis the hive revolved around, had looked into him and found enough to be pleased.

Dalen’s breath broke on a sob, half laughter and half hysteria. He pressed his forehead to the waxy floor, shaking all over, tears running hot down his face. The honey-haze inside him turned molten, molten with joy, molten with surrender.

She was pleased with him.

And that single truth was more than he had ever been.

The world was still trembling inside his chest, every beat of his heart echoing with the queen’s approval. She had looked at him—him—and found him good, worthy, pleasing. The joy that had burst in his mind hadn’t faded, it had only melted into something syrup-thick, clinging and heady, making thought slow and soft.

He hardly registered when the Nurse slipped her arms beneath him again, cradling him as though he weighed nothing. The hum of the hive wrapped him like a blanket as she carried him away from the queen’s towering presence, deeper into the labyrinthine passages. His head lolled against her shoulder, senses dulled and pliant, until the air itself changed.

The new chamber was heavy. Not just in scent, but in weight—the air seemed to cling to his skin, warm and wet, each breath dragging honeyed perfume into his lungs until it coated his tongue and the back of his throat. It was sweetness gone cloying, oppressive, irresistible.

His eyes fluttered open wider, and his body stiffened against the Nurse’s hold. The chamber was alive in a different way than the busy corridors, its inhabitants not scurrying or laboring but entangled.

Half a dozen of them, bee-folk like the workers and nurses he had glimpsed throughout the hive—yet here they were unbound by duty, twined together in writhing knots of limbs and wings. Bodies pressed close, sliding, clinging, moving with languid, unhurried rhythm. Soft groans and humming sighs layered over the constant drone, weaving an intimate undertone that sank into the marrow of the room.

Heat rushed to his cheeks. His gut churned with a strange, prickling tension he didn’t want to name, something equal parts shame and a pull he couldn’t look squarely at. He wrenched his gaze aside, forcing his eyes to study the walls, the gleam of honey dripping thick down the stone, anywhere but the shapes moving so brazenly before him.

Still, no matter how carefully he avoided looking, the sounds, the scents, the feel of the chamber pressed in. His breath hitched, shallow and nervous, the fluster blooming into something restless, undeniable.

The Nurse carried him further inside, her grip firm and steady, as if she either didn’t notice his tension—or didn’t care.

The Nurse set him down with surprising care upon a low, soft frame—something between a bed and a cradle, its surface pliant and faintly sticky with wax. For an instant she lingered, her dark faceted eyes passing over him with a clinical thoroughness, making sure he was whole, intact, presentable. Then, satisfied, she turned and strode away, wings brushing the air as she slipped back into the corridor.

He was left alone—or rather, alone with them.

His body sagged into the yielding frame, arms weak at his sides. His mind was still wobbling from the succession of shocks—the endless days of honey-drone lullabies, the smothering warmth of the Nurse’s embrace, the Queen’s gaze like a weight hammered into his skull. It was too much. Too much to think about, too much to hold. His thoughts spun and frayed, and when he tried to anchor himself, all that came was a helpless, flustered little noise that slipped out between his lips.

It was enough.

A pair of them lifted their heads from the knot of bodies nearby, their antennae twitching, catching the sound, catching him. Soft eyes lit with curiosity, and slowly, they unwound themselves from their companions. Their movements weren’t threatening—no, never threatening. They were smooth, languid, almost drowsy in their certainty as they came to him, drawn like moths to flame.

He wanted to shrink back, to tuck his limbs close, but the honey-thick air dulled the urgency of the thought. He just lay there, blinking up at them as they closed in.

Gentle hands touched first—light brushes at his shoulder, his hair, his cheek. A palm smoothed against his chest as though reassuring both him and themselves that he was real, that he was here. Another leaned close, pressing their forehead briefly to his, antennae sweeping across his skin in a soft, tickling caress.

The contact was strange, startling, and yet there was no sharpness to it. They radiated nothing but warmth, kindness, acceptance.

He stiffened at first, but there was no malice in them. No harshness. Only welcome, heavy and sure as the hive’s drone. He could feel it more than he could hear it: acceptance, belonging, the quiet assertion that the queen had marked him, that he was theirs.

Snuggling close, they pressed against him, bodies hot and buzzing faintly with the resonance of their wings. Someone curled around his back, another draped across his chest, and soon he was wrapped in them, cocooned in their warmth.

Their voices came in low murmurs, sounds like words but not quite—sweet vibrations that filled his ears. He couldn’t understand. Not really.

It was enough to make his chest ache. Enough to make the flustered noise escape his throat again, smaller this time, as his body went slack in their hold.

The initial warmth and gentle touch that had cradled him began to shift, almost imperceptibly at first. Fingers that had traced his arms now lingered longer, sliding along his sides with deliberate intent. Their hands pressed a little firmer, exploring the contours of his body with a teasing curiosity that made his skin flush despite the haze that dulled the edges of his thoughts.

Soft, low buzzes vibrated through the air, brushing against his ears like whispers, coaxing and insistent. The touches followed, brushing over his shoulders, trailing along his chest, tracing the dip of his waist. Each movement was slow, deliberate, a push-and-pull of sensation that made his stomach flutter and his mind whirl in a sticky, unsteady haze.

They leaned closer, warmth radiating from every side, pressing against him in ways that were intimate and inescapable. The air around him grew heavier, scented with the thick sweetness of the hive, and the hum in his skull pulsed in time with their movements, coaxing, teasing, insistent.

Dalen’s limbs felt leaden, pliant under their guidance, and a strange heat bloomed in his gut that he didn’t recognize. His thoughts slipped like liquid, unable to hold on to the edges of resistance. Every caress was a question, every brush of skin a suggestion: explore, indulge, surrender.

Despite the haze clouding his mind, fragments of comprehension reached him—the way they pressed closer, the way their eyes glimmered, the soft murmurs and vibrations that were not quite words but carried intent. They wanted him. Not just as a curiosity, not just as a fledgling of the hive, but more.

And even as his rational mind tried to protest, even as the memory of his old life flickered at the edges, his body responded, drawn forward by the sticky pull of warmth, touch, and the low, unrelenting hum that seemed to guide him.

He could feel it: the hive’s desire weaving into him, the nurse’s earlier lessons folding into these new sensations. The teasing touches, playful yet commanding, were a step deeper into the hive’s embrace—and Dalen, suspended in honeyed thought and fluttering panic, found himself drifting along with them.

He breathed out and then filled his lungs again letting the heady, heavy scent of the room fill his lungs and swirl through his thoughts. Did he want this? Did he want to leave? Some deep part of him vehemently rejected those thoughts. Why would he want to return to the village and be the useless drunk Dalen again?

His thoughts were interrupted by a more insistent pair of hands grabbing his face and pulling him into a kiss, a long sinuous tongue rolled past his lips and bullied his own tongue out of the way allowing that tube free access to his throat. Something that it wasted no time abusing.

His hands fluttered but he found that he could barely move, so many of the hive folk had settled around him, touching and holding him so all he could do was try and relax as that tongue started to pulse and a heavy warm fluid was pumped into his guts.

The fluid hit his system like a jolt of electricity, fire that wound its way through his nerves and set his whole botty jittering with energy—with burning need—A moan tore its way free from his lip chasing the retreating tongue that slithered out of his throat, and that noise seemed to be a starting pistol for the drones.

Hands grabbed at him more firmly, shifting, rotating him onto his back. He was soon lost in an ocean of rolling sensation, slimy tongues, smooth chitinous fingers, traced over him, feeling, touching. It was utterly overwhelming he could barely track one sensation from another, could only lay their lips parted, head tilted back, eyes fluttering as the bees had their way with him.

He felt his thighs pushed apart, he felt a brief spike of shame as his cock sprang up unbidden but the drones didn’t seem to mind instead another droning whine was dragged from his lips as one of those long tubular tongues coiled around his drooling length.

His hands were pinned over his head, and he tried to blink, to draw in a sharp gasp of breath, something to get a hold of himself and find some anchor amidst the storm but it was futile as the moment he did a pair of hips came down on his face, and a heavy pulsing buzz rolled through his bones.

Not words never words, but he understood on a deep fundamental level in the sticky recesses of his honeyed mind he understood. Submit, melt, please, taste, enjoy, give, take.

And so he did, he tilted his head and lapped up at the bee woman above him, drinking in the pleased little buzz of her wings. He rolled his hips into the hands and tongues that found him there. He melted, letting the wave of pleasures wash over him.

At some point he felt something shift, click into place and a shattering wave of bliss tore through him. Washing his mind in searing white and drowning him in the same kind of mind-shattering bliss as the queens approval.

She barely noticed when she came down from that high, the hive-folk had given her a few seconds to draw in a sharp breath before they were on her again, resuming as if they had never stopped. She was rotated onto her hands and knees, straddling another bee girl, eyes hazy and hooded as she gazed won at her fellow hive member and melted trading lazy kisses as hands roamed over the pair of them.

Briefly something in the back of her mind, some animal instinct recoiled when she felt hands on her ass, some animal part of her mind reminding her that that's wrong. But it melted moments later under the steady approval of the hive. She was serving her fellow drone, this was right, this was proper. She was a good drone.

She squealed out moaning into the kiss as moments later something pushed into her from behind, thick and hot stretching and claiming territory with each passing heartbeat. Her body seared scalding hot as she melted; rolling, rocking, grinding her hips into each touch, each new pair of hands, each tongue, each new drone that moved in to get to know their new hive sibling.

She lost count of how many times bliss short circuited her thoughts, she lost count of how many drones she got to know that evening. She lost count of how many times she thought she’d reached her limits only for some gentle encouragement and praise from the rest of the hive would see her pushing herself shaking back up to begin again.

She hardly noted how her body changed each tim, how by the second time she’d melted her wings had started buzzing in blissful waves. She’d hardly noticed how her fuzz brushed pleasingly against the other drones after her third. How the drones had to work around her thorax after her fourth, and then how they had just started using that too.

By the time she started to gather her thoughts and regain some level of cognition every inch of her body ached and she was drifting in and out of consciousness. Warm lingering undercurrents of praise suffused every inch of her body and idly she trailed her chitinous fingertips over her body, feeling the way that her fuzz smoothed through her digits, the soft curve of her form. How good it felt to be.

This was right, this was how it should be. Drones existed to please and serve and she was a very good drone. The others had told her so over and over again until she could know nothing else, the queen herself had approved of the drone after all!

She buzzed softly, tiredly to herself, the other drones had left her alone not long ago finally drawing back after wringing as much from her as they could. Heaping praise and bliss upon her until there was nothing left. Now she was simply waiting.

The Nurse returned, wings beating with the same quiet precision that had carried her through the hive countless times before. She swept into the chamber, eyes bright and antennae twitching, and Dalen—no longer Dalen, though the memory of the name lingered only like a faint echo—lifted her head weakly. Her limbs felt light, delicate, and covered in the sleek black-and-gold carapace of a worker drone. Wings, small but fully formed, shivered against her back as she flexed them experimentally.

A soft, buzzing greeting slipped from her mouth, weak and tentative, carrying the polite rhythm of a hive member acknowledging another. She tried to focus, to steady her legs under the nurse’s firm hold, but it was exhausting—so much had changed, yet the sensation of being one with them hummed deep in her bones, and it was right.

The Nurse tucked her gently into her arms, lifting her from the room she had shared with the others for the past few hours. The Drone’s new senses drank in the familiar scents of the hive, the thick, warm aroma of honey and wax, and the subtle vibrations of the chamber itself pulsing through the floor. Every sound was amplified in a comforting rhythm—the flitting of wings, the soft hum of nearby drones, the muted vibrations of the queen’s distant presence.

They passed through corridors alive with motion, and Dalen barely registered the busy drones outside the intimate chamber. She was too tired, too full of the strange, droning peace that came from surrendering completely to the hive. Her limbs flexed, wings fluttering gently against the Nurse’s chest, and a soft, contented buzz left her throat as if the sound had always been part of her.

Finally, the Nurse deposited her in the alcove she had once first arrived in, the same soft, wax-lined nest where she had begun to recover from the trauma of the battle outside the village. Dalen curled her new body up carefully, folding wings against her back, carapace pressed warm against the soft surface beneath her. Sleep, deep and undisturbed, claimed her quickly, pulling her down into a haze where thought and instinct intertwined in the gentle, ordered rhythm of the hive.

Tomorrow would bring a new task. The queen would call on her, and there would be purpose, a sense of duty threaded through every beat of her new heart. Excitement fluttered faintly beneath her wings at the thought. But for now, a good drone rests, and the new drone—this new, fully-formed member of the hive—was content to let the golden haze of sleep carry her into the deep calm of the hive’s embrace.