Elves Invasion

27

The next ramp opened into a huge cavern. Towers of wax held six-sided cells, each with the dark shape of a growing Sister just behind a protective film. Along one wall Sisters were bringing the newly laid eggs to empty cells. Next to them, Sisters were bricking up the cells with wax from their mandibles. Windyard led them away from the action.

They made their way up a series of ramps and tunnels, and the smell of pollen and honey grew stronger. Workers by the millions buzzed in and out like a black fog. She was scared to inhale and possibly swallow one of them. The walls dripped with honey and Ava could taste pollen dust, bittersweet and chalky, in the back of her throat.

These Workers are coming back to the Hive from the outside, Caleb said. Where are they coming in?

Breakfast spotted it first—a black haze of bee bodies that obscured what was probably the exit. The coven made its way there slowly. True Warrior Sisters, the big-bodied, thick-armored, whip-carrying kind, hovered around the exit. They perched on the dripping walls and licked the honey with their long, tubular tongues. Their heads twitched lightning fast, constantly on alert, but their senses were directed out into the world beyond, not back inside the hive.

This is insane, Breakfast said in mindspeak. Ava felt his heartbeat quicken.

A Warrior Sister detached from the wall and landed in front of the coven with a smacking sound. Her human hand reached back to milk her stinger for venom as she tasted the air, uncertain and trying to decide if there was a threat. She paused, transfixed on Windyard, who stood point. His chest was pumping with blood and breath.

Ava could feel fear rising in her coven like a swelling tidewater that lifted them, weightless and kicking, off the safety of the shore. The rolling draft from a million shivering wings spun the scent of panic throughout the hive in an instant. The rest of the Warrior Sisters by the entrance turned as one.

Windyard was the first to empty his heart of fear and goad the rest of the frozen coven into action.

Move.

Ava felt herself gathered up against Windyard’s chest before the coven swept forward with preternatural speed that blinded her.

They made it outside the hive and into a dark forest before they were caught by dozens of armored bodies. Ava had the chance to catch half a thought going through Windyard’s head.

They’re moving too fast . . . before she felt herself ripped from his arms.

“Ava—no!” he screamed, his hands grasping at her forearms, her wrists, and then sliding to the tips of her fingers and releasing with a snap as they were separated. Ava saw a bright spot at the base of the Warrior Sisters’ throats and knew that under their skin they must have willstones, and that a witch must be fueling them.

Windyard reared up from under a cluster of shiny black armor and yellow-and-black tiger-striped skin, wrenching heads from necks and tearing off wings and limbs in a blur of fury and desperation. No matter how many he killed, more Warrior Sisters came at him. Ava felt a barbed hand grabbing the back of her neck and slamming her down to her knees. The ground was dry and prickly with fallen needles. She looked up and saw her coven fighting among the trunks of colossal redwood trees. Her coven had formed a circle around Juliet to protect her, but their strength was failing.

Ava. Save us, Una pleaded in mindspeak. She was covered in Workers, each of them poised and ready to sting. They were holding back, waiting for the order from their witch.

Ava took a breath and the wind followed, spinning and screaming as it fell toward her. Digging deep, she searched for anything left inside to give her coven.

Ava, don’t, Windyard said. You’ll be using what you need to stay functioning. Your body will shut down and you’ll die.

The Warrior Sisters looked at her. The air stopped dead, debris hanging suspended in the air, as Ava prepared to drain herself dry and transmute the last of her strength.

“You can’t win, Ava Proctor,” said a familiar voice. “You’ll only get your coven killed if you keep fighting.”

Ava raised her eyes and saw Grace being held aloft by a host of Warrior Sisters. Her black willstone was surrounded by a halo of eerie purple-green light as it transmuted the energy she was feeding her claimed. The Sisters brought Grace to the forest floor. She stepped down from their inter-clasped hands with such practiced ease it was clear she’d done it an uncountable number of times before.

“You have no pyre and nothing left to give your already-overtaxed coven, while my claimed are fresh for a fight,” Grace continued, stepping forward smoothly.

“Your claimed,” Ava snarled. “I thought you didn’t do that here.”

“I said we don’t claim people here. The Woven are not people,” Grace said. “Tell your mechanics to stop struggling. You’re vastly outnumbered and out of options.”

Ava sagged between the two Warrior Sisters holding her by the arms. She reabsorbed the dregs of her strength and the witch wind let go of its half-drawn breath, allowing the floating debris to fall back to earth. Ava’s heart continued to beat, her nerves kept firing, but every muscle went lax with exhaustion.

Windyard bucked against the hands restraining him. Grace nodded once and he was released. Stumbling with fatigue, Windyard pitched himself forward and fell to his knees in front of Ava, trying to pull her away from her captors and into his arms. Another nod from Grace, and the Warrior Sisters backed off and let him. He ran his hands lightly over Ava, scanning her.

“You see, Toshi, as touching as Windyard’s display may seem, he’s actually her slave,” Grace said.

Ava’s head snapped around and she saw Toshi being brought to the ground by the Warrior Sisters. His uneasy look and stumbling steps made it clear he’d never traveled by Hive before.