The cell of Ferran hummed with sounds of hammers, saws, and the groaning of heavy wood and stone. Every able hand was put to work, constructing a grand fighting ground in the heart of the cell—a temporary theater of battle for the Princess's amusement. Jakor could see it already, though the scaffolding was barely complete: the round expanse of hard-packed earth, encircled by a wall tall enough to keep the fighters in, but low enough for the crowd to witness every blow, every spill of blood. His hands ached with the day's labor, calloused and raw, but they kept moving as if they belonged to someone else, driven by the quiet dread and promise of tomorrow.

Jakor had been born on Ferran, one of the smallest and poorest cells in the Hive Archipelago. Unlike the grand, gilded citadel where the Queen Monarch ruled, or the merchant cells fat with Nectar Flow and rare goods, Ferran was a place for the forgotten. Most of those here were Harvesters or Builders, chained to backbreaking labor from childhood until death.

Jakor's own parents had been Builders. They'd labored all their lives until, one day, they simply... weren't there. No one ever told him what happened, but he'd heard the whispers. Accidents, overwork, perhaps a debt to the Merchant Hive they hadn't repaid. The Hive had its ways of swallowing up those it no longer needed. Now Jakor was the only one left to carry on their toil, as forgotten as the stones he laid each day.

The boy's lips pressed together in a thin line as he glanced at the overseer, a High Drone in resplendent green armor trimmed with polished gold. He barked commands from atop a platform, his gaze sweeping over the workers like they were insects scuttling beneath his feet. Beside him stood two Stingers, elite guards clad in black with gleaming stinger-shaped weapons hanging from their belts. Jakor had seen one of those weapons used before, though he didn't like to remember the sight of what it did to flesh.

The overseer raised his voice. "The Princess arrives at dawn tomorrow! I want every post planted, every stone laid, every corner cleaned. And if I find even a single inch of work neglected, the responsible party will be brought up for a hearing in the Honey Court!" His gaze fell on Jakor, and Jakor met it with an expression blank and neutral.

But inside, Jakor's mind seethed. All this labor for what? For a Princess to sit on her silk-draped perch and watch us die for her pleasure? She'll cheer while we fight for scraps, oblivious to the sweat and blood beneath her feet. He bit back the bitter words, the same ones that bubbled up each night as he lay in his narrow cot, staring up at the ceiling. Speaking them here, before the overseer, was a quick route to the Honey Courts, and Jakor didn't have any illusions about what his chances would be there.

Jakor's friend, Soli, a wiry boy a year younger than Jakor, grunted as he lifted a heavy wooden beam into place beside him. "I heard the Princess brings an entire caravan with her," Soli murmured under his breath. "Silks, honeyed fruits, her own troupe of bards. Can you imagine? Living like that?" His tone was tinged with a bitter wonder, his dark eyes fixed on the high scaffold they were building.

Jakor grunted, placing his weight against the beam to steady it as Soli hammered the nails in. "I can imagine," he replied, his voice flat. "Imagine all the food you could eat if you could sit around all day watching other people bleed."

Soli glanced at him, a hint of fear in his eyes. "Careful, Jakor. They've got Stingers all around. Ears, too."

Jakor shrugged, not meeting Soli's gaze. "The Stingers don't scare me. They might take a pound of flesh, but I've got so little left it'd hardly be worth their trouble."

But he knew that wasn't true. The Stingers needed no reason, no provocation. They could be called down on a whim, to enforce the Queen's peace, the Hive's order. Jakor had seen it before—innocent men, fathers and sons, dragged away in chains. And for what? A whispered word, a glance held too long, a hand raised too quickly.

"Better to keep your head down, like the rest of us," Soli muttered, hammering faster, as if the noise would drown out the dangerous talk.

Jakor turned back to the scaffolding, his hands moving with the practiced efficiency of long habit. He'd spent half his life on projects like this, toiling for someone else's amusement, building monuments he'd never see again. But today felt different. Today, every nail he hammered, every beam he placed, seemed to strike deeper into his own chest, like a cage tightening around his ribs.

A shadow fell across him, and Jakor looked up to see an older man, Master Helm, watching him with weary eyes. Helm was a Builder who'd served nearly twenty years—an eternity in Ferran, where most men didn't live to see forty. His face was craggy and lined, his hands as gnarled as old roots, but there was a steadiness to him that gave Jakor some small comfort.

"You've a strong arm, Jakor," Helm said, his voice low and rough as gravel. "But there's strength in silence too. Don't waste yourself on what you can't change."

Jakor's jaw tightened, and he looked away. "But what's the point of all this, Master Helm? The Princess will come, she'll watch, and then she'll leave. And we'll still be here, breaking our backs, building whatever else they decide needs building. Doesn't seem right."

Helm's gaze was hard, but not unkind. "Right? Being right is a luxury for the highborn. The Hive doesn't concern itself with what's right. It's a machine, lad, grinding us all down to the same dust."

The words settled over Jakor like a weight, pressing down on his shoulders. He knew Helm was right, knew it in the same way he knew the pain in his hands, the ache in his back. The Hive was a machine, and he was just another cog, worn down and replaceable.

Yet, somewhere deep inside, a small, stubborn part of him resisted. One day, it'll be different, he thought, though he didn't say it aloud. One day, they'll know what it feels like to bleed for someone else's pleasure.

As they worked, the sun dipped lower, casting the Hive in a deep amber glow. The shadows lengthened, and the overseer's voice rose in frustration. "Hurry it up, you worms! If this isn't done by nightfall, I'll see half of you flogged!"

Jakor glanced over at Soli, his friend's face pale with exhaustion, and felt a surge of anger, hot and fierce. He looked back to where the overseer stood, watching them like a hawk. It took all his restraint not to throw down his tools, not to stand up and scream at the injustice of it all.

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But he did nothing. Instead, he set his jaw, picked up his hammer, and swung it against the wood with all his strength, each blow a silent rebellion.

 He kept at it until the sun dipped low, casting a bruised, amber light over the cell. The shadows grew long, stretching across the scaffold like dark fingers. Sweat stung Jakor's eyes, his hands raw and blistered, but he didn't stop, not even when his muscles burned and his limbs felt like dead weight. None of them did. Soli kept hammering with the feverish urgency of someone trying to drown his own thoughts, and Jakor matched his rhythm, blow for blow.

By the time the overseer finally barked his command to halt, they'd been at it for twelve hours straight, their bodies pushed to the edge. Jakor's head throbbed, his vision blurred, but he kept his face blank, unbroken, as he climbed down from the scaffold. Around him, the others did the same, moving like ghosts—silent, hollow, drained.

When they stumbled back to their quarters, Jakor could barely make it to his cot. It was cramped, with barely enough room to lie flat, and he shared it with fifteen other workers, each one as worn and hollow as the next. He dropped onto the thin, lumpy mattress, staring up at the stained ceiling.

Soli collapsed beside him, his breath coming in shallow gasps. "Some day's work," he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. Even in exhaustion, there was a flicker of brightness in his eyes. "Y'think Brasle will come by tonight? Haven't seen him in days. Always has news, doesn't he? About the other cells, about what's happening out there." Soli's voice trailed off, a wistful tone creeping in. Soli was always like that—always hungry for news, for knowledge, for a glimpse of life beyond the Hive.

Jakor grunted, noncommittal. He didn't share Soli's fascination. Politics, rebellion, whispers from distant cells—it all felt like another layer of fog, another distraction. For him, reality was simple, brutal: pick up the hammer, swing until your body gives out, and hope you wake up in the morning. But deep down, he envied Soli's curiosity. He envied the spark that hadn't been ground out of him yet.

A shadow shifted at the edge of his vision. He looked up to see Bumble and Vek approaching, their faces grim and worn. Bumble was all nervous energy, twitching and restless even now, fiddling with a scrap of twine he'd found somewhere. His pale blonde hair was a tangled mess, his clothes a patchwork of mismatched fabric, as if he'd thrown them together without a thought. There was something in his eyes—always shifting, always scanning his surroundings like he was looking for something he'd lost. Jakor had known him long enough to know that Bumble rarely took anything seriously, that he hid his fear under a thin layer of humor and bravado.

Vek, on the other hand, was a wall of silent resolve. Tall and broad-shouldered, with eyes as dark and steady as a night sky. He moved with a careful, measured calm, his presence a strange comfort amid the chaos. Vek didn't waste words; when he spoke, it was because he had something to say. Jakor didn't know if he was a good man or just a dangerous one, but he knew one thing: Vek could be counted on, come hell or high water.

Bumble dropped onto the floor beside them, breathing heavily. "So," he said, his voice thick with exhaustion, "how was it today? Same slog?"

"Same as always," Jakor replied, his voice flat. "But we made it through."

"Make it sound like we've come back from a war," Vek said, a wry smile touching his lips, though his eyes remained cold and tired. "We're here, though. Still trudging along."

Jakor looked at him, seeing the unspoken words, the quiet resignation that had seeped into them all. Every day was a battle. A battle against the Hive, against their own exhaustion, against the ever-growing weight pressing down on their souls. And every day, it seemed, they lost a little more of themselves.

"Overdramatic, maybe," Jakor admitted, "but it wasn't a good day. Bran was in a mood. Had a couple of the boys beaten for 'laziness.' And the drone came down to inspect us. Didn't like our pace."

"Bullshit," Bumble snarled, his hands curling into fists. "We're beyond exhausted. No one thanks us, no one cares. And they expect more, always more."

Jakor shrugged, feeling the weight of his own resignation settle over him like a shroud. "Drones don't know what thanks is. They don't see us as anything but hands to work the machines, bodies to be thrown at whatever needs doing."

"They're not nobility, though!" Bumble's voice was fierce, his anger radiating off him in waves. "They're just civilians, like us. Civilians who got lucky, clawed their way up. And now they act like gods, like they're above all this." He spat on the floor, his voice a low growl. "They've never worked a day in their lives. Never felt what we feel."

"Quiet, Bumble," Vek cautioned, his gaze sharp, scanning the room for any listening ears. "You don't know who's watching."

"What's the matter, Vek?" Jakor asked, his voice tinged with a bitterness he couldn't hide. "We work ourselves to death. We bleed, we break, and for what? Don't we deserve a moment to speak our minds?"

Vek turned to him, a hard look in his eyes. "No, Jakor. We don't." His voice was grim, a shadow of something darker lurking beneath. "There's a new law, straight from the Queen's court. Discontent, dissent—it's no longer a five-year charge. It's execution."

Silence fell, thick and suffocating. Jakor felt his stomach twist. "Execution?" he whispered, the word tasting like iron in his mouth.

Soli's face went pale. "Five years," he murmured, as if clinging to some distant memory of a time when things were different.

Bumble's anger vanished, replaced by a look of sick disbelief. "Execution... what do you mean, Vek?"

"It's the Swarm," Vek said, his voice a low, steady murmur. "Cells are rebelling, aligning with a faction calling themselves the Swarm. They say they're led by some fanatic who believes in a different rule—a different kind of Hive. Small groups rising up, taking over cells. It's spreading, faster than they can control it. The Queen's response has been... radical. She wants any sign of discontent rooted out before it festers."

Jakor swallowed, feeling the weight of it, the noose tightening around them all. "How? How could cells even... resist? There's the drones, the high drones, the royal guard, and every soldier and enforcer they have in their arsenal. How could they hope to win?"

Vek's voice was a low murmur, cautious, as if afraid even the walls might have ears. "It's not as impossible as it seems," he continued, glancing around at the tired, wary faces. "The cells being taken—these aren't like ours. They're isolated, undermanned, struggling to meet quotas even before the Swarm arrived. A few rebels slip in, stir the pot, and it's not long before the workers start listening. That's all it takes—a whisper here, a complaint there. And the next thing you know, a cell's split in two, and half of them are chanting Swarm slogans."

The name, the Swarm, lingered in the air between them, thick and electric. It had been a shadow, a rumor at best, an idea whispered in corners so deep they were nearly forgotten. Yet now, it was as if the Swarm had teeth—hungry and waiting just beyond the walls.

"Doesn't take much to fester," Jakor muttered, half to himself. "Give a drone too much power, give workers too little, and then one day they turn around and realize there's nothing left to lose."

"That's exactly what the queen fears," Vek replied, his tone carrying the quiet intensity of a man who'd seen enough to believe it. "If the Swarm keeps spreading, that sense of hopelessness will seep into every cell, every worker who's been beaten down one too many times. It's like a sickness. So, they're doing everything they can to cut it out at the source."

Bumble clenched his fists, his body shaking with barely restrained anger. "And so, they just... kill us? Like swatting a fly, like we're nothing?"

"Like we're tools," Vek corrected, his gaze unyielding. "They don't see us as people. We're assets. They need us compliant, willing. When we lose that, we're a liability. And in their eyes, liabilities get erased."

Soli looked away, as if trying to digest it, his hands nervously twisting his worn gloves. "But it can't be all of them—the drones, the queen, everyone. There has to be someone up there who still... who still sees us."

Jakor wanted to tell him that he'd once believed that too. That once, he'd thought there might be a sliver of humanity left in the hierarchy above them. But he couldn't bring himself to say it, not with the image of today's broken men still fresh in his mind.

"Bumble's right," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "We break ourselves for them, work till our bones are dust, and for what? For scraps and beatings. A life where speaking out can mean death."

The silence that followed felt suffocating, like a noose tightening around their collective throats. Even Bumble's anger seemed to die, lost to the grim inevitability of it all. Vek, despite the weariness, was the one to cut through it, his voice resigned but steady. "We survive," he said. "As long as we can. We keep our heads down, bite our tongues, and hope we make it to the next day. Because that's all they've left us with—survival."

Jakor's eyes met Vek's, a silent exchange of understanding passing between them. Every word left unspoken was louder than anything they could have dared say aloud. They were trapped, not by walls or guards, but by a system that had stripped them of their dreams and left them with nothing but the brutal, relentless march of time.

But even as the resignation settled, Jakor couldn't shake the flicker of defiance that smoldered somewhere deep, a spark he hadn't felt in years. Maybe it was nothing. Or maybe, it was enough.