<”Apologizing. Concern, Skthveraachk, large. Too small. Tunnel. Assistance.?.?”>

“You will need to silence your voice when I arrive in the space below.” She kept her tone sonorous, a peaceful alto on tides of serenity. Skthveraachk was fairly confident that the Pod, the creatures, could yet not grasp the intricacies of the song. But as she wriggled her gaster, her upper half through the opened hole of floor while her lower half stuck up and outward like a fungal spire, the Queen refused to let her music reflect the embarrassment she felt. The passage below her was a sky black, but her thrums and tapping told her it was spacious enough to move with only moderate discomfort. An elongated, perfectly spherical tube stretching off for lengths before dipping downward. If she could just get through this thrice-peeled entrance.

<”Question.?.? You, wish no communicate?”> Sounds were somewhat muted here. The walls sung from above, not from this passageway, and only her lower legs and gaster could hear the Pod’s questions. Legs which busily kicked at the air, trying to build momentum. <”Purpose, communicate. Sing. Not sing, why.?.?”>

“Your melody is discordant and fragmented. You sing through surfaces and dead things, walls and floors, without touch or smell.” She had not realized how stiff her body had become, spending measure after measure in so small a pen. How long it had been since she had raced alongside her raiders, or even made circuits of the nests in long marches. Trying to squeeze her abdomen tighter, Skthveraachk spasmed and scrunched herself, feeling her body slip just a bit further into the opened portal. “It is frightening, it is confusing, and it is wrong. I am a Queen. I learn, and I adjust. Drones will not. It will upset them.”

<”Understanding, Jhenaafhur still listen. You. Yes.?.?”>

“Of course I understand you will still be listening. That is the purpose of this.” Another tug, another tenth of a length wiggled through the gap. She had seen the dimensions of the hole before she entered. She had used her last taken measurements as baseline. The calculations were immediate and marked success, and a few, perhaps ten and some measures of containment were not enough to bloat her to the proportions of some pampered birthing Queen who did nothing but lounge and sing and rest. And dine on fatty, thick rolls of lumbrite each rise. Her carapace crunched as, with one particularly violent pull of her leg, Skthveraachk managed to dislodge herself and tumble down into the darkened tube. Graceful enough to land on five legs. Not quite graceful enough to spread herself on all six.

<”Good. Understanding. Accept. Sing normal. Natural. Room below, empty. Watched, but/yet. Will meet. Yes.?.?”> The song was more distant, but it still trembled through the impressively smooth material surrounding her. A circle of light around the Queen from the hole on high as she twisted and oriented herself forward.

“Improper questioning. You are repeating your emphasis twice over when you ask for something.”

<”Question.?.?”>

“Confirm. That.” The air was colder here, vastly. A marked decrease over the comfortable habitability of the enclosure. She turned head up to examine the gap in the floor, now ceiling, to see if it was at all different from below. “Repeated sounds for the same concept reinforce the desire behind it. It is interrogative and rude. It would be seen as offensive if attempting to converse with a new colony.” The pause was brief. The unseen adjustments she now understood were occurring taking her information and fitting it to their voice.

<”This.? Correct.?”>

“No.” Rudeness. Testing limits. A habit, to seek the limits of her opponent whenever she had the opportunity. The Pod had said she desired correction, after all. Then, Skthveraachk quietly considered how close she had just come to death were it not for the Hhatheenh Queen’s grace. That the constant crudeness of Jhenaafhur was ignorance, not malice. “…But, it is better. You learn at an acceptable pace.”

<”Formal thanks and farewell.! Tunnel. Follow, long. First down. Meet.”> The Pod’s tune faded above her. She did not need acceptable. There was not the time for acceptable.

There came the whirring as the gap above her sealed shut, and from below, the sight and sound both were far clearer. She could make out wheels, the section of floor cut perfectly from the whole and slid back with such precision that not even crease remained. Her mother had always chastised Skthveraachk’s lack of interest in the aesthetics of the colony’s nests, but not even the most dexterous artisans, who labored on temple cities, would likely hold skill needed to replicate these designs. Even here in the black, worming and crawling her way through the passageway with not even space enough to permit slimmest of attendants beside her, the Queen could not help but marvel at the ceaseless advances she witnessed in these creatures. Crawling, wriggling, she forced herself forward towards the downward bend felt in distance. To the smells already making the carcass meals she had endured a thing of memory.

The first time she had been free from her enclosure. Well, not free. Skthveraachk made careful sure to not let her thoughts wander. Captive. Still within nest of dangerous not-hostile not-enemies. But she was moving in more than just a circle. Refreshed with purpose. Reaffirmed in her decisions. Her blood pumped and heart beat quickened as she tasted on the oddly still air the smell of others ahead. Her scout, yes, his odor saturated this tunnel, and more. Fainter, subtler cords and strands intertwining. Skthveraachk crawled in sky shorn darkness and focused her energies on discerning the complexities of the scents, if for no better reason than to narrow her mind and blot out the sounds. Yes, her decisions were correct thus far. She could not fight these creatures. Could not escape from this place. The creatures were without song, but the vibrations and music of this place bore through her carapace and stirred at her core. Skthveraachk heard a droning from twinned pillars the size of stacked towers somewhere below her. Felt, now without the barrier around her, the steps of a thousand and a thousand more of the bipedal creatures all around the passage. The nest itself, their nest, sung with rivers flowing through closed canals and pounded with the beat of drumming hardstone and a roar as fires burned yet never raged out of their control. A colony, many colonies perhaps, within the belly and body of some living, breathing creature so vast that she could not detect its end in any direction. She heard it. She felt it. Its power terrified her. Its power was glorious.

No time to dwell, even as a part of her wished to curl up within the smooth-bored tunnel. The smell of a mender’s spit and barely present undertone of flesh. Attendants, to some Queen she did not recognize. Fresh pap smeared from nesting drones, of little use here but also of little threat. Scouts, diggers-…no, delvers, she could just detect small flakes of pungent hardstone on them from their last dive for the precious minerals. And, there, the truth her scout had conveyed; heavy excretion and danger signals mingled with death from before their caging. Soldiers. Three, with a familiar smell about them. A distant sense of knowing? Momentarily irrelevant. The gap in the tunnel was approaching, the faintest glow of light blossoming up from it. Jhenaafhur merely wanted conversations, raw information passed through the walls of the individual enclosures. Skthveraachk would give her that. That, and more.

Her legs wrapped about the downward curve in the passage, a small huff escaping her as the weight of her body began to slip downward. The smells were faint. They were caged, as she had been. No immediate threats. Claws curled inward so as not to display a threat. Her hairs erected, as instruments ready to play. The light below was brighter now, spilling out from where tunnel exited wall to grey and flat floor beyond. People, her people, awaited. Enough planning. Time for work. Condensing her muscles, Skthveraachk could not quite stop the double-tapped chitter of her mandibles as her girth slid through the compacted passage, and crawled free into a cavern ten times over the size of her last.

The floor was cold and slippery, denying her efforts to hook against it. Shining surfaces stretched across walls, and images, lines of sea blue color, flashed and scrawled as they drew and undrew themselves from existence. Humming stones, like within the previous room beyond, stood as pedestals on raised daises set before the pens. Twenty-two clear barrier enclosures, nineteen of which held drones of varying size. Spaced evenly, in two rows, down the center of the room. Twenty lengths of room between them and the nearest walls, the entire cavern carved in a perfect rectangle. Magnificent. Her entrance into the spacious interior as she swelled to fullest height had already caught the attentions of those in the pens. A myriad of eyes, in forms she could only half recognize. Skthveraachk extended her forelimbs, and readied her universal greeting.

“Skthveraachk War Queen!” Thankfully, her claws were already curled as she rushed for her scout’s enclosure at his words. And by the beat she had reached his walls, she had composure enough to act as though her intent had always been merely to check on her beloved colony’s health. Not to tear the discordant slug’s head off. He played along without missing a note, though she could see a reflexive spattering of fluid drip beneath him. “I am unharmed. It was feared you had been killed. You walk free of your enclosure? The creatures did not allow me out of this trap last measure. I had thought they no longer had use for me.”

“There were problems. They were rectified. The absence of your overt familiarity was noted.” Eyes to pen, she pressed head against the barrier from above. No offense was intended. It was the name she was known by. Her scout gave brief apologies. She raked her antennae over the pen, accepting. With a touch of lingering irritation. “The issue was not of you. Information has been obtained and adjusted direction is needed.”

“Received.”

“Status of those here?”

“Turbulent. Many have ceased to join our songs. Another soldier was removed last fade. He died attacking his enclosure. We cannot-“ Their harmony had scarce been established before it was fractured, and frantic beating of legs came from further down the line of sealed squares. A voice pitched and erratic.

“Queen! Queen! Queen is free! Queen escape? We escape? Escape! We are free! We are free! We are free!” There was almost no tune. It was rambling, wild words thrown to express ideas as they came, without thought or consideration. Yet other drones had begun to murmur and hum to the sentiment, bodies small and large stomping in their pens. Discordance. Frenzy. Her scout tapped quick his understanding as Skthveraachk turned and strode way down the line to source of the chattering. A click in her step as she hastened past workers, diggers, colors and shapes from colonies familiar and utterly foreign.

“Give little thought to them, War Queen.” She could not halt as the deep baritone reverberated in passing, but neither could she prevent the clench of her mandibles. A small rasp of laughter told her it had been seen. “The nesters are too far gone. Kill them now, or later. It is the only outcome.” Skthveraachk caught from her pair of leftmost eyes the five-legged male curled upon himself. Flakes from his rugged carapace littered about him, molted shedding from cracked shell. Later. Prioritize. Others were scratching at their enclosures, questioning her now. It needed to be stopped.

“Queen! Queen!” Three nesting drones. No. No… two. They were, all of them, at the very ending of the line of pens on her side of the two-columned stretch. Jhahncklaan-Colony, their faded markings told her. Two leapt and pressed themselves to the barriers, desperation and joyous madness so fervently churning that it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended. The third was folded into a ball, legs twitching and spasming. Voice low, darkly muttering. Not to any here present. Only to itself. She was just able to make out the questions, ponderings, the changing of pitch mirroring the changing of mind occurring within the jerking body. It was only the fourth time Skthveraach had actually seen a frenzying. She tried not to let the fear make her fluids flow before the audience she had. “Queen escape! Queen flee! Queen take us, beyond! Beyond, beyond, we go! We go!?”

“No.” One problem at a time. Focus on those who could yet be saved. Ignore the chiding laughter from the five-legged one. “I have not escaped. There is no escape from this place.” She rose once more onto four legs, to let her voice rise as well over the carved cubes to the others listening. “There is no escape from this place. The creatures are many. They are too strong. They can be killed, but they can not be defeated. They can cause pain as they wish. They only do so when there is resistance. You must not resist.”

“The story was told.” A different voice. It took a countering volume to hers, yet matched tempo. Aggressive, but already forming around her music as baseline for its displeasure. “You were the first to hold against the invaders. You found their weaknesses, and shared their failures to enemies and allies both. My colony used your strategies. We killed many. You sing now of surrender and death. This is a weakness unexpected from what we have come to know of your actions.”

“I do not sing of surrender.” She acquiesced, and harmonized her voice to the other. One from the other side of the enclosures, unable to be seen from her vantage, but he was angry. He was wounded, the slight warble of voice betrayed it. Skthveraach brought her voice down to his level, rather than try to bear down on one who had already suffered. “There are many colonies of these creatures. Many goals. This nest, this thing we are inside, is not of those who made gone my children and made dead my land. We do not attack at random and lash to those who may assist us.”

“QUEEN INJURED!” The scream from the nesting drone split her skull, and killed what little melody she had managed to establish. Protesting groans came from all around her, and even her scout on the opposite end of the line could be heard beating his antennae against his walls. Skthveraach could not tell which of the two leaping drones had shrieked, but it was almost impossible to tell them apart regardless. A third of her size, if that, the plates on their backs stretched like disks to both carry and support. They had a faint blueish hue, pale and unblemished from almost no beats spent above ground. She followed their jabbing points to the concaved section of her carapace above her right vents. The compacted bit of hardness from shoving herself through ill-fitting hole.

“That is not an injury. Surface damage only. I am unharmed.”

“Queen damaged! Queen damaged! Protect the Queen!” They did not relent. It chilled her, the way they beat themselves against the unbudging barrier of their pen. She was not their Queen; they could not even form music for her to join in. It was the only aspect of their role they had managed to retain, the only song that yet sung in them. To be separated from colony and Queen after untold cycles always joined in the symphony was a quick death. They latched to anything. Anything to give them purpose. The five-legged one was right. They were not frenzied and not dead, but she was unsure if they were even still alive. Kill or not? Quick decision. A colony of two was no colony. Reassess later.

“Yes. I will be your Queen. Do you receive? Do you comprehend?” She pressed claws to the wall of enclosure nearest, felt the warmth of them through it. “I am Skthveraach Queen. You will be of Skthveraach-Colony, your voices-“ The square shuddered. Smooth surface did not fracture, the web of damage did not form as it had when the Queen had attacked her enclosure, but she could see cracks beginning to form instead in the carapace of each of the nesting drones. They did not hear her. The creatures would give them the white pain soon if they continued. “Cease! Cease movement!” They slowed. They tried to obey. But they could not stop. The creatures would be watching, even if Skthveraach could not see them, that is what Jhenaafhur had said. Their colony was present. They were listening.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Jhenaafhur-Colony! Jhenaafhur Pod!” Backing away from the bodies slamming about within their pens, the Queen raised scythe. Did her best to keep the movement slow as she tapped forward to each of the pens. “Walls! Open the walls. Request. Do you comprehend? Open.” She worked to keep her song harmonized with her thoughts, and to not let the erratic movements of the nesting drones pollute and taint her intent. “Open. These two, only. Release. Free. Remove.”

“You fall to frenzy yourself, War Queen.” That biting laughter returned from the pen of the five-legged one. She was assaulted by the myriad dialects and tunes, an orchestra she had no control over with instruments unnamed. “You state truth already. You have not escaped. There is no escape from this place. You sing to sky?”

“Yes. I sing to the sky. The sky hears me here.” Stupid. Truth, but not a truth those here would comprehend. Peel her, she did sound frenzied. Perhaps she was. Calm. Focus. Ignore the discontent now heard spreading through the trapped and confined. Try more words. “Jhenaafhur! Open. Save. Help. I control those inside. No harm to you. No danger. Save. Received?” She waved her scythes up, spread them as though parting water unseen. No response came. Of course no response came, she had told Jhenaafhur to remain silent. Another section of the drone’s plate splintered upward as it beat against the wall unseen, and a deep and crimson orange began to smear after each impact. Open. Protect the species. Open. “Jhenaafhur! Jhenaafhur-Colony, open!”

A hiss sounded before her, halting both her own cries and the stomping of legs around her. A seam appeared, a vertical line in the cube’s face. Blood of the drone oozing out and down as the seam became gap, and the smell like brackish scum on standing water seeped around her. The noxious fumes of bags emptied of alarm markers and colony markers and any marker at all. The nesting drone before her had voided itself, and not been given food enough to replenish its pouches. She shook with disgust and anger, and stiffened her limbs as she performed the folding of scythes and lowering of head to the ceiling high above.

“Thank you.”

They were on her before the pair of doors had even fully opened, of course. Sliding across and under her body. Touching, feeling and weeping against her body. She at first knocked aside one of the twinned nesting drones as it sought to climb her, sending it toppling upside-down across the floor. They were not of her colony. They smelled of nothing, and it was with almost violent fervor that they threw themselves on the Queen. When the other tried to climb her as well, it seized and convulsed, collapsing back while its legs went rigid and sharp. Skthveraach had experienced the burning enough times to recognize it in another, and used the momentary reprieve to push out and smear pap hurriedly and without grace on the wriggling bodies.

“At peace! Our voices, one. Our songs, together. Join in my choir, easily now, serve Skthveraach-Colony. Unity of purpose and unity of form.” They were simple, almost generic sentiments. They were precisely what the drones needed to hear. Now carrying her mark, the first of the twins calmed and slowed. Wrapped its mouth around the damage to her carapace and begin to lick. It was feverish, but it made the drone settle as she needlessly cleaned the damage. When the other had ceased its spasms, it too joined its sibling. Massaging and tapping her gaster. Skthveraach could feel tension evaporate as the nesting drones took on roles of an attendant, even these clumsy touches a welcome relief.

“Queen injured. Mend. Our voices, one. Received. Yes. We sing in your choir, Skthveraach Queen. We serve our role. We ease your burden. We brush at your body. Touch us. Touch us.” Their heartbeats no longer threatened to erupt from their cores. The beats were erratic, but at the very least, they were slowing. She longed to ask after the fate of Jhahncklaan-Colony, yearned to learn all she could. It would wait. It had to wait.

“You sing to the sky.” Yes. It would wait. Critical matters awaited. The five-legged one had spoken, but it was a thought that was carried across all those contained. Echoed, repeated, reinforced as disparate voices came into chorus under shared confusion. Skthveraach extended one of her legs, the twin not absorbed in the lathering of spit and sealant to her carapace eagerly taking hold as she guided the pair past the twitching body of the lost nesting drone and once more down the line. Returning to the flaking and gristled form watching over stubby mandibles. “And the sky answers. The creatures have not attempted to craft understanding with those here. They did so with you? Interesting. Reflective of intelligence, like in their crafts. A design. A plan. Confirm their intent to communicate.”

“Confirmed.” A polite enough request, earning a polite enough response from the Queen. A sturdier song was being established here. Order, and normalcy. “They watch our interactions. Learn from us. Their purpose is unknown, but it is not to seek our deaths.” Through the barrier, there came only sound and sight. It made the older male’s music a muted thing, yet he compensated by doubling the movements of his antennae to make clear his messages. A creative response to the imposed obstacle. She found herself returning the exaggerated movements.

“They have killed several of these.” He waved his one remaining forelimb vaguely around the room. When she began to protest, he interrupted without hesitation. “Confirmed, yes. There were soldiers here previously. They are now gone. There were others before who attacked their cells-“

“Pens?”

“Cells. Pens are for livestock or baser creatures. These cubes are designed to trap sentient and thinking prey, to keep them alive. New words are required. Cells. Captives. Prisoners? Later.” Drawing out his meaning, the mottled male sat back like a saturated spore, body balled yet upright. “Attacking cell walls, drawing attention, these things brought the creatures. At fade, the cells were full. At rise, they were empty. Room, space beyond this one, is filled with tools. Tools and tables, made for cutting, tearing, sharp and jagged.” It was not outrageous claim. The male spoke with precision. Knowing. “They may not seek collective death, but they are not above individual death. Remember this.” She would struggle to forget it.

“Designation and colony.”

“I am not your drone. You should be more fluent with your demands, War Queen.”

“I am capable of opening or closing your ‘cell’ at my will. You should be more considerate of your circumstance, male drone.” He tittered his blunted mandibles, forelimb rising to stroke the hairs over his eyes and to knock free a section of molting chitin. She found the sentiment less than amusing. “You know of my designation and colony.”

“Your scout sung a triumph when he returned from his first removal. The Blethuuhm River. Told us here of your survival. I did not enjoy the imagery of throwing bodies needlessly at a problem which could have been solved far simpler. Yes. I know of your designation and colony, War Queen.”

“You know much. You see much.”

“Yet not quite as much as you, as your truths would tell. These creatures have ignored me and approached you. I cannot formulate hypotheses without data and information.”

“Which none but a thinker would care about.” Their music swayed to and fro, and even in the contesting melodies, there was a melody forming. Contrast, but harmony. She let her voice raise, and the male tunneled beneath it. “But neither would thinkers be caught with eyes upward beyond the borders of their nest. You are aged and damaged. What purpose could you have beyond limits of the soil’s safety? Jhenaafhur-Colony, open, this one.” She did not point to the male’s cell. Her scythe extended instead to the first of the cubes, where her scout had waited and watched with humming aid when she spoke. The hiss came slithering from beneath. The walls split. Her scout was aside her without hesitation, and only flinched twice when the twinned attendants touched and assured themselves of his inclusion to their colony. Their minds were at risk; their bodies were small and weak. The thinker was damaged. But his mind was not. Skthveraach ensured her entire colony was about her before their dance proceeded.

“The soil is not safe from these creatures. I think it truth that you have experienced this for yourself.” She did not need to respond directly. Her hairs bristled, and her scout signed acknowledgement to the male. “Unfathomable speed and heat, from the sky. Directed downward, burrowing into the ground, and then erupting outward. My nest was destroyed and set ablaze. My Queen was killed in the chaos.” His legs trembled as his eyes left her, looking down the line of transparent cells. To the opened door. “I understood my chances for survival were elevated if I removed myself from the combat and fire. I did not expect the creatures to have the ability of flight. And now I am here.”

“Colony?”

“As you are making a show of opening these cells one after the other, it would seem the Composer writes my notes alongside those of Skthveraach-Colony soon enough.” He fell quiet, hoping perhaps for reprieve. Skthveraach did not cease her pressure or presence. He, after two bars of following her tune, sung with strain and annoyance. “Chkervthnaakt-Colony.”

“Chkervthnaakt-Colony!” The attendants and scout made the sound accusation, but the Queen’s surprise overpowered their intent. “Ktcvahnaah-Colony fled to my territory, wailing that the creatures had come from Chkervthnaakt’s borders!”

“Yes. How precious and fortune-favored is Skthveraach War Queen, that she had two entire colonies to base her decisions on. The creatures descended from the sky above us and destroyed my people before we knew we were under attack.” The accusation was broad, and the pain behind it genuine. She felt a tightness about her core, of a hundred thousand claws squeezing slowly as one. The lives lost. The obligation she had to them now.

“I compose mournful yearning for your lost-“

“Your sympathies are not required. We adapt to the situations we are presented with.” It was the second time he had cut into her music, abrasive and piercing. Going from harmony to hostility in the span of a beat. Her own thinkers had never been this rude. Chkervthnaakt must have been weaker of will than even Skthveraach suspected. Latching to a piece of information given, her focus was torn away, caught in a gale.

“Repeat last. The creatures descended from the sky above? From which bearing?”

“The creatures descended from the sky above. There was no bearing. They were not there, and then, they were.”

“There is nothing in the above. Those taken by the sky do not return, and nothing can reach into the blackness beyond the light.” Spreading his gnarled scythe of one remaining forelimb, the motion was as one would make to sweep both sides of the cavern.

“Yet, here we are, and here they are. We are missing much in the way of knowledge. Assume nothing previously thought true, correct. We will be reassessing much in these coming measures. They sing to you. They do not sing to me. I am unable to advance understanding without information you will possess. My colony and Queen are dead. You have no other thinkers present in these cells. I have checked.” Submission came in many forms. The thinker phrased his so subtly that the Queen could scarcely detect it. “And since you have no jelly, I need not fear enslavement for the time being.”

“Skthveraach-Colony does not take slaves.” Her scout interjected before she could respond, but it was intrusion she accepted. Better to be heard from another voice rather than the Queen’s herself. “Such has been stated truth.”

“Then Skthveraach-Colony is either very stupid, or very confident.”

“I believe both may be equally true.” She gave a raking of her arm across the scout’s back at the response. He shifted, but did not relent. “Options are currently limited. Skthveraach Queen fought and won against the creatures. Skthveraach makes it known none will be slaved to will. We cannot survive alone. Colony is the only choice.” The scout had raised his pitch and timbre both, along with his body. Seeking to let the words pass from him to all others watching the exchange. “Colony is the only choice.”

“Refutation. Frenzy is also a choice. Perhaps an appealing one, to some here.” Her claws began to unfurl at the suggestion spoken from the thinker. Mayhap realizing, seeing the motion, his head lowered to expose the back of neck and his scythe folded inward. “One song, one voice, within your choir, War Queen. I will sing with you.”

“Then you will use my proper designation. And cease the usage of designation ‘War Queen’.”

“Would that we could choose the flow of our lives, but the Composer conducts us where he wishes. I will endeavor to remember your distaste for what you are. Queen.” It sounded even more an insult now, somehow. She was here to craft consensus and unity before more fell to frenzy. Arguing with a thinker was the opposite of productive. Small sacrifice for the greater collective. She called to Jhenaafhur, and the walls parted at her will. The thinker lurched as he walked, his balance distributed poorly and his body shaky. Passing right by her, to head further down the line of cubes. “Another, here, needs releasing. I need his talents. A delver, from Jchlehaalhn-Colony.”

“Impossible.” She had raised arm for the thinker as he had passed her by, and left it hanging in the air as she pivoted so quickly that the attendant latched to her was sent skidding back and away from well-licked carapace. Shining under the fresh layer of sealant. “They could not have already reached beyond the mountains. They could not have found the temples.”

“Assume nothing.” He spoke bitter, and it was sentiment Skthveraach had already reminded herself of over and over again. But she refused to form the picture of the towers toppled. The shrines and temples of the Remembering made gone, as her nest. Bodies littering the steps of the Songless City. “Whether they have attacked the Triumvirate, I do not know, but that they have taken from colonies to the sopran of the mountains is truth and fact. The Jchlehaalhn is not the first.”

Shuffling on four legs, extended claw pointed on to the other row of entrapped drones. Their bodies and cells half hidden behind those before the Queen now. Workers, some recognized, most not. No scentcrafter, she knew she could not be so lucky. A spitter? Perhaps? Its sacks were emptied and stomach deflated, but its outline was otherwise correct. It was not until her eyes tracked to the last among them that recognition struck like a talon across her face. The dull crimson like dirty blood. The hulking statures, even when rested. And the sheer size her scout had spoken of, with bodies nearly pressing upon either wall of their cells and scythes as long as their entire forelimbs. She knew these soldiers. She knew these soldiers. These three, the only soldiers present amongst the host of drones, were Vhersckaahlhn-Colony soldiers. She saw them there, on the other side of the row of pens, and they saw her as well. Skthveraach felt her plan begin to crumble before her, slipping through the hooks of her claws. She had planned to give Jhenaafhur more than just singing. It seemed she could instead be treating the creatures to discordance the likes of which she could scarce imagine. The thinker had stopped before the pen of the delver, but despite his insistence, the Queen’s hesitance and unconscious shifting into a more combative stance seemed to distract his urgency.

“You recognize them. Good. Many on our side of the mountains have not seen Vhersckaahlhn before, despite hearing the stories of their raids. Skthveraach-Colony has met them?”

“Twice, Thinker. Once at a Remembering. Once more in battle, in the fungal farms of Ckhehnvraahll-Colony.” Her mandibles snapped together but a single time, taking her thoughts back to when she had last tasted of their meat. When she had moved in the van of the army, moments before her mother’s. Now, hers. “Where I was made Queen.”