The Bees

The strong encouraged the weak and helped them, but as the daily casualties mounted, the Sage made the decision to break open emergency rations for those in dire need, then use vital energy to summon the Holy Chord and take the Hive Mind itself into trance.

“Is there sickness in our hive?”

“Of course not.” Sister Sage groomed her own antennae, as if from soiling contact. “But the Cluster permits nightmares, as a way of cleansing our minds. And as foragers must withstand more sights than most, you might well have fearsome fantasies.”

To her astonishment, she heard the sanitation workers talking in low voices. She took her place and looked at them. They were smiling.

“In the Dreaming,” one whispered. “We took back our tongues.”

“You are distressed, yet you have just breathed the Queen’s Love.”

“Fearful things on my forage. If I could dance them I would release them.”

“And spread nightmare to every sister. You must bear your burden alone.”

“Yes, Sister.” Flora returned to her own kind.

The Cluster had moved across the Treasury ceiling and wall, leaving great patches of empty honey cells behind, and now at last it was the turn of the sanitation workers to feed. The Sage uncapped a different kind of honey for them, thinner and coarser. Ravenous, the floras did not complain

Too cold to speak, Flora immediately gave the nearest worker a drop of the orange blossom nectar. Despite her ravenous hunger, the little bee took the smallest sip before passing the larger portion into her neighbor’s mouth. She too drank most modestly, then passed it on. To Flora’s surprise, Sir Linden did not lunge for the greatest share, nor even ask for any.

Only the sanitation workers were ignored, for neither the Teasel nor the Sage cared about them except to make sure they cleaned properly.

A new Devotion drifted through the forest, the scent of a wild, dark young Queen, strong and fertile.

With all the strength of her kin and skill of her age, Flora bit through the division between two storage areas to make one large one, then used the broken wax to make a lid to cover her child.

A fatal sickness lurked in the hive, sheltered in the body of a single sister.