Parsec

White pebbles spread out around her like a sea of chalk. Here, there was silence. The rock upon which she sat had the illusion of being sun-warmed; an almost-breeze tickled her spines. She shut her eyes for a moment, imagining herself surface-side. The Archives were good at pretending.

“Thank you,” she told Orion as she set down her cup. The tick of the Hive thrummed beneath her fingertips, more urgently now. “I regret I cannot stay longer.”

It probably wasn’t him, she thought tiredly. The Archivist’s role was too much of a keystone, too deeply entrenched within the Hive rhythm for a betrayal to come from his quarter. It likely wasn’t any of the four other Generals she’d investigated, either, or any of the processors directly involved with the Titania’s meals.

He dipped his head, and his third eye brightened in understanding. “Work well,” he said. “I will have an attendant see you away.”

She nodded. If she were in his place, she would take every spare scrap of tranquillity that she could get. An attendant scuttled past her on a dozen delicate legs. She followed.

The Archives unfurled like a flower on her way out. Little passages opened at the edges of her vision, book-lined corridors that tempted and beckoned with shining trinkets: spheres of glass, runes etched over horn, small things that caught her eye. They were appearing with greater frequency as of late; it was as if the magic of the Archives knew her troubles, was baiting her with promises of knowledge. It was a pity that all these promises would merely lead her to Venera’s resting place.

The attendant skipped over a mound of unsorted parchments as it guided her onwards. She inhaled the dry paper-scent: aged cellulose and decaying glue, benzaldehydes frozen in stasis. It was oddly comforting, a reminder that the Archives, strange though they might be, were helpful and unfailing. If the inner sanctum was the heart of the Hive, then the Archives carried the blood and lymph, distributing magic on fine capillaries to keep each piece afloat. Alas, the only thing that could help her here was perhaps Venera’s corpse. She had already checked for poison. Venera’s attendants had, too. The other generals had concluded it was a natural failing of her body. So if it had been a poison, it was not of the usual kind. And she was no closer to finding the General who had smuggled it in.

Orion’s attendant stopped in the Archive lobby, which bustled with several more of its kind. Stray scouts consulted with them, bringing items for perusal. Most were turned away, spines drooping with disappointment. Others, upon the acceptance of their offerings, beamed with pride. Parsec hid her flicker of amusement behind an attentive tail-twitch. It was almost endearing, how enthusiastic they were—how young and content.

All these years later, and the contentment was still a novel concept.

She winged along her usual route to the inner sanctum. The rhythm of the Hive pulsed along as usual: sparks of magic, material carted around, the smell of wet loam. The warmth of belonging coursed through her body, to the very ends of each wingtip.

She no longer had Venera, she reminded herself, but she still had this.

===

Parsec stood at the doorway, politely ceremonial. She kept perhaps a quarter of her attention on the hall at her back; a lost, lone seeker might fly to the outermost sanctum undetected if their intentions were not strong enough, but Hive rhythms existed for a reason. And this was the armoured heart of the inner sanctum, sheathed in Archival protection, the place only a Titania could go. To let her guard slip here would be unforgiveable.

Several paces away inside the collection chamber, Segin leaned over and brought up another mouthful of honey. Airborne sweetness filled the room as the glands at her throat pulsed with light.

This place, of all places, had not changed. As far as Parsec knew, it never did. It was the only part of the inner sanctum to remain as what it was with Venera, and Venera’s predecessor, and—according to Perihelion and others—those before her. The walls were smooth and curved, like a clay bowl. The floor scooped in towards the way-pipe at the very center. It was almost fully dark; only flickers of attendant-light illuminated the place.

The last few drops of honey dripped from Segin’s jaw into the way-pipe. Stone moved like muscle, closed over the golden deposit and sent it away. Parsec wondered, not for the first time, whether it hurt to produce. Venera had never trembled or sighed as Segin did now. Perhaps she had been better at hiding it.

She offered her arm as Segin staggered over to the doorway. The successor’s touch was a notch cooler than it should be, clammy and leaden.

“Will you be requiring the recovery chamber?” Parsec asked, more out of formality than anything else.

“Yes.” Segin sent her attendants scurrying past them in a wave.

Parsec allowed herself to be used as a crutch down the dark hall; once out, Segin’s salvation lay in the first room on the right. The attendants were already there—scurrying to and fro, passing weaves and morsels, bowls and cups. Parsec walked her over to the waiting nest of moss and linen and resumed post by the wall when she was not immediately dismissed.

An attendant passed Segin a bowl of fortified nutrient broth. She took a sip, twitched her spines weakly, and gave an approximation of a smile.

“This does not quite take the taste away,” she said. “Perhaps some more shellfish would help.”

Parsec stilled the twitch in her spines before it could give her thoughts away. The Titania’s daily meals stemmed from a workload of approximately one general, a dozen hunters, four processing teams arranged in a line, and a minimum of two of her own attendants. Parsec knew this, because Venera had made optimisation changes—and Parsec had been the one to carry them out. The numbers themselves accounted for Segin’s meals, but in truth, the Titania’s life was carried upon the back of the entire Hive. And yet, Segin wanted more? She supposed it was not unreasonable. But it was certainly unusual.

“I can send a missive to General Nephele if you wish,” Parsec said.

Diving for shellfish was inefficient. Sorting and processing, even more so. The queen could only be fed on the purest sustenance by design. The shellfish, as far as Parsec recalled, were only provided to supplement the Titania’s tastes; there were better sources of zinc and fatty acids. But what the Titania wanted, the Titania usually got.

Happiness and healthfulness, Nephele had once told her, were key to maintaining adequate saturation of magic in the Hive honey. If that meant allowing for more solid food than usual, then so be it. Privately, Parsec thought that Venera had never been so finicky.

“If it’s no trouble,” Segin said, gulping down the rest of her broth.

“Of course,” Parsec said.

Midsummer was fast approaching. She wondered if this year’s drop of honey would taste any different.

“Have you been feeling quite welcome enough?” Segin asked inanely.

Parsec blinked. “My pardon, successor?”

“It is—simply, well,” Segin tilted her wings bashfully. “I have heard that you came all the way from the shattered lands.”

“I arrived twelve years ago,” Parsec said, suppressing yet another twitch. “I assure you that I am well-integrated into the Hive.”

“Oh,” Segin said. “Well, um. Yes! I am sure that you provide singularly excellent guidance for our newcomers.”

She, in fact, did no such thing on account of rarely having a cause to meet any. If Segin were a fast learner, she would have already known that it was Dysnomia who tended to work with such arrivals.

“I do my best,” she said, as she thought: newcomers?

She had fallen behind on her lesser parchments, spending extra hours in her bower catching up on lost sleep. She’d only felt slightly guilty; there weren’t usually enough of them to make note of and again, they were largely Dysnomia’s problem. Perhaps she was looking in the wrong place. Perhaps the roots of betrayal had not stretched quite so high up to the level of her fellow generals. It was a charmingly optimistic hope, but a thread to follow all the same.

“The ah, your wings, for instance,” Segin said. “They look beautifully synthesised. Are they of a shattered-lands tradition?”

“Somewhat,” Parsec replied. “Is there anything else you require of me?”

She had mirrored Venera’s feather-like wings in a gesture of loyalty. It had been a long process, to metamorphose. Segin would not understand.

Segin swallowed and looked away. “No,” she said. “Thank you, General Parallax. You are dismissed.”

Parsec left Segin to her attendants and winged out the door, her attention wandering loose. She almost clipped against Nephele going full tilt on her way out, saved only by her own reflexes and a moment’s warning of smoke-scent.

“Shiver in the rhythm,” Nephele half-shouted into her face, smelling of fresh rain and forest char. Her eyes were dark, the pupils blown wide. “Don’t you feel it? Hurry!”

Then she zipped past her, straight to the Titania. Parsec laid her spines back and followed; she was faster than Nephele, could’ve easily gotten to Segin first. But she did the polite thing and held back such that they landed at the same time.

Nephele hurtled into the room, almost falling onto Segin as she shook her awake.

“What,” Segin managed to get out, before Nephele grasped her in her arms and hauled her from the hollow of her nest.

“Out,” Nephele commanded. “Titania, you must get out—now!”

Parsec stepped aside as Nephele half-dragged a bewildered Segin out of the recovery chamber.

“What is the problem?” Parsec asked sharply.

She tensed as her senses expanded, sifting through the currents of scent about the hallway. There had been no one here in the last few hours save for Segin, Nephele, and herself. Of that, she was certain.

“Not the scent-rhythm,” Nephele said. “The magic—do you feel it? Surely, now?”

Parsec shut her eyes, blocked her nose, and concentrated.

The Hive thrummed around her as it always did. Lines of magic, branching like veins, carrying a tide of information: pathways getting clogged up in the second-level north quarter, groups re-routing through the smaller passages, synthesisers making progress on the weaving wing. Interspersed throughout was the steady surge of the Archives, backed up with the weight of years upon years, with the drift and pull of books and broken treasures alike.

“Where?” Parsec asked, a moment before she found it: a well-hidden creature clinging to the pipeline of Archive-magic with parasitic suckers, a hundred little scrabbling legs and hungry pincers cloaked over with a mask of parchment-scent and forgotten sunbeams. And in the mask, the slightest tear, a fraying at the seams—the tear through which she burrowed in and saw the true measure of the thing.

“Right in front of you!” Nephele shrieked.

“I see it,” said Parsec, eyes snapping back open.

From the ceiling of the recovery chamber emerged a mottled grey tendril. About the width of her tail and lengthening rapidly, the fleshy tip peeled back to expose a delicate, glittering point. It quested about the air like a soldier scenting out blood.

Instinct took over. Parsec vaulted over the both of them, placing herself between the thing and Nephele, who was busy clutching a slack-jawed Segin. Magic welled up at her jaw, in her fingertips, and crackled down the length of her tail. She slammed a shield down across the doorway, thick as a handspan and still translucent around to see through. Just in time—the tendril lunged and hit the other side with a meaty, wet thwack.

“What in Hive’s name?” Segin asked, diaphanous wings gone deathly pale.

“It was meant for you, Titania,” Nephele said, pulling her away from the doorway. “Someone sent it here, poisoned the Archival flow.”

“No,” Parsec whispered. A coldness blanketed her, like first-winter’s frost. “No, it cannot be. Orion has no cause to…”

She felt the rhythm of the sanctum stir, a jumble of fellow generals fast arriving. They burst in moments later, crowding the hallway, some almost scorching the air with the speed at which they decelerated. The corridor exploded into a flurry of noise and scent.

The tendril reared back and struck again, whip-crack cutting through the air. Parsec felt her shield shudder.

“Oh, oh dear,” Segin whimpered. “General Nephele, I…my greatest thanks…”

“Out,” Nephele commanded. “Back out, all of you. Here is the Titania, all safe. Secure the sanctum, you can have your gawking later. Atlas, Cetus, have the Archivist apprehended. Keep ahold of that shield, Parallax.”

Parsec shouldered her budding resentment aside and made a sound of acknowledgment. From behind her shield, the tendril drew back to lunge once more.

===

Nephele had organised a secure zone. Segin sat at the very center, sipping at a bowl of nutrient broth. In all the commotion, Parsec had waited several long minutes before Perihelion had finally noticed the imminent strain on her magic and ordered the immediate requisition of blockading spell-stones from the Archives. That had taken another half-hour, on account of the Archivist being forcibly indisposed. By the time they’d gotten the spell-stones activated and the recovery room quarantined, Parsec felt in sore need of some nutrient broth herself.

The main chamber was still filled with generals milling about. Parsec gave her limbs a much-needed stretch and watched from off to the side. She tried to withhold judgment on the matter of Orion. Archivist Orion, who would never—

It wasn’t necessarily Orion, she thought. The Archival flow could be accessed from areas other than its deepest source. Perhaps it would be easier for the Archivist to manipulate it, yes. Perhaps the Archivist was the obvious answer, the easy target for Nephele to latch upon in her panic. But all those others passing through, the scouts in the lobby, perhaps they could have been the unwitting carrier of such a weapon, a delayed, self-perpetuating construct formed by schismatists…

This was all speculation, of course. She did not think herself a fool; the simplest answer was often right for good reason. But she knew Orion, knew him better than most. He was no leering gravekeeper. He did not have a mind addled by parchments, as others thought. Something about all this sat uncomfortably in her chest, tucked away like a bead of poison.

…Had it truly been a poison?

Venera had said it had felt as such. But what was venom but a poison by another route? Grim certainty lodged itself into her core: this was how Venera had died. Dozing off in the recovery room, undisturbed; the Archival armature of safety corrupted into a hidden vector, a slender needle-point slipped into the gap between a joint. No evidence in the food, nothing but a slight ache that could be easily brushed off as an aftereffect of synthesising so much honey, no ill effects until much, much later.

No fault in its cloaking, either. Not until now, with Segin. It was really an injustice, she thought. An injustice that Nephele’s keen senses had saved Segin and not Venera.

“Are you alright?” Perihelion’s voice cut in from over her shoulder, rousing her from her thoughts.

She gave her arm one last stretch. “Well enough.”

“Good. Fast work you did, back there.”

She did not need to hear it, but it felt gratifying all the same. Across the room, Nephele fussed over Segin, draping thick weaves over her shoulders to wide-eyed adoration.

“Thank you,” she said. He offered her a cup of restorative potion and she took it gratefully. It tasted of dust and wintergreen. She wondered if Orion had been the one to brew it. “How goes the situation with the Archivist?”

“He came willingly. Still in questioning, I’m heading there now. Want to come with?”

Parsec eyed Nephele, still preening under Segin’s attention.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course.”

===

“It was not my doing,” Orion said.

Seven layers of salt-dusted spell-circle lay between them, each one chalked down with the lightest of touches, fine enough to rival Archival script itself. Perihelion had murmured that they had been formed with Dysnomia’s help. Perhaps the girl had something to her after all.

Parsec stared at the circles from behind iron bars. On the far side of the dungeon-hall lay his forty attendants, squashed into cages of their own. These layers of protection—almost laughable. The Orion she knew could not fight his way out of a wet parchment if he tried. Or perhaps not laughable. Had he been something else, all along?

“Then whose?” she asked.

“He claims he doesn’t know,” Cetus said wearily. “We have been speaking in spirals.”

“Archivist Orion,” she said. “Give us cause to believe you.”

“If he has no evidence to the contrary—” Atlas broke in.

“I do not know,” Orion said, a trace of desperation threaded into his voice. “The Archivist is not the master of the Archives. The Archivist is in service to it—I read. I brew. I archive. I do not control the flow in the way you seem to think.”

“But you can influence it,” Atlas pressed. “Enough to send a working through.”

Perihelion looked disturbed. “Does the brewing of this working fall under the expertise of an Archivist?”

Orion hunched his shoulders, wings drooping. “Please. The construct is not mine. I sensed it at the very moment you did.”

Atlas opened his mouth, but Parsec lashed her tail, commanding silence.

“Will you be able to prove it, if we bring you a piece?” she asked.

“Yes,” Orion said. “If you will believe me.”

“General Eltanin is on his way with a sample,” Perihelion said.

She exhaled slowly, forcing herself to relax. Perhaps it wasn’t to be Orion. Perhaps it was to be—

“Halt!” Eltanin cried out, his voice floating across the hall. “My fellow Generals, you must bear witness.” He glided across the hall and alighted in front of them, holding something out in his hand. “There has been a change to the proceedings.”

The item he held was a simple vial, marked by neither paper nor scent-label. Parsec frowned. The liquid inside was clear; water, or perhaps blood at first glance. But as she gazed upon it, it began to twist in quality, growing foggier and grainier, then clear again, stepping between refractive indices as if in a dance.

“That does not appear to be a piece of the construct,” Perihelion said, his spines twitching with annoyance. “I requested—”

“The assassination-construct is neutralised,” said Eltanin, speaking over him. “This vial was matched to the poison within it.”

“Falsehoods,” Orion said. “I do not keep poisons within my Archives. You would have had to dive into the far-sea to find that.”

“I did not have to search so far,” said Eltanin. “This was hidden in your quarters, Parallax.”

Silence fell upon the hall like a pebble into a still lake. For a moment, Parsec’s mind felt disjointed from her form, flung out of phase.

“My pardon?” she asked. Her nerves felt numb, raw with disbelief.

“Do not take us for fools,” he spat, brandishing the vial. “You are in partnership with the Archivist.”

“What?” asked Orion. “No—neither of us—”

“See how he moves to support her claims? Is it not known that they are unusually close? Seize her!” Eltanin’s cry echoed through the hall.

Her fellow Generals glanced among themselves and hesitated to move.

Several thoughts hit her at once: Eltanin was a liar. She had given him a key. Foolish, foolish General. Idiotic and naive.

“You were able to enter my quarters,” she said, and fought to remain calm. “I gave you a key, and you placed it there.”

“You leverage words of espionage at me?” he asked. “I have not entered your quarters before today. It was not even I who found the evidence.”

She opened her mouth to argue that he had clearly entered her quarters, then stopped short.

She had no documentation, on account of the key being an informal exchange. She had not thought of it, at the time. Foolishness, missteps one after the other. She had assumed serendipity—the same obvious conclusion drawn, the same goals. Why, then, had they not spoken up when Venera had died, when she’d first proposed a formal investigation to Nephele? She cast her mind back: some, like Cetus and Nephele, had opposed without malice. Eltanin and Dysnomia had not spoken, had remained neutral. Neutral. What a well-masked lie.

Eltanin continued speaking into the space of her stunned silence. “We all had our quarters searched, Parallax. Titania Segin opened the ways.” He paused, then turned outwards to address the other three. “Hrmm. Speaking of our Titania Segin, have none of you noticed the unfondness she harbours for our new successor? And was she not the last one to see the predecessor alive?”

The word predecessor flicked a switch within her, shocking her back awake.

“You dare accuse me of killing Venera?” she asked. Coiled fury boiled in her core. “You claim I do not serve Segin, that I betray my duty as General. You dare lie to my face, that you did not take my key and hide that vial.”

“And how would I fully hide my scent, upon hiding this vial?” Eltanin asked keenly. “If I were to have crept into your chambers, you would have noted a trace.”

“I did not speak,” she hissed, “because I gave you provisional permission and a key.”

And because she had not noticed. There had been no scent amiss: had he learned to close his hydathodes, as she had?

“You infiltrated Leader General Perihelion’s chambers,” Eltanin said. “General Dysnomia was there to drop off reports. She told me you claimed provisional permission yourself. I wager that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“No. Dysnomia said she was there to—” she said, before realising what she had done.

Eltanin lifted his chin triumphantly. “Aha. So you admit it.”

Beside her, she felt Perihelion stiffen. “…Parsec?” he asked. “Did you—”

“Dysnomia was going through his documents,” Parsec said, looking Eltanin in the eye. Her wingtips buzzed with bloodflow, with sizzling readiness. “She claimed she was investigating him, investigating all of us, and so were you. You said it to my face.”

“I told her to deliver copies to my office,” Perihelion said slowly, his features creasing with disquietude. “She was meant to be there, I gave her a provisional key. Parsec, what—”

“General Parallax is a traitor,” Eltanin said.

“I was searching for Venera’s killer,” she snarled. “You, who—”

“Killer?” Eltanin asked. “What killer? We have all concurred that the predecessor passed of natural causes. Have you gone quite mad?”

“…Parallax,” Perihelion said slowly. “Is it true?”

“She uses feigned loyalty as a shield,” Eltanin hissed. He turned to Perihelion, eyes blazing. “She is from the shattered lands. She is not truly Hive-born—she is the one who knows outsider secrets. She can already hide her scent; who here can say whether she is able to fully detach herself from Hive rhythms? She must be detained.”

Perihelion hesitated, reluctance flitting over his face. And then it was gone, washed over by a mask of grim determination that she knew all too well. He moved. The others of course, followed his lead.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl; her thoughts raced like lightning over desert plain.

Eltanin dared implicate her? He dared to say she was the traitor, having murdered Venera in cold blood? He had turned Perihelion to his side, the Leader General, the breaking point. She should have realised that sooner.

Now, they would drag her to a cage of her own. He would lie and obfuscate to keep her locked there and out of the way as he played the other Generals. Some might argue her case; either way, she would be contained for who-knew-how-long. With the false credence lent by saving the Titania from her, Eltanin would be free to enact whatever plans he wished.

She’d gone looking for a traitor. Well, she had her answer now.

Perihelion’s hand landed upon her shoulder. A defensive surge of magic crested within her chest.

She did not like Segin, but she served her because she served the Hive. She could not do that if she were locked in a cage and Eltanin was running free. To surrender would be to lose. To resist would be seen as proof of guilt. There was no easy path here.

She punched Perihelion in the face, full-strength and all-magic. Blue-black spellfire blasted him into the side of Orion’s cage. He slid to the ground, dazed.

He hadn’t been expecting resistance; none of them had. She’d cultivated a carefully nonviolent demeanour in the years following her integration; she’d had to, after flying in from the Old World, what they now called shattered lands. They’d had certain fears. She’d done her best to subvert them; that bought her a precious few seconds.

Eltanin lunged, too slow.

Was this her recompense, she wondered bitterly as she knifed upwards.

General Cetus had built himself for endurance, not speed. He used a sword, relied on it a little too much, and wasted time unsheathing it. Dodging Eltanin’s lunge put her near him, so she broke his leg in passing. Spellfire sizzled off her fingertips as Cetus screamed and fumbled his strike; the blade clipped off the tips of two spines and opened a shallow cut along her side. She hardly felt it as she flew away; magic pulsed in her brainstem, glowed beneath her skin like a molten star.

Atlas next. Harder to deal with, because he could keep up with her. And Perihelion, recovering now—his gaze locked onto her as he took to the air.

She wanted nothing more than to kill Eltanin, for Venera’s sake. She wanted it with an itch that chewed at her core, an urge that pulsed through as strongly as her battle magic did. But what she wanted was not the same as what she needed, and what she needed was to not lose to him. One regretful glance over her shoulder before she blazed her way out of the hall of cages, shooting past Dysnomia standing guard a ways further down the hall. Atlas followed, close on her tail—she sensed Dysnomia springing into motion, Perihelion flanking from further behind.

Faster now, into spiraling back-ways to avoid encountering guards and passers-by, down semilunar passages tight enough for her wingtips to graze the sides. Scents flashed by in half-second flickers: moss, oranges, salt, rain, blood.

Atlas was in her wake, close enough that her own slipstream made it easier for him. She pushed herself harder, wings straining; to stop now was to forfeit. Atlas alone, she could fight. Perihelion and Dysnomia also, she could not. Nor could she hope to prevail against the rest of the Generals, no doubt all alerted by now—the rhythm of the Hive buzzed frantically in her wake, sending signals of a defect, of something amiss. She felt the outer exits slam shut synchronously, gateways barred by earth and tar, guards buzzing to their stations.

That was fine. Fleeing by that route would do her no good.

Passageways started closing on her left and right, up and down, behind her and ahead. She winged left, into a tunnel of smooth stone; stone was harder to mould than clay or loam. And then up a pipe of marble, and down an offshoot of clear quartz and crushed glass. Three Generals and then some, further behind and out of sight now, but still following.

The Hive was locking down, reshaping itself so quickly, almost too fast for her to keep up. She clenched her jaw and mapped out new routes, creating and discarding them as precious seconds ticked by. Flying fast was one of the few good things she was made for, the thing that had spared her the fate of the rest of her birth-Hive. It could not fail her now; magic roared beneath her skin. Terror and exhilaration spurred her forth.

She was the enemy now, she realised. And at that thought, something broke inside her for a second time, snapped like a once-healed rib along the same fault line.

Her Hive was gone, again.

She shut down her scent glands a moment before she ripped through the membrane of scented string demarcating a locked zone, and burst into the Archive lobby.

There was no time to hesitate; she flew into the stacks, parchments rustling in her wake. She reached out a hand and shot spellfire along the shelves, creating a cloud of loose paper and falling books in her wake. A shout echoed behind her, followed by the sound of a body hitting several tomes at full speed.

Apologies, Orion, she thought, and a fresh ache bloomed in her chest at the damage she was causing. So very sorry, for it to have come to this. In the hours they’d spent together, his love of the Archives permeated into every moment of spare quiet, every peaceful glance he cast over his domain. And now he was caged and she was destroying what he had awaiting him after his imprisonment—that was to say, if he had anything left to wait for, depending on what Eltanin said, depending on how her fellow Generals reacted. She hoped they would not kill him; perhaps she could spare him that by acting the fleeing scapegoat.

She tore down another section of leather-bound tomes. Flying against Atlas, every second counted. He was out of sight now, but perhaps not for long. They were closely matched; she could feel herself starting to flag, and she needed every advantage she could take.

She wove through the shelves, stayed low against the ground in the hope of being harder to see. The world blurred, only recognisable in flashes; past a mound of unsorted parchments, past the sea of white pebbles where they took their tea. The dark shape of Venera’s tomb loomed before her; she barely paused to wrench the doorway open before she flew inside.

Lichens on bent boughs. Strawberry and pine. She scooped up Venera’s body, death-shroud and all, before she blew a hole into the far side of the tomb and kept flying. Venera’s body was an empty shell. It was not heavy. Not heavy at all.

Burnt sugar, rotting wine. The Archives unfolded before her like a flower. Beckoning petals, hidden passages overflowing with green smells and thorny vines, dripping with tree sap and creosote. She picked one at random and flew further in. Past the tombs of other predecessors, swaths of sombre land filled with graves of ordinary folk, further in than she’d ever been.

Her mind felt frantic, poisoned; no words for the thoughts coursing through her head, not anymore. It was a river of pure purpose, sole intent: get out, flee safe, can’t protect the Hive if locked away. The clusters of vine-speckled parchment were thinning now, giving way to fossilised roots and jagged monoliths, vaulted ceiling melting into greyness like the belly of a stormcloud.

Down another passageway, lined with sand and dead moss. A dead end—a chamber, perfectly round in shape. Her wingbeats stalled as she swerved to keep from crashing into the far wall—smooth and blank, looking as if it had been cast from marble. Venera’s body almost slipped from her grasp. She glanced around frantically. Her gaze alighted upon a pool of water on the floor.

A puddle at first glance, nothing else. Then, a heartbeat after she laid eyes upon it, the surface rippled like a membrane-gate, a doorway into twisted space. The ripple revealed shadows that gleamed, pinpricks of blue bioluminescence. The air suddenly smelled, overwhelmingly, of salt.

The far-sea, she thought in a daze of lightheaded half-panic. Orion had spoken of it like a frontier, the knife-edge of his maps. Had she really flown all this way, so quickly? She had expected waves stretching to the horizon. But then, perhaps, like so many places within the Hive, the far-sea was reachable from more than one route.

Parsec drew a breath, and dived.