CHAPTER 14: CHAPTER 14:THE QUIET BEFORE THE STORM

The warren smelled of iron and resin. Wounds sealed in gauze-thread. Armor polished with spit and dust. Everything was being sharpened, even the silence.

Buzz watched from the edge as factions that had never shared a breath now circled the same chamber. Glowbeetles flickered signals across the walls, testing how far their light could be seen through stone. Scarabs beat low, deliberate rhythms meant to steady heartbeats. Centipedes coiled in spirals so tight the air itself seemed braced.

Zza moved through it all with hands never still. Wrapping silk, stitching carapace cracks, tightening straps of improvised armor made from bark and stone. She said nothing. She didn’t need to. Every insect that passed her eyes left steadier than it arrived.

Buzz found her when the chamber finally thinned, allies returning to their corners. She was sitting against the wall, fingers raw, threads still clinging to her wrists.

"You’re going to burn yourself out," he said.

Her antennae flicked. "Better me than them."

He sat down beside her, close enough their legs brushed. His wing ached where she had patched it, but the ache felt... steadier now.

"They listen to you," Zza said quietly.

"They shouldn’t."

"They do anyway."

Buzz stared across the chamber where the Weaver Elder hung motionless from the ceiling, its threads humming faintly with unseen signals. "That’s not loyalty. That’s desperation."

"Same thing, right before a fight," Zza murmured.

Buzz almost laughed. Almost.

—

Later, the factions gathered again. This time, not to posture. To plan.

The Elder lowered itself until its body hovered just above the stone. "The Queen expects us to scatter. She expects fear. We will not give it to her. Our strength is together."

The Scarab Sisters answered with three short strikes of their drums. Agreement.

The Glowbeetles pulsed their light in quick bursts, outlining formations on the walls—clusters, converging, retreat points mapped by brightness and shadow.

The Centipedes shifted, their leader speaking in a voice like gravel dragged on stone. "We form the walls. You form the teeth. Together, we break her song."

Buzz listened, antennae twitching at each word. But beneath the rhythm of strategy, he felt the silence still watching him. The way eyes lingered, the way pauses opened where his voice was expected.

He hated it.

So when the Elder finally said, "Windbreaker, speak," Buzz didn’t stall.

"She’ll try to split us. She always does. She’ll use silence like a knife, cut us apart from the inside." His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to. The chamber carried it, heavy, even. "Don’t let her. When you hear nothing, when it feels like no one else is moving, that’s when you hold formation. That’s when you keep crawling."

Zza’s gaze found him across the circle, steady, unflinching. And for the first time, he felt the words weren’t just about war.

They were about her. About them. About both of them still crawling when they should’ve been erased long ago.

The Scarabs struck again. The Glowbeetles flared. The Centipedes tapped armor in silent unison.

A plan had been born. Not flawless. Not enough. But theirs.

—

That night, Buzz sat with Zza at the alcove’s edge, the forest humming faint beyond the silk veil.

"Do you think any of us come back?" she asked.

Buzz flexed his broken wing. "No."

Her jaw tightened. "Not even us?"

Buzz turned to her, slow. "Especially not us."

Zza’s hand brushed his again, this time not out of duty. Not out of stitching or patching or binding. Just... touch.

She didn’t pull away.

Neither did he.

The drums kept beating. The light kept pulsing. The forest kept waiting.

And somewhere out there, the Queen smiled.

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