Flora’s egg began traveling through her again, fast and violent. She fell to the ground before the three sarcophagi, twisting in silence as her abdomen was forced apart. The egg slid from her body and the roaring air calmed. She could feel it, warm and alive and huge, resting against her. She curled around to hold it and her heart filled with love.

This egg glowed golden and smelled sweeter than Devotion. Flora felt her body wet with liquid wax and, quick and grateful, she brought it forth handful by handful, building up the roughest crib of sweet white wax directly in front of the three cocoons. Then she knelt and held her egg close, thrilling to its living vibration. Though slightly larger, it was the same shape as the first. Flora vowed that this time she would feed her little son everything he needed to grow strong—and discover what she must do to seal him for Holy Time.

My beloved egg—my wicked, blessed sin I love—

Never again would she forget herself in the field. She placed the egg tenderly in the rough crib.

“In three days,” she whispered to it, “I will hold you and feed you.”

Fearless from the power of birth, Flora rose to examine the strange cocoons. They reminded her of the grand decorated cells in the Drones’ Arrival Hall—but these were much larger and held no trace of male smell. Each one bore three or four small holes, positioned over where the occupant’s abdomen would be. When she sniffed at them, Flora’s own sting pulsed at the faintest trace of old dry venom—but they were all long dead. She climbed onto the plinth so she could see into the one with the hole at the top.

The barely formed face of a young Sage female stared back, dead before she was born. She would have been as big as the Queen herself, and almost as beautiful. One of her hands was raised, a fragment of wax caught in her juvenile claw. Flora climbed down. It was the living Sage she must worry about. She washed herself very carefully and let the tip of her abdomen fully contract. Then she slipped out the way she came, ready to rejoin the life of the hive.

Inside the chamber, under the sightless gaze of dead priestesses, her egg began to grow.

Twenty

FLORA STEPPED OUT ON THE LOWEST STORY OF THE HIVE to freezing-cold air blowing in from the landing board, and the battering of hail against the wooden hive. Thistle guards ran to push back the boulders of ice rolling in, and Flora joined the sisters running to help them. She felt completely disoriented, as if she had slept for a long time and missed the news of the hive, for judging by the rush of house bees toward the Dance Hall, a meeting had been called.

The smell of Sage priestesses came from within, and Flora pressed herself against other sanitation workers in the crush to share their kin-scent and mask any smell of her egg. In the center of the Dance Hall the massed choir of Sage priestesses hummed the Holy Chord until the vast harmonic drowned out the sound of the hail. Then they sent their silent will through the comb, in the voice of the Hive Mind.

In obedience, the bees formed themselves into concentric circles as if this were the Fanning Hall. Then the priestesses were lifted up by their own kin so that all could see them. Their wings were unlatched, their scent shimmered stronger, and their eyes were luminous. They spoke in their beautiful, low choral voice so that every sister heard them above the hail.

“We are the holy Melissae, born of the Queen’s kin, and guardians of the Hive Mind. The season is dark, the flowers have turned against us, and the air to flood and ice. Spores of evil growth enter on the damp wind and blight our chalices of nectar, and our Treasury shrinks faster than we can fill it. Holy Mother’s sacred work is halted, and the sins of Apathy, Despair, and Inertia settle on us like flies.”

The scent of the Sage rose stronger and the foragers stirred uneasily, for beneath it crept the heavy masking odor of the fertility police. Flora immediately sealed her antennae and drew her spiracles tight to withstand its domineering influence. Her instinct was to run, but that would be fatal, and if she died so would her—

She forced the secret thought back down and looked around her. Every sister’s antennae stood in fear, even the foragers’. They could not all be guilty—she must remain calm.

The priestesses scanned the chamber. Extending their elegant antennae to their full length, they absorbed information flaring from every fear-struck sister. Frightened little buzzes came from different areas of the crowd as the thick scent of the fertility police crept low and tight around their legs and feet to hold them fast. Flora did not resist it, even as waves of panic ran through the chamber from thousands of sisters. If they found her, then it was Holy Mother’s will she must die.

Holy Mother . . . To even think of the Queen was painful. Her kindness, her beauty, the way her loving touch had taken away Flora’s shame at her kin—

“We, the hive, are guilty of Sacrilege and Waste,” resumed the choral voice of the Sage priestesses. “Nectar in Fanning has been drunk without permission, foragers lost on the wing, and even mistakes made in the Nursery”—there was a gasp of shock at this—“because of errors in this very chamber.” The priestesses shimmered their wings to spread their scent.

“The Queen’s Love is carried by the Rule of Law, and we show our loyalty to Holy Mother through our trust in her priestesses, the Melissae. The season has grown hostile and bloom after bloom we have called it aberration, and waited for change. And now it comes in this rain of ice, and the meaning is clear: it is a judgment on our hive and a call to penance!”

The dark bees wove in from the edges, driving the crowd tighter.

“We have consulted the ancient codes in our Holy Mother’s Library,” continued the priestesses in their several voices, harsher now but still beautiful. “The Queen has reassured us of her Love, and we are permitted to celebrate our sisterhood with the Rite of Expiation.”

The silent bees stared back.

Expiation . . . Flora tried to think where she had heard that word before. Then it came to her—the fourth panel of the Queen’s Library. She wanted fresh air, she wanted to leave this chamber, but the choral voice of the Sage continued.

“The sacred act calls upon the sacrifice of love, one bee for her sisters, her Mother, her hive. Who here is old and near the end of her use? Who hides a weakness that may be illness, or has in any way sinned? To save your sisters and free our hive from this suffering, give yourselves now.”

No bee moved or spoke but kin-scents streaked with terror spiraled in the air. Flora saw the serene blind face of Sister Cyclamen, who had been so kind to her in the Chapel of Wax. Expiation. The old sister began to lift her hand.

“I will do it!” Flora called out loudly. “I will atone!”

THE CROWD TURNED and the focus of every Sage priestess locked onto her as she walked forward. Sisters shrank back, awed and frightened. Flora unlocked her antennae and felt a rush of relief. Only the Queen may breed—that was the truth, and to acknowledge it reunited her soul with her sisters. Gladly would she give her life for them, and win back honor with her death.

“I am Flora 717 and I—”

“And I will too!” called out another voice in the crowd.

“And I,” shouted another.

“I will die for Holy Mother—”

“I am of the spring, my time draws near, take me—”

One after another they called out.

“Let me—”

“I cling to life but I am old—”

“I am greedy—”

“I am weak—”

Sister after sister walked forward after Flora. The priestesses directed them all to stand in a group in the center. One walked around dividing them.