In the sudden silence, every bee smelled the foreign scent. Their fur stood high with fear and their antennae pulsed. Wasps were in the hive.

The Sage princess sprang free, a gaping wound in her thorax. The priestesses dragged her to safety behind their bodies.

“She lives!” they shouted. “Behold the true Queen, kill the pretender!”

“First the wasps!” roared the Thistles, and the bees cried out for action, for by the high formic tang in the air, their enemy had entered in great numbers.

“First the true Queen!” shouted another of the priestesses. “Declare the rightful Queen, then we shall win—”

“No! Defend the Treasury!”

“Fight the wasps!”

Panic streamed in the air and all was chaos. The Sage gathered their princess into their midst and ran through into the Category One ward. Bees milled in all directions, not knowing what to do. The Teasel stood helplessly, stunned at the ruins of the Nursery. Flora ran to her daughter and pulled her by her wet fur.

“Come,” she said to her. “Food—then you will strengthen—please, daughter—”

The smell of the wasps grew stronger—they were coming from the bottom story, their numbers swelling. Flora grabbed a Thistle guard.

“Help me,” she cried. “The princess needs food to lead us—break open the Treasury and I will bring her—”

The sibilant voices of the wasps were coming up the stairs. Soon they would be in the midlevel. The Thistle nodded. She signaled her sister guards, and then, readying their great claws, they ran quietly to reach the Treasury before the invaders.

“For the sake of your hive, come with me.” Flora pulled her daughter by the wing and they ran. Terrified bees followed them, crying and weeping as they smelled the wasps pillaging the bottom level of the hive, their foul jests echoing in the Dance Hall. Her own mouth dry with fear, Flora dragged her daughter into the Treasury. She knew what they must do but she could not speak.

Rip them all open—and drink. It was the Hive Mind, and the bees heard. They climbed the walls and clawed and gouged open all the newly sealed honey vaults. At the scent, Flora’s daughter ran to drink and immediately her scent flowed more strongly. She raised her head, then pressed her abdomen into the comb, and buzzed against it. The sound reverberated through the Treasury and ran through the wax. In the midlevel below, the wasps shrieked in recognition of their prey above, and ran to find them.

“Let the honey flow!” Flora shouted. “Let it pour across the comb—everyone into the corridor—there is a way—” She ran into the corridor, searching for the hidden staircase that led to the morgue. Behind her the Thistle yelled as they ripped open the vaults, the precious liquid wealth beginning to seep down the walls and onto the floor.

“Holy Mother forgive us—” cried the guards as they broke open more vaults, and the air filled with the cured fragrance of a million flowers.

“More!” cried Flora. “Use it all—” She pulled her daughter behind her as the thick golden tide of honey flowed over the wax and into the surge of wasps rushing up to meet it. They hissed and screamed as they were caught in their hearts’ desire, and were trampled by the greed of the coming horde behind. They screamed as their wings stuck and their legs broke, but their sisters did not care as they ran over their drowning bodies, screeching for joy that they had breached the bees’ Treasury.

Flora’s daughter ran behind her down the steep dark staircase, a weight of bees behind them. Every few steps she buzzed her abdomen hard against the comb walls as if she would break them. Flora feared she was mad but then knew it for a rallying call, for as they emerged through the morgue the bottom story of the hive was packed with thousands of sisters fighting the intruding force of wasps.

With a great battle cry, Flora’s daughter threw herself into the fray, slashing forward, tearing heads from bodies and killing all she could so that the wasps began screaming in fear and retreating. Behind her the bees roared in rage and triumph, breathing in her scent for courage and pushing forward to rout the wasps until none was left alive inside the hive and those few who survived fled the landing board.

STUNNED BY THE VASTNESS of the orchard world, Flora’s daughter staggered in the dazzling bright air. She lost control of her antennae and her panic streamed. She tried to push her way back inside from the landing board, but it was too crowded, for she had rallied all the bees who would come to follow her.

“The Sage have led the victory!” A priestess ran out onto the board, her wings ripped, one antennae broken. “Our princess lives—come back to crown her. And as for your kin”—she spat at Flora and her daughter—“death within or exile without; that is your fate. The one true Queen survives!”

Looking out beyond the orchard, Flora did not answer. In the distance, a huge dark veil rose and fell in the blue air. The high whine of the wasp army grew louder, and the black veil drew together, building its power as it approached.

“They have joined many colonies together.” Feeling her daughter’s fear beside her, Flora forced her voice to stay strong as she spoke to the priestess. “We cannot fight them, we must save ourselves—”

“Flee like cowards?” The priestess’s eyes were wild. “The Sage will triumph—with Divine Right!”

Flora grabbed the priestess and shook her. “Do you not understand yet? Our hive is lost and all who stay will perish! It is too late!”

“You address the Melissae, invincible kin of Queens!” The priestess shook herself free and ran back inside. “Strength in Sage!” she screamed. “Come now, the devout, and stand together!”

“You call them to their deaths!” Flora shouted after her. But when she turned to her daughter and the massed kins crowding out onto the landing board, her heart failed her. The black cloud spread wider across the sky and the buzzing of the wasps filled their minds.

The pressure of bees fleeing from within the hive forced more and more of them out onto the landing board, and those nearest the edge were pushed off so that they whirled in terror above the hive. Too hoarse to speak, Flora tried to bite and push her daughter off the edge, but she was too strong and paralyzed by the height of the sky and the oncoming wasps.

Some of the drones came crashing out of the hive, battered and bloody, some burned with wasp venom on their feet. Flora grabbed her daughter’s antennae and twined them with her own. As Lily 500 had once done to her, with a great burst of concentration she forced all her knowledge into her daughter’s mind.

LEAD YOUR PEOPLE! she thought to her with all her strength. She felt her daughter’s antennae pulsing in pain but she did not let go. SAVE THEM NOW!

“How?” her daughter cried out. “I do not know—” But even as she spoke, her engine thundered to life, its sound ripping the sky and tearing aside the sound of the oncoming army. Her massive copper wings hummed to power and her scent streamed behind her like a cloak. Roaring their engines, the orchard bees launched themselves up behind her, a great soaring army rising into the air, blood and honey on their feet, war on their wings.

Flora hurled herself up beside her daughter, guiding her higher and higher up to the colder air where the wasps would not fly. The huge buzzing army passed beneath them, and the bees could smell the sugar they had fed on, which drove the rage of their attack.

You will bring disaster on your hive.

Flora watched in horror as the black cloud began its descent on the queenless hive, smelling of honey and defended only by the empty prayers of the remaining Sage.

Forty-Three

THE GREAT SWIRLING CLOUD OF FLEEING ORCHARD BEES lifted in the wind, blank arable fields spinning below them. Flora saw that their mass grew thinner and they spread wider across the sky, for without a dance to follow, none of the foragers had a clear destination and so reverted to what they knew—scouting for the best scent of nectar. Behind them the great cloud of house bees struggled to stay close to Flora’s daughter, but some began to break away to follow leading foragers and others began to lag behind, the whole swarm threatening to disperse. If they flew on directionless they would tire, the birds would take them, or they would scatter and all would be lost. Flora fought her way into the wind and mass of wingbeats to find her daughter’s scent.