Too Large
The marching had become unbearable, pressing steadily beneath my chest, my feet. I’d seeped into the streams coursing below the glass, exploring every winding channel, every bioluminescent hollow beneath the citadel, but came up empty. They were here, this spectral army, ever-present as the air. But where? The fish didn’t notice, nor, as I slithered up into the great hall, did anyone here. Was this an echo from my past?
If I could trust my frayed memories, I’d had a lover with warm hands, possibly a daughter who I’d pulled from the Razing. I must’ve liked drawing and traveling, as I’d sailed to many places and even survived a swarm. Or maybe I hadn’t? Had the bees ripped me from the mortal plane? I’d either worked in Abelha or in agriculture to have been exposed to such a swarm. Suppose that didn’t narrow down much. Every nation relied on agriculture. I growled, biting my claws to avoid slicing the cherub mural I waded in. Too many soft variables.
I moved to hard truths, which wasn’t difficult with only two. I couldn’t easily touch humans. There was some opaque element I’d tapped into when I’d grazed Lenita but had yet to locate. With enough churning emotions, however, I could manipulate objects around me. I’d need to harness that soon. For, if I wasn’t mad, the invisible army was here. And though it made my skin crawl, my gut twist, I had to shelve it because the scrim was my first prey. I couldn’t see it, not like outside during a new moon. Within these walls, it must’ve morphed, become more elusive. We’d both changed, were still evolving, tapping into powers my kin had devoted their lives to protect. I feared if I didn’t trap it soon, its strength would surpass mine, and I’d never catch it. I was hunting on borrowed time.
I heard coughing, down the eastern wing. The Hall of Keepers. I swam through the murals, their shaded grays and blacks like a foamy bath. As I drew nearer, the coughing stopped. I thought it was one of the envoys, but the hall was empty.
A flash of white. A girl’s shrill scream. Gurgling, the dripping of liquid on glass. I saw nothing. The temperature had dropped, and the mural was no longer warm; the shading frosted my skin, expelling me to the hard floor. I was naked, exposed without the mural’s safety. I probed the lurking shadows but still couldn’t find anyone. Just muffled breathing. Someone didn’t want to be found. Stink curled my nose, and I froze. Behind the hive wall, pinpricks darker than night blinked on and off like twinkling stars. Nothing about them was brilliant, though. Only terrifying.
The portraits of Keepers blurred as the dots trembled and converged into a pulsating shadow. This creature couldn’t have been the scrim. It was too large, too angry. Not the bastard I let in. But when its slit pupils met mine, I reconsidered. Those eyes had haunted Lenita’s chambers the night I’d loosed one. It snarled, drool dripping from its rotten lips.
I gagged and tried to slip back into the mural, but I’d have had better luck swimming through ice. It crumbled, sharp projections biting my back, pushing me forward. The creature cocked its head, a hideous, unnatural angle as its eyes burned brighter, searing me. I tried to scream, but its hand hardened to steel around my throat, forcing me into the hives.
Bees rocketed out, filling the air with clouds of vengeance. The monster glared and rocked its head back and forth. Bees swarmed off its charred skull like flames, flaring, filling the space around us. I couldn’t die from suffocation. I was a lost soul. But its unforgiving hands cinched tighter, and my vision mottled.
“Where is it?” it moaned.
“Where’s what?” I couldn’t tell up from down, where its icy hand ended, where I began, as it squeezed my throat.
“The one they—”
The beast cut off, shrieking. A swirl of white ghosted by my eyes. The beast spun, dropping me. My knees cracked against the floor.
“Go!” a young girl screamed at the beast.
It roared and fled down the hall like a giant spider, its legs of darkness separating into thousands of humming gnats before dissolving into the walls. More bees clogged the corridors.
“Thank you,” I told her, crawling up. “What did it want?”
Her form sharpened, then blurred. She didn’t have eyes. Dark, bottomless voids spilled from her sockets. But I wasn’t scared. Something about her calmed me. And then it hit me—
“I know you,” I said, a moment too late.
She’d departed, slipping into the mural, a tiny green feather dancing in her hair.