THE ONE
Nobody moved at first.
Not the coalition.
Not the humans.
Not the newborn Queen.
Buzz stood there like something caught in a dream too sharp to wake from. His claws hovered just slightly away from Zza's, like he was afraid that if he held on, something sacred would break. The newborn watched him with a calm that hurt to look at—like she already knew what he was going to say, do, regret.
Her wings didn't flare.
Her posture didn't threaten.
She didn't *have* to.
Power didn't always roar. Sometimes it just… existed.
Zza saw the glimmer crawling under Buzz's shell again. Gold. Familiar, awful, slow-burning. But it wasn't spreading fast like before. It pulsed. In rhythms.
**Her rhythms.**
The newborn's voice didn't ripple the clearing—no dramatic wave of sound, no psychic crash.
It just appeared. Like it was always there.
> *"You called me."*
