Chapter Thirteen: The Third Signal
The figure stepped forward, slow enough to make the hairs on my arms rise.
Moonlight caught the edges of their face — pale, sharp, and strangely still, like they'd been carved from something that remembered breathing.
They didn't hum.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Every Hiveborn carried the low, constant resonance of the Colony, even the broken ones. But this one was silent. No pulse in my blood. No phantom scent in the air. Just… absence.
The man's shoulders tensed. "You're not supposed to exist."
A faint smile curved the stranger's lips. "And yet here I am."
Their voice was soft, but it carried like it had been threaded through the air. I didn't realize I'd stepped closer until the man's arm blocked me.
"What do you want?" he asked.
The stranger's eyes flicked to me, studying every line of my face. "The Queen's newest mark. I've been waiting for you."
"Too late," the man said.
The stranger ignored him. "You've felt the link, but you've also resisted it. That means you carry both signals — the Queen's… and something older."
I frowned. "Older than her?"
They tilted their head. "The First Queen. She who built the Hive before humans walked upright. Her bloodline vanished centuries ago. Until now."
The man swore under his breath.
And for the first time since I'd been marked, I felt something colder than fear —
Possibility.