Chapter Twenty-Five: The Queen's Shadow
The tremors deepened, growing into a steady, bone-rattling rhythm — like a giant heartbeat echoing through stone.
The Hollow Legion, still frozen under my control, turned their heads toward the northern tunnel in perfect unison. I didn't tell them to. Something was pulling them.
Vire's voice was a ragged whisper. "Too late. She's already inside the colony walls."
The stranger stepped between me and the tunnel, his hand hovering over the weapon at his side. "You're not ready for this."
"I don't care," I said, my voice shaking but not breaking. "If she's the one who's been in my head all these years—if she's the one who made me—then I'm not running."
The man gave a humorless laugh. "You think this is about you? If she gets her claws on you, she'll strip your mind like bark from a tree. You won't even be you anymore."
The tremors became footsteps — impossibly heavy, impossibly slow. Each one sent hairline cracks spiderwebbing through the resin walls. Faint dust and glittering amber flakes rained down around us.
Then came the sound — a hiss, long and low, that wasn't made by any human throat.
From the tunnel's darkness, something moved.
At first, I thought it was many shapes, writhing and shifting. Then I realized it was her. The Queen. Her body was a towering mass of glistening black chitin, every plate edged with iridescent green. Six limbs touched the ground, the rest coiled protectively around a torso that was almost — but not quite — human.
Her face… I wished I hadn't looked.
It was beautiful in the way deep ocean predators are beautiful — symmetrical, unblinking, ancient. Her eyes were orbs of molten gold, locked on mine from the instant she emerged. Her mandibles flexed slowly, tasting the air.
—Daughter—
The word slithered into my mind like oil through water.
I staggered back. "Don't call me that."
Her steps didn't quicken, but the ground still seemed to disappear between us. The Legion under my control shifted uneasily, their antennae drooping as if fighting a stronger pull.
—You carry the Core. My Core.—
"I'm not yours," I said, though the words felt weak, small.
Her head tilted. —You command my soldiers. You breathe my pheromones. You pulse my rhythm. You are mine.—
Vire tightened her grip on her blades, voice low. "If you're going to do something, girl, do it now. Because she's seconds from overriding you."
And she was right. The connection I'd stolen from the Legion was already fraying. My soldiers twitched, their limbs jerking toward the Queen.
I didn't know how to fight her. But I did know one thing — if she took them back, I'd lose the only advantage I had.
So I reached deeper into the web of threads connecting us.
Not to hold them.
But to pull.
The chamber filled with a piercing, inhuman screech as the Queen's head snapped toward me, her golden eyes flaring. The walls shuddered. The Legion convulsed, caught between two wills.
"Jess!" the stranger shouted. "If you keep pulling—"
"I'm not letting her win!"
The threads burned in my hands, the light searing into my skin until it felt like I was gripping pure lightning.
The Queen's voice thundered inside my skull now, all pretense gone. —Child, you will kneel.—
I gritted my teeth, forcing the words back at her.
No. You will.
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If you want, Chapter Twenty-Six can be a huge power clash — the MC and the Queen battling for control over the Hive's mind, with soldiers snapping and switching allegiance mid-fight. That could be the series' first real war-scale scene