Ksarra

In the long famine winter, Skarth'ix began to eat her own brood. I hid the last eggs in the amber vaults... and I sang to them, so they would not be afraid.

My sisters heard my song, and they followed it instead of hers. One by one, then by the hundreds. The hive was choosing a new voice.

I entered the Hall of Molting and sealed myself in amber. Leave your old skin at the door, the workers sing. You will not need it.

When I broke the chrysalis, I had wings, a crown of horns... and ten thousand voices in my mind. I was no longer one. I was the hive.

Skarth'ix came to devour me. But her children no longer obeyed her. They obeyed me. And the Gorging Queen's last meal... was her own pride.

I took her throne, and I made a new law. The hive feeds its children first. We would never again devour our own young.

Then Warden Elowen came from the Verdant Grove, beneath a branch of white blossom. Stay in your mountain, she said, and the forest will leave you in peace.

I agreed. And while my brood slept, her druids planted fire-blossoms in our deepest tunnels, and the roots of the Grove came down to choke us.

The larval chambers burned. A whole generation of my children went silent in a single night. I heard every one of them stop singing.

From the ashes I saved one egg. One. I held it while the hive mourned. And from that grief... our hunger was born.

Now the swarm is awake, and it is hungry. Brood Empresses. Mothers of Wasps. Hive Tyrants. They pour out of Khar Vesh toward the Grove.

Elowen planted roots in my home. I will plant my children in hers. Ten thousand heartbeats. One will. And always... hungry.