He mounted the bee with practiced ease, then held out a hand to me. I stared at it like it might bite.
“Today,” he said. “The Crown scouts are less than an hour behind us.”
That motivated me. I took his hand—his skin was warm, which surprised me—and let him pull me up. The ease with which he lifted me was startling; I’d forgotten how much taller he was than me, broad-shouldered and solidly built under all that leather and thorn-laced armor. The bee’s fur was softer than I expected, like velvet made of sunshine. I could feel its breathing, slow and steady, and underneath that, a vibration that might have been contentment.
‘Hold on,’ Kaelren said.
‘To what?’
He grabbed my arms and wrapped them around his waist. ‘To me.’
I was suddenly very aware of everything about him—the solid muscle beneath the dark leathers, the thorn-reinforced armor that looked likeit had been grown rather than forged, the way his dark hair was already wind-tossed even though we hadn’t taken off yet. He smelled like pine and danger and something else, like storms about to break. This close, I could see the corruption spreading up his neck, silver-black veins pulsing with each heartbeat.
“This is awkward,” I muttered against his back.
“It’s necessary. Unless you’d prefer to fall a thousand feet?”
“How high are we going?”
“High enough that falling would give you time to think about all your life choices before you hit the ground.”
“You’re really bad at reassurance.”
“I told you, I’m not trying to reassure you.”
The bee’s wings started moving, a sound like the world’s largest hand fan. My stomach dropped as we lifted off, and I definitely didn’t squeak and hold on tighter. Definitely not.
The ground fell away with alarming speed. The clearing became a speck, the forest became a carpet of green and shadow, and suddenly we were above the canopy, in a world I didn’t know existed.
Wynmire from above was impossible.
The trees weren’t just tall—they were monuments to growth itself, some reaching so high their tops disappeared into actual clouds. Bridges made of living vines connected them, creating highways in the sky where I could see tiny figures moving. There were structures built into the trees themselves, growing from the bark like architectural tumors, windows glowing with bioluminescent light even in the morning sun.
And the mushrooms. God, the mushrooms.
They grew from the sides of the trees, some small as dinner plates, others large enough to build houses on—which someone had, apparently. I could see entire communities built on fungal platforms, connected by stairs that looked like they were spun from gossamer threads.
“It’s beautiful,” I said without meaning to.
“It’s dying,” Kaelren replied, and I felt the tension in his body. “Look closer.”
I did, and saw what he meant. There were patches of black rot spreading through some of the trees, sections where the bridges had collapsed, platforms where the lights had gone dark. It was subtle, but once you saw it, you couldn’t unsee it—the realm was sick.
“What’s causing it?” I asked.
“Many things. The balance has been wrong for a long time.”
“Since my grandmother left?”
“Since before that. But her leaving accelerated it.”
We flew in formation, the crew’s bees moving with practiced synchronization. Nimor was barely visible on his mount, seeming to fade in and out of existence. Eltrien rode with careful grace, one hand occasionally glowing as he whispered something to his bee. Vashael was surrounded by her ever-present pollen cloud, making her bee sneeze occasionally. Sarnyx rode a bee with thorns actually growing from its fur, because of course she did. And Bryx was doing aerial tricks with Kevin that made my stomach turn just watching.
“Show off,” Sarnyx called to him.
“It’s not showing off if you’re genuinely talented,” Bryx called back, doing a loop that shouldn’t have been possible on a giant insect.
“It’s showing off if you’re trying to impress the human,” Vashael said, and even through her veil I could hear her smirk.
