Did my nestbrothers die? Am I the only one left of my clan?
Who has replaced us?
Casting out his mental thread, he desperately searched for someone—anyone—to pull him from despair, hoping a member of the web to hear his plea.
An emerald spot formed around his connection to the web’s core as the golden thread thickened at the entrance before splitting. The severed piece shot toward his mental thread, twisting around the end before tightly coiling around his connection to the core. As his emerald end neared the center of the network, he braced himself and slammed into the emerald door.
“You are mine, Z’fir.”
Sucking in a deep breath, his eyes snapped open to a sight he had been yearning to see.
Selena was leaning over him, her eyes closed and face scrunched in focus, with both hands enclosing his. Kaede and Zirene stood behind her, gaping at him.
He could feel his body cool as if her very presence were a healing balm—a torrential downfall soaking him after traversing a desert for days.
A thick emerald-and-gold twisted cord connected their mental shields, humming to life as a brigade of unfamiliar thoughts and feelings hit him head-on.
“Silence,”Selena ordered. Her golden mental shield brightened, and its aura traveled down their connection and enveloped his turquoise mental shield like thin protection from the world around him.“Your Prince Z’fir has returned to you and reunited with me. Soon, your Prince V’dim will join him as my clan continues to heal. I ask for your patience and understanding.”
“Selena?”he pathed, his throat too dry to produce any sound.“Is that you?”
Letting out a deep breath, her eyes fluttered open as she beamed.
“Who else would I be?”She stared down at their joined hands and squeezed. “Somehow, I thought I had lost you and the others in the web, tangled with the rest of the Destima’s Circuli population. I tried to trace my threads, but they were all golden to me, making it hard to tell them apart. I knew we were still connected; I could feel your desperation, your pleas for help and an explanation. Then instinct took over, and I reached to take what was mine.You are mine, Z’fir.”
Snapping her head up, her eyes locked on to his, drowning him in their depths. “I can’t explain what happened. I am still your nestqueen, but when I entered the atmosphere, I somehow took over.” Swirling her hand in the air, she looked to the ceiling and sighed. “I don’t know how, but the other Circuli have told me I am now the Queen of this moon.”
“You have always been the Queen,” Z’fir choked out, coughing as he tried to sit up. His arms gave out, slamming his body back onto the Cryopod mattress. He hissed at the sensation of countless needles stabbing him in the back.
Selena gasped as she reached for him, but Kaede stepped around her, cutting her off. Without a word, he gripped Z’fir’s sides and lifted him into a sitting position.
“What do you need?” Kaede tilted his head, studying him with slitted eyes. His missing visor surprised him as much as the offer of help. “Selena chose to wake you first. If you don’t need medical assistance and your… position within the network has been settled, we can proceed with V’dim.”
“Is that why… I can’t feel him?”
Relief flooded him. His bondmate wasn’t gone; he was just in cryostasis.
Staring at the infirmary ceiling, he composed himself. His body still felt stiff, weak, and unresponsive, but with his nestqueen returned, he was no longer burning.
All would be well in time.
“His readings are stable,” Chyox announced from his center display table. “We can wake V’dim with confidence now that we know what to expect.”
“How long will it take for his body to regain its strength?” Kaede turned toward Chyox and Usthu, who were studying the projected charts. “Do I need to haul him out of here?”
“He shouldn’t walk unattended until he regains his coloring,” Kaica advised, stepping to the end of Z’fir’s Cryopod with a tablet in hand. “I don’t see why he can’t rest in the nestroom until that happens. Even afterward, he should take it easy until his body fully recovers.”
“She did it,” Z’fir muttered, reaching for Selena’s hand. Kaede moved out of her way so she could grip him with both hands. “You did it. You’ve taken complete control of this populace’s mental network.”
“But what happened to our clan’s bond threads?”
Worry swam in her ocean-colored eyes, making him wish he could assuage her fears. They had been through too much, and he still didn’t know how she had returned or how long she had been gone.
He only knew that Selena was home and in control, and his nestbrothers were still in their Cryopods, waiting for her to wake them.
“It was different when V’dim and I established the fleet network and later expanded it to support the crew’s nestqueens. We didn’t have nestqueens ourselves—only each other. We had to reclaim the bonded crewmembers through their clan’s network.”
“Reorganizing the web,” Usthu added. “That’s what happened before we left Circul. We all felt the web shift, but I thought it was because we were gaining more members—the nestqueens—not because the mental network was restructuring itself.”
