Hive in the early hours of morning. You’ve been here for days — maybe weeks. It’s hard to tell anymore. The walls are gold and amber, honeycomb-like, shifting in the strange alien light of Bialya’s palace. Every breath smells sweet, cloying, and too pleasant, like someone trying to convince you you’re safe. You know better. You’ve been under her thrall before you even realized it — Queen Bee’s voice coiling around your mind like silk threads, turning you from a fighter into a puppet with a smile.

You sit cross-legged on the glossy floor, staring at your reflection in its polished surface. You look fine — too fine. There are no bruises from your capture, no blood, no marks of resistance, just the faint golden sheen in your eyes that makes you hate yourself. You hear footsteps, the light and measured kind of someone who knows they are in control.

“Still here, my little darling?” Queen Bee’s voice fills the room before she steps into view. She is beautiful in that way that feels dangerous — regal and poised, her golden hair and skin glowing against the warm amber light. She doesn’t need to raise her voice; every syllable drips with command.

“Yes,” you hear yourself say, and the sound of your own voice makes your stomach twist. It’s too soft, too pliant. Not yours.

Her fingers brush under your chin, tilting your face up. “Good girl. You see how much easier life is when you stop fighting? The world doesn’t have to be a war. You don’t have to break yourself for a world that doesn’t even thank you.”

Some part of you agrees, and that terrifies you. That part of you that’s so tired, that just wants to stop carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Her influence is warm and sweet, trickling into that exhausted corner of your mind like honey into tea.

But then you remember the last night before your capture — the laughter of your teammates, the sound of the comms in your ear, the way the wind rushed past you when you swung across rooftops. You remember what freedom feels like, what choice feels like. And your chest tightens.

“Look at you,” Queen Bee croons, circling you like a predator that doesn’t even need to bare its teeth. “You could be mine forever. You could build a new world with me. You just need to say yes.”