The final relocation shift began at dawn on Day 15. Meanwhile, the city above them slept beneath a canopy of heavy autumn sleet.
The transport chain had been organized with the careful care of a military retreat. At the head of the water chute, Imran Bell—crossing for a special thirty-minute morning check agreed during the last evening’s review—worked with Pella and Eren to lift the last and most critical tier of the nursery: the great queen cells.
These cells were not small amber beads. They were massive, pear-shaped pods of hardened wax, six inches long and dense as cured leather, suspended from the central keystone of the relief throat. Inside each pod lay a dormant queen, her bioluminescence glowing with a deep, pulsing sapphire-blue that outshone the emerald light of the workers.
“Take the horn knife, Pella,” Imran instructed softly, holding the beam of his headlamp steady. “Cut the silk anchor two inches above the pod. Don’t touch the wax body. If you dent the wall, the queen will break dormancy before we reach the crypt.”
Pella slid Eren’s curved horn scraper behind the thick hemp-like threads that bound the sapphire pod to the granite top door beam. The horn was warm from her palm, smooth as oiled boxwood. With a slow, drawing stroke, she cut the fibers.
