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The White Lady offers to send Hornet back by way of the stags, now that that small tunnel Herrah had grudgingly allowed Hallownest to construct is done. Or better yet, says the White Lady, let her go back with a royal entourage—after all, she is a princess twice over.
But Hornet is a daughter of Deepnest, and she will not arrive in her home on the back of Hallownest’s cushioned stags, with pampered Hallownest courtiers nipping at her heels, and so she has told the Lady.
She is still young in these days, though she does not think herself so. She has not seen the full size that her mentor will swell to, has not buried her final lover. She is naive, a little, as much as it has ever been in Hornet to be naive. She still has hope that the infection, recently returned, will be quelled before it takes too much of the realm with it.
It has been a while since she’s been home, busy strategizing with the Lady in her gardens over how to deal with the plague, but all the old faces still recognize her. Hornet finds she is glad. The land above Deepnest is beautiful, to be sure, but up there she is a princess in a very different way than she is down here—a foreign dignitary, an aristocrat, something so pristine she can never be touched. Down here, she is princess as in hunter, a provider and guardian, and though the Devout worship her as they do her mother, it’s still a worship tinged with familiarity.
Perhaps that is why she does not expect what she see when she enters the Weavers’ Den, so wrapped up in nostalgia. It’s a horrible jolt to see it packed full, and not by the throng of Weavers alone but by balls of thread, of the sort Hornet recognizes from whenever her aunts packed supplies for a long trip.
Though some of the Weavers in the Den now are her cousins, not her aunts; most Weavers struggle mightily to produce offspring, but most is not all, and even for the majority, struggle does not necessarily mean fail. And it has been a deal of time; even if her aunts had all been infants freshly hatched when she was growing up—and they were far from children back then—they still would be getting on in years by now. Small wonder that some of the older generation have died and given way to the next.
This is not something that will ever happen to Hornet, of course, whose body has scarcely aged since she matured, whose mother is sealed in an eternal dream. What does she know of generations passing?
“So,” she says. “You’re leaving.”
“Yes,” says the second-tallest of them, an aunt called Nylol.
“We would have left before,” whispers her aunt Muchaiah. “But we had our farewells to make, and you were a long time away, child.”
Hornet does not bother asking why. They would only see it as a mark of stupidity, and they would not be wrong, if she had to ask. “You think me too weak to protect you?”
“Child,” Muchaiah says, “it is not a question of your strength, but of ours.” There is some hissing, some glares thrown her way; Hornet’s aunts abhor admitting weakness. Yet no one contradicts Muchaiah, who looks on stoutly, unimpressed. “Are you quite done?” she says, then turns back to Hornet. “Pay no attention to these fools, princess. I at least am not so conceited as to pretend I never heard the whispers in my dreams, before the queen made her pact. If things go on from here as they are, I’ve no doubt I’ll be hearing those whispers again.”
“Things need not collapse so far,” Hornet says. “What was done once can be done again. We can find some way to restore the seal on the plague.”
“As you say,” says Nylol. “What was done once can be done again. If the infection broke out once, what’s to stop this from happening a second time? A third? Until our lives have become nothing more than constantly patching holes, dreading the inevitable leak? No, princess. We’ve gone down that road before. We do not care to walk it again.”
“I see,” says Hornet, leaning hard on her needle. “You’d leave my mother behind—your queen—for fear of being inconvenienced? That’s how much she means to you? She, who sacrificed herself to protect all of you?” The words sound sulky even as they leave her mouth, a child raging against the inanity of the world.
“What good would us staying do her?” one demands. “What, should we remain, and let ourselves be consumed by plague, and turn on her? Is that what you want of us, child?”
“No,” she snarls. These are her aunts, her own people, and yet, in this first test of her authority as their princess, not one of them will do what she wants. “I want you to fight.”
“We cannot do that, child,” says Nylol, with a gentleness she loathes. “And you know that, I think.”
She does, deep down, but buried deeper still is a child’s irrational belief in the ones who raised her, a belief that her guardians are too strong to ever be hurt themselves. Foolishness. She has outlived several of them, has seen old age slow their movement and weaken their blows.
Somehow, this does not help.
“What of your children?” she demands. “I see only a few here.” It’s a sensitive subject, one she would not bring up otherwise. The Weavers who cannot have children are jealous of the ones who can, and the ones who can have them breed enough to almost make up for all those who can't. Which of course only increases the former's jealousy. And caught in the middle are the children. Hornet is not sure which of the two categories she falls into yet, and for the moment has no interest in finding out. “If your fear is so great, it seems a cruelty to leave them behind.”
Her aunts exchange glances. “Our children can make their own decisions,” Nylol says, one of those few who can call themselves mothers. “And have.” She rests a pincer on Hornet’s shoulder. “Princess—no, it’s Hornet now, isn’t it?”
And has been for the last five times I’ve visited you, Hornet thinks but does not say. She has learned courtesy, for better or worse, so she only nods.
“Hornet, our homeland...we do not know if it is entirely safe. Perhaps it is. But perhaps we are walking back into a cage. And if that is so, we would not have our children be caged with us.” She lifts her pincer from Hornet’s shoulder and waves it. “If there is no danger? Then very well, we’ll send a messenger back, and they can come join us. But until that day, most of our children are safer here, even with the plague back. They would pose an even easier target than us, without our full mastery of silk.” She looks down at Hornet again. “Well. Unless you wished to come, princess.”
She wants to say yes, to see the place where her mother came from, cage or not, to protect her aunts as they protected her when she was small. “I cannot. My duty binds me here.”
She does not need to elaborate. All Deepnest knows what her duty is.
“We thought so,” says Nylol, a strange, sad edge to her eyes. It's the least guarded expression Hornet has ever seen on her, or on any of her aunts, for that matter, and it's almost unsettling as a result. “In that case, we have a gift for you.”
From the throng, another aunt scuttles up to her, this one named Abmim. Hornet knows her as a fine seamstress with an especially inventive mind. She bows deeply and presses a silken token into Hornet’s hands. “For you, Princess Hornet, a charm. May it go with you where we cannot.”
“Thank you, Abmim,” she murmurs, and looks at the token in her hands. The charm is finely woven, made in the likeness of a Weaver’s mask, one black line down the center and three sharp eyes to each side. Hornet is just about to inquire as to its purpose when she catches sight of something pale crawling by her feet. She leans down and plucks it off the ground, though no sooner has she done so than she feels something else moving over her hindlimbs, which she likewise kicks up to her claws.
“Shoo,” says Nylol teasingly. “Our niece wants you close, but not that close, you buffoons.”
To her amazement, the things in her hand go still at Nylol's command. With them held up by her eyes, Hornet can see what they truly are: tiny Weavers, spun from silk and yet alive somehow.
“A marvel,” she has to admit. Doubtless they planned for such a gift to soften the blow of parting. To her chagrin, it’s working. She wants to take these apart and see how they work, what runes Abmim wove to make them move on their own. “I did not think such a thing could be done.”
“They’re not permanent,” Abmim says. “They draw their life energy from your soul—don’t worry, they’re little, they don’t need a lot. Certainly not enough to notice. They’ll fight for you, though I can’t say they’ll do too much. And they can take orders, as long as you speak them out loud.”
Hornet smiles. “They are a wonderful gift, aunt. Thank you, and all the rest of you who helped.” She can see they are pleased: the old like to impress their children almost as much as their children wish to impress them, and for most of the Weavers, she is the closest thing to a daughter they’ll ever have.
She sucks in a breath, leans a bit harder on her needle and watches the weaverlings scurry around in her hand as she thinks through what to say next.
Her aunts, such as she knows them, have not always loved Hornet well, but they have loved her nonetheless. In their own way. Their love is not gentle, not soft, not something to be taken for granted. Hornet would have it no other way. They have always been so delighted when she proves herself that it seems a fair enough price to have to measure up to their expectations first. She has no wish to see them go.
One of the weaverlings lodges onto her claw. It does look quite a bit like her aunts, and even more so her cousins, at least the ones that have yet to fully grow. But looking is not being. Despite how charming they are, these weaverlings will never have an eighth of the sheer force of personality that any of her aunts have in their smallest leg. They cannot tell her stories about her mother, cannot teach her spells or show her good hunting spots. Does Abmim think it's the Weavers' form alone that Hornet values?
No, that is unfair. Abmim and her sisters have spun life from silk where none existed before; it is only right for Hornet to respect the craftsmanship that went into this charm. If all living things have minds, however small, then the same must be true of these two. And if they have minds, then surely, they must contain some of her aunts' essence.
Or at least, the parts of her aunts that want to stay with her, rather than leave.
She could keep arguing. She wants to. But they already know everything she could say, and none of it has been enough to convince them to stay. And yet...
There is time yet, she wants to say. Hallownest is intact for now, though it crumbles a little more every day.
But they are not as she is, half-Wyrm and proof against the infection. They see doom in all its brightness coming for them, and if she is honest with herself, she cannot say she is certain that they are wrong.
I changed my mind, take me with you, she wants to say. They are her kin, her blood, they who cared for her when she was small.
But so is her dreaming mother, who she is bound by oath and by love to protect, as are all her little cousins who have chosen to remain. And while not blood, the Hive Queen and her kind are no less family. She cannot leave them behind.
So many useless things she wants to say to them. So little time.
A third weaverling is crawling around on the ground, its little white body plain to see on the black polished stone. Hornet straightens, bends down, and takes a careful hold of it. She spreads her hand out so that all three can move around, clumsy as they are. “Very well,” she says coolly, a princess of Hallownest and not a young girl left behind by her family. “If you wish to leave, then be on your way.”
They traipse out the hall one by one. Before they go, each turn to her, clasp her claws in their own, and bid a final farewell, even those who hadn’t been as interested in her. Some ask her if she’s certain she won’t come with them. The few with children ask her to keep watch on their brood, and those few of their children who are here avoid her gaze. Some have special messages for her, like Ergsinth who reminds her that she was hatched with them and not in the Pale King’s palace, however long she spends above; or Alanta, who tells Hornet that she’s grown as swift with her needle as she could ever have hoped for when Hornet was a hatchling. Most of them have nothing special to say at all, determined to get on with their journey.
When the procession is done, Hornet is surprised to see three left sitting in the Den, watching the last of their kindred truck out. None look in any mind to spring up and leave.
She gives them a look. “Are you not of the same mind as your sisters, then?”
“No,” rasps one, a spindly thing named Mysol. “We let them say their piece, but you’re right, princess. Running once was cowardly enough. We’ve no mind to flee twice.”
“These caves are ours, hard-won and hard-kept,” says the second, flexing her claws. Even Hornet can only remember so many names, and this one of the aunts who paid her scarcely any mind when she was a hatchling. Well, she'll have to learn it, if this aunt is staying behind. “If the infection thinks to take it from us, it can come and try.”
The third, who if Hornet recognizes correctly is no aunt at all but an exceptionally talented cousin, says nothing in her corner, only hums and keeps spinning around her loom.
Despite herself, Hornet smiles, clutching the weaverlings in her palm. Her mother’s people were not entirely lost to her after all. Not yet, at least.