Up the Stairs
This felt wrong.
How had Verne ended up in the back, behind Morrowax and Marra?
Nevertheless, he was definitely the coolest-looking one going up the stairs.
I mean, Marra looked normal.
Morrowax lumbered.
But Verne?
Verne was cool.
He “flew” above the steps, making sure to rise only the height of each stair as he went. That took focus and concentration. More than you would think.
It was also probably why he missed so much of what they passed.
There was a study where every quill was furiously writing the word NO over and over again.
A room full of floating teacups orbited a dead fern.
One landing had honey somehow flowing upward along the walls.
The queen’s buzz grew louder with every turn, which made it very hard to concentrate on “flying.”
Then the stair jolted.
That made it impossible to continue “flying” in proper coordination with the steps.
A crack raced through the stone beneath Morrowax’s feet. They slammed one wax hand against the wall to steady themselves just as a whole section of steps ahead collapsed outward into open air.
Well.
At least Verne did not need to worry about the steps.
Chunks of masonry rained down through the spire shaft below.
Everyone stopped at the broken gap.
Just beyond it stood a bronze door engraved with a crown and six bees in flight. Green light pulsed through the etching.
The observatory level.
But something else was waiting in front of the door.
Why did I point out the hard-to-see door before mentioning the giant thing in front of it?
For dramatic effect, of course.
That is also why I am still dragging out what it is, so that you become appropriately curious.
Hovering before the door was a figure woven from light, wax smoke, and swarming bees: a royal ward, shaped vaguely like a woman in a long dress and veil, though its body shifted constantly with moving wings. In one hand it held a staff of hardened honeycomb. Its face had no features, only a glowing crown sigil.
It tilted its head toward them.
Then, in a multilayered voice, it emitted.
NONE MAY APPROACH THE WOUNDED THRONE.
Marra muttered, “That’s new.”
Morrowax stepped forward protectively.
“She is a guardian construct,” they said. “She serves the queen’s song.”
The ward raised its staff.
The air over the gap began to fill with floating amber shards, sharp as glass.
“I could have done that if I wanted to,” Verne remarked.
His bees buzzed in alarm.
The royal ward emitted again.
OFFER PURPOSE OR BE CAST DOWN.
Verne glanced at the amber-filled gap, the ward, the door beyond, and the long drop below.
Then he lifted one glove hand toward Morrowax.
“Go,” he said. “Let her see what the hive itself has become.”
Morrowax turned toward him, and though their wax face was simple, there was unmistakable resolve in it now.
“I was refuse,” they said quietly. “Now I am named.”
Then they stepped to the edge of the amber-shard gap.
The royal ward raised its honeycomb staff. Amber shards hovered in a deadly halo around it.
STATE YOUR PURPOSE.
Morrowax placed a wax hand on their chest.
“My purpose,” they said, voice low and trembling but firm, “is to prevent pain from becoming kingdom.”
The ward went still.
Even the amber shards froze in the air.
Morrowax took one heavy step out over the broken gap.
The stone beneath them cracked, and they nearly fell.
Verne jerked both glove hands upward, instinctively catching them with a pulse of floating force under their body.
One wax foot found a jutting stone.
Then another.
They crossed the broken span in a slow, awkward half-walk, half-supported lurch until they stood before the ward in the green light.
The ward studied them.
Not with eyes, but with the shifting of its bees.
YOU ARE HIVE-BORN.
“I am.”
YOU ARE NOT QUEEN-MADE.
“I am not.”
YOU HAVE CHOSEN YOUR OWN FORM.
Morrowax looked down at themself, then back up.
“I think I have.”
For a long moment, the spire hummed around them.
Then the ward lowered its staff slightly. The bees that formed its body began to swirl faster, and its voice deepened.
THEN WHY DO YOU BRING THE PROUD FALSE ONE?
Verne froze instantly.
This was happening far too often.
He pointed, fueled by outrage.
“Excuse me?”
The ward turned toward him. The crown sigil on its face brightened.
HE HIDES HIS SHAPE.
HE FEARS HIS SMALLNESS.
HE COMES SEEKING RESTORATION.
SUCH HUNGER OF SELF HAS FED THE SONG ALREADY.
This was annoying.
I am not entirely sure how it managed to perform a soul search on Verne, but that definitely seemed like a breach of privacy.
Surely the Measureless Crown was not that powerful.
This felt suspiciously like plot progression.
But I digress.
Morrowax turned toward him.
Not accusing.
Not pitying.
Just waiting.
The ward lifted its staff again.
IF HE ENTERS, HE MUST SPEAK PURPOSE HIMSELF.
NO HAT.
NO CLOAK.
NO HEIGHT OF PRETENSE.
Dead silence.
Okay.
Yes.
This was definitely plot progression.
Then another pulse came from beyond the bronze door, deeper and sadder and more powerful than before.
The queen was getting worse.
Verne could feel it in his bones and in the frantic twitching of every bee around them.
Marra leaned closer and said quietly, “Verne… I think it’s telling the truth. Or enough of it to matter.”
The ward held its place.
It had not attacked.
Yet.
Morrowax spoke softly from across the gap.
“Named things may still change.”
His hat hovered above him, steady and proud.
His robes dragged around him like his oldest lie.
His glove hands flexed at his sides.
And ahead, through the bronze door, waited the answer to everything that had gone wrong that night.
His eyes narrowed.
He was not ready to bare his soul without at least attempting something theatrical first.
Naturally, he went for the hat.
He swept a glove hand beneath the brim and declared with all the dignity he had left:
“HATRICUS MEANINGFULUM.”
The floating hat trembled.
The ward watched.
Marra muttered, “This had better not be another fish.”
Verne reached in.
For a moment, his glove hand disappeared into impossible darkness.
Then it closed around something small.
He stared at it.
The ward went completely still.
Slowly, he pulled it out.
It was a tiny crown, no bigger than a teacup ring, woven from black thread, dried clover, and little bits of wax. One side sat crooked. Tucked into it was a single soft bee wing that caught the green light like glass.
He stared at it.
Of course.
The last thing he could have wanted.
Morrowax glowed faintly green.
Marra said softly, “…oh.”
This was not a king’s crown.
Not a wizard’s crown.
Not something grand or powerful or worthy of legend.
It looked handmade.
Like something a small person would make for himself when no one else would.
The ward’s voice lowered.
AN OFFERING OF WANT.
NOT POWER.
His throat tightened.
He hated this.
He hated that it understood.
He hated that his hat understood.
He hated that he was being betrayed by himself and forced to spill far more than he wanted.
The ward’s staff lowered again.
STILL HE MUST ENTER HONESTLY.
Verne looked down at the tiny crown in his glove hand.
What else did he have to lose?
It was not as if no one knew anymore.
He exhaled.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Then watch.”
His floating glove hands slowly moved to the edge of his robes.
Marra said nothing.
Morrowax said nothing.
Even the bees seemed quiet.
Then Verne let himself sink.
Not the poised, curated hover that kept his robe tall and his silhouette imposing.
Lower.
Lower.
Until the trick became painfully obvious.
Until the folds of his robe finally revealed how little of him was actually inside.
A man shrunk by a wish.
Pale.
Slight.
Armless.
Small enough that the robe had always been more height than body.
Small enough that the floating hat had really done most of the work.
One of his glove hands tightened around the tiny crown.
Still, he lifted his chin.
“My name is Verne,” he said.
His voice was quieter now, but steadier.
“I came because I heard there might be a way to restore what I lost. That part is true. I wanted my height back. My old self with new power. I wanted people to stop looking down on me.”
The ward listened.
He continued.
“But that is not why I am here now.”
He glanced toward the bronze door, where the queen’s sorrow-song still pulsed through the air.
“I am here because she is in pain. Because this town is going to suffer. Because the bees do not deserve this. And because I know what it is to be changed into something you did not ask to become.”
Pure silence.
Then Morrowax, across the gap, placed a hand to their chest.
Marra wiped at one eye and immediately looked annoyed at herself for doing it.
The ward lowered its staff completely.
The amber shards melted into a flat, harmless golden pathway.
PURPOSE SPOKEN.
PRETENSE SHED.
PASS.
The bees that made up the ward drifted apart, then parted fully like a curtain of living light.
The royal figure dissolved into a cloud of little bees, and the bronze door behind it unlocked with a deep click.
The queen’s buzz poured through the opening with one huge aching note.
Morrowax turned back to Verne and held out an arm.
“Come, Verne.”
He looked at the broken span.
At his tiny self.
At the hand waiting for him.
Then he decided to keep going.
Just as easily as he had once wrapped the hat and cloak around himself, he now folded them down into what seemed like an impossible smallness and tucked them into a suit pocket. He settled the tiny crown on his head in place of the old hat and poofed away the glove hands as well.
Now all that stood there was a tiny armless man.
Man, character development will really get you.
Even Verne.
Who is obviously the coolest and humblest guy in any story ever.
Verne walked across the golden path, albeit with many very small steps.
Marra followed quietly behind him, and for once she did not look like she planned to dart ahead.
Together, they crossed into the observatory.