They ventured deeper into the hive.

The further they went, the stranger the walls became.

At first, it was all candy-webs and stolen Council mechanisms—sparkshot coils jammed into gum sockets, arcbracer ports grown over with syrup-veins, old security panels blinking beneath layers of hardened sugar.

Then the technology changed.

Not newer.

Older.

Much older.

The walls were lined with things Celeste did not know the names for, but her core remembered them anyway.

Smooth white panels beneath the sugar rot. Curved frames of pale metal that did not rust. Symbols folded into the edges of doorways like prayers written by starlight. Pieces of machinery shaped less like tools and more like bones from some sleeping giant.

Celeste slowed.

Her breath caught.

“I’ve seen this before,” she whispered.

Silver glanced at her. “Have you?”

“I think so.”

She touched one of the symbols lightly.

The mark glimmered beneath her fingers, faint but alive.

A memory flickered through her mind.

Blue-white halls.

Voices singing in harmony.

Hands much larger than hers guiding light through a wall that was not a wall.

“Kymara,” she said softly.

Silver looked at the panel.

For once, he had no clever answer.

His eyes narrowed, not with recognition exactly, but with unease. He stepped closer, studying the ancient tech beneath the candy corruption.

“That should not be here,” he murmured.

Celeste looked at him quickly.

“What does that mean?”

Silver opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

His gaze lingered on the symbols a moment longer, perplexed and guarded.

“I don’t know.”

Which, Celeste realised, meant he knew enough to be frightened by what he didn’t know.

They moved on.

The corridor bent upward, narrowing into a passage of sugar-glass and metal ribs. Ahead, a viewing platform jutted out from the hive’s outer shell, half-exposed to the open air. The gumball’s translucent skin curved around it like amber crystal, cracked in places where the city wind hissed through.

Silver stepped ahead.

Then froze.

Outside, something massive swept across the sky.

A shadow passed over the platform.

Wide wings.

A long body.

A shape too large to be mistaken for anything else.

It circled once through the fog, red-gold light glinting across its scales, then dropped toward the outer shell of the hive.

Silver’s face went white.

Not pale.

White.

“Oh stars,” he breathed. “He is here.”

Celeste’s stomach dropped.

“Velcarius?”

Silver did not look away.

“Yes.”

The dragon landed.

The entire gumball shook.

The platform bucked beneath their feet. Celeste slammed into the wall, hands flying out for balance. Silver grabbed a rib of sugar-glass just as the floor lurched downward with a deep, sickening groan.

Somewhere far below, pods creaked on their cables.

The hive moaned.

For one terrible moment, Celeste thought the whole thing was going to tear free of its web and fall onto Clawdiff.

Then the shaking stopped.

Silence returned.

Silver stayed still for a few seconds longer, breathing hard.

Celeste stared at him.

He swallowed, then forced himself upright, looking around with careful, brittle composure.

“It seems safe.”

His voice was steady.

His hands were not.

Celeste softened. “You’ve seen him before.”

Silver’s jaw tightened.

“When I ran out of the convention that day, he almost got me.”

Celeste’s ears folded back.

“I was saved by an old friend,” Silver said, quieter now. His gaze remained fixed on the place where the dragon had vanished beneath the hive’s curve. “I wonder how he’s doing.”

“You don’t know?”

Silver shook his head.

“I was knocked out at some point. After that, everything became noise.”

He laughed once, without humour.

“He put up a good fight. The man was more a father to me than anyone else in that hellhole called the Royal Quarter.”

Celeste didn’t know what to say to that.

Before she could try, something stabbed through her skull.

Voices.

Not one.

Not ten.

Too many.

She clapped both paws over her ears with a sharp gasp.

Silver turned immediately. “Celeste?”

The voices pressed harder.

Fear.

Hunger.

Sleep.

Carry.

Guard.

Pain.

Follow the song.

Follow the song.

Follow the song.

Celeste squeezed her eyes shut.

“There are too many voices,” she whispered.

Silver stared at her.

“I can’t hear anything.”

“I can.”

Her knees weakened.

The platform seemed to tilt beneath her.

Silver caught her elbow before she sank.

His expression flickered—concern first, then calculation, then something gentler as he realised both were true at once. He could not get out without her. But that did not make his hand any less careful when he helped her up.

“Now, now,” he said, voice dry but softer around the edges. “This is not the time to go crazy on me.”

Celeste let out a tiny, breathless laugh despite herself.

“That is a terrible motivational speech.”

“I was raised by aristocrats. We mostly specialise in threats and poor emotional availability.”

She blinked through the pressure in her head.

“That explains a lot.”

“Rude,” Silver said, and kept his hand under her arm until she steadied.

Together, they pushed onward.

The corridor opened onto an exterior bridge.

It was narrow.

Too narrow.

A curved strand of hardened gum and ancient metal stretched between two swollen sections of the hive, with nothing but open air on either side. The surface bowed under their feet, sticky enough to grip their boots but not enough to feel safe.

They had to shuffle across sideways.

One step.

Then another.

Far below, Clawdiff sprawled beneath them.

Silver looked down.

For a moment, the danger vanished from his face.

Something else replaced it.

Shock.

Grief.

Recognition fighting horror.

“The golden spires…” he whispered.

Celeste followed his gaze.

In the Royal Quarter, towers still rose above the fog—beautiful, bright, wounded. Their gold was dented. Some bridges had collapsed between high mansions. Ward-lamps flickered where once they must have burned like stars. The great Royal Bridge was torn up along one side, its metal ribs exposed, but already patched with temporary supports.

Silver’s eyes moved over it like he was taking inventory of a body.

“It’s damaged,” he said. “Badly. But repairable.”

He looked along the skyline, lips pressing together.

“There is a lot of building to do.”

Celeste stared past the spires.

Past the polished towers.

Past the parts of Clawdiff that still looked, from far away, like they might survive with dignity.

Her eyes found the lower quarters.

The broken roofs.

The burned streets.

The tiny lights in windows where families still huddled together.

The patched barricades.

The cooking fires.

The people moving like fireflies through ruin because they refused to stop living.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “The lower quarters are a wreck.”

Silver looked at her.

Celeste’s gaze stayed on the little lights.

“But there are lights. People are surviving.”

For a heartbeat, neither spoke.

Then Silver looked back down.

Really looked.

Not at the spires.

Not at the bridge.

At the dark streets beneath them.

The alleys.

The camps.

The collapsed homes.

The distance between his Clawdiff and hers stretched wider than the drop below their feet.

“Oh,” he said quietly.

Celeste glanced at him.

Silver did not explain.

He didn’t need to.

The bridge lurched.

Silver’s foot slipped.

For once, he made no witty remark.

He dropped.

Celeste lunged and grabbed his wrist with both paws.

His body slammed against the side of the bridge, boots kicking against open air. Below them, pods drifted upward on sticky cables, carrying sleeping prisoners toward the hive’s belly. Above, candy birds circled through the mist—winged things with sugar-glass beaks and bright, dead eyes.

One of them turned its head.

Then another.

Silver looked up.

“Oh, that’s unfriendly.”

Celeste strained, teeth gritted, tail lashing for balance.

“Hold on!”

“I am very much doing that.”

The candy birds dipped lower.

Celeste’s core flared.

Silver’s grip tightened around her wrist.

With a desperate pull, she hauled him up and backwards through the nearest opening in the gumball wall. They tumbled inside together, landing in a heap on the sticky floor just as the birds swept past the outer bridge with a shriek of glassy wings.

Silver lay flat on his back, breathing hard.

Then he lifted one hand to his face.

“Well,” he said, voice thin but determinedly elegant. “That was a close call. Almost lost a whisker.”

Celeste stared at him.

Then, despite everything, she smiled.

Just a little.

Silver noticed.

His own smile flickered back.

“There. See? I remain excellent for morale.”

Celeste opened her mouth to answer.

Then stopped.

Something lay near the wall.

Cracked lenses.

A black strap.

A familiar set of goggles, one lens smeared with candy residue.

Arcade’s goggles.

Celeste’s smile vanished.

She picked them up with trembling paws.

“No,” she whispered.

The goggles shook in her grip.

“No, no, no…”

Silver pushed himself up, all humour gone.

“Celeste—”

She grabbed his hand.

Hard.

Then yanked him forward with surprising strength.

“We need to find him fast.”

Silver stumbled after her, barely catching his balance.

The hive hummed louder around them.

AA monitor flickered beside them.

Static crawled across the gum-glass screen.

Then the image sharpened.

Arcade.

Celeste’s breath left her.

He was strapped to a table in a laboratory chamber, arms locked inside dark chocolate casing, quills flared and trembling. Zombies moved around him with horrible precision. One held a scanner over his chest, its sugar-glass lens pulsing with red light.

Another leaned closer.

The scanner passed over Arcade’s heart.

His core glowed faintly beneath his fur.

Small.

Bright.

Terrified.

“They’re scanning his core,” Celeste whispered.

On the screen, Arcade thrashed against the restraints, mouth moving too fast for the camera’s muffled feed to catch. His quills sparked once, then died as the casing around his arms tightened.

A robed Chupacabra zombie stepped into view, gas mask lenses fogged, glowing quills shifting beneath its cloak.

Celeste’s grip tightened around the goggles.

“Arcade…”

Then every zombie in the room stopped.

All at once.

Their heads snapped toward the camera.

Not Arcade.

Not the door.

The camera.

As if they knew she was watching.

Celeste went cold.

The Chupacabra tilted its masked face.

Then pointed.

Two zombies unhooked Arcade from the table.

He fought weakly, but the injection haze had already taken too much from him. They dragged him toward a waiting pod, its shell open like a mouth.

“No,” Celeste said.

The pod swallowed him.

Its gum walls sealed.

“NO!”

The scream tore out of her as the screen cut to static.

Pain exploded behind her eyes.

Celeste dropped to her knees, both paws flying to her head. The hive screamed with her. Not aloud. Not in the air.

Inside.

A thousand thoughts crashed into her skull at once.

Follow the song.

Sleep.

Carry.

Guard.

Pain.

End it.

Please.

End it.

End it.

End it.

Celeste sobbed, curling in on herself.

“It hurts,” she gasped. “It hurts, it hurts—”

Silver stepped in front of her just as the corridor erupted.

Zombies poured from both sides, their movements suddenly sharp, frantic, no longer drifting in dreamlike obedience. Sugar Rushers skittered along the walls. A candy-jawed wolf lunged from the ceiling. A Cat-o-Wrap unfurled from a vent with a wet hiss.

Silver summoned Windswept in a flash of light.

“Stay down!” he snapped.

He loosed three arrows in quick succession.

The first shattered the wolf’s jaw.

The second pinned the Cat-o-Wrap to the wall.

The third burst through a cluster of Rushers, scattering candy limbs across the floor.

Celeste barely saw it.

Her world had become voices.

Too many.

Too close.

Each one pressing against her mind like fingers through cloth.

Hungry.

Afraid.

Obedient.

Trapped.

Hurting.

Wanting orders.

Wanting release.

Wanting it to end.

She clenched her teeth, tears streaking down her face.

“No,” she whispered. “No, stop. Please stop.”

The voices did not stop.

Silver fired again, backing toward her as more shapes crawled from the amber dark.

“Celeste,” he said, breath tight. “Whatever is happening, I need you on your feet.”

“I can hear them.”

“I gathered that.”

“No, I can hear them.”

Her voice changed.

Not louder.

Clearer.

She stopped fighting the noise.

For one impossible second, she listened.

The chaos separated.

Not words, exactly.

Locations.

Shapes in the dark.

A crawling thing above the left arch.

A heavy one behind the cracked pillar.

Three Rushers in the vent.

A ranged mind at the back, sharp and eager, loaded with sour pressure.

Celeste’s head lifted.

Her eyes were wet, frightened, and suddenly focused.

“There are four up ahead,” she said.

Silver glanced back.

“What?”

“Four,” Celeste repeated, pushing herself to her feet. “Take out the one at the back. It has range.”

Silver hesitated for half a heartbeat.

Then he trusted her.

He turned the corner, bow already drawn.

Four zombies waited in the corridor beyond.

Three melee creatures crouched low, candy claws flexing.

Behind them stood a dog-shaped zombie with a launcher fused across its shoulder, tubes of sour-green syrup bubbling along its back.

Silver’s eyes widened.

“Sour missile launcher dog,” he muttered. “Of course.”

It opened its jaws.

The launcher whined.

Silver’s arrow struck first.

The dog detonated in a burst of sour fumes and crystallised sugar, taking half the wall with it.

Celeste ran past him.

Silver followed, looking deeply unsettled.

“You were correct.”

“I know,” Celeste said, voice shaking.

“That is new and horrifying.”

“I know.”