Chapter 37: Chapter 37 : A FOE OR A FRIEND
The forest didn’t rest after the Weaverworms gave themselves. Every branch still shook like the newborn’s rage was running through it. Buzz and Zza stayed low, claws sinking into wet soil, pushing through ferns until their shells scraped bark. Every step carried that weight of pursuit.
Buzz’s shoulder throbbed where the newborn had caught him. Gold still burned there, veins pulsing like fire licking out from under his shell. He gritted his teeth and kept moving. The creek had thinned into damp ridges now, earth crumbling under their claws, the trees pressing close.
Zza shoved him forward when he lagged. "Don’t slow down. It’ll sniff weakness." Her silk trembled as she wrapped it tighter around his waist, binding him to her so she could drag if he collapsed. She didn’t say it, but the way her jaw clenched told him: she was ready to carry him if it came to that.
The sound behind them was worse than footsteps. The newborn didn’t crash through the wood like the Queen had. It moved with patience, dragging its claws in long arcs across trunks, carving marks. Each mark hummed faint gold and stayed glowing. It was leaving trails, writing itself into the forest.
Buzz felt his chest twist. "It’s spreading her blood into the trees. That’s how it hunts. It doesn’t chase, it maps us."
Zza spat, silk spooling fast across her claws. "Then we make it read wrong." She started lashing silk across branches, weaving fake trails that stretched opposite of their direction. Her threads caught light and shimmered.
Buzz blinked at her. "If it’s learning us, won’t it figure out that trick?"
She looked back at him, tired eyes flashing. "Then it wastes time learning it."
Buzz’s laugh came sharp, even through pain. "I like the way you think."
They pushed deeper, weaving fake lines of silk and carving claw marks to confuse the trail. The newborn hissed when it hit the first false weave. It didn’t roar, didn’t rage. Just hissed. Low. Controlled. That made Buzz’s stomach turn.
"They’re too smart," he muttered, sweat dripping down his mandibles. "She was force. This thing... it’s patience wrapped in claws."
Zza shoved him again, harder this time. "And patience has a limit. All things do."
They stumbled into a clearing split by old stone. Moss clung to slabs half-sunk into the dirt. Buzz dropped to his knees, chest heaving, eyes dragging across the ground. The stones hummed faintly. Not gold. Something older.
"Do you feel that?" he asked, voice raw.
Zza crouched, touching her silk to the moss. Threads glowed pale blue instead of gold. Her antennae twitched. "Old weave," she whispered. "Older than the Queen. This was a nest long before her time."
Buzz’s chest tightened. "Maybe that’s why the forest hasn’t rotted here. The Queen didn’t claim it."
Zza’s claws trembled as she stood. "Then maybe this is where we strike back."
Before Buzz could answer, the newborn dropped from the canopy. Its wings didn’t thunder—they folded quiet, precise, like blades. It landed between the stones, eyes fixed on them, mandibles dripping gold.
Zza shoved Buzz behind her. Her silk flared wide, strings tight and gleaming. "You’ll have to go through me first," she hissed.
The newborn tilted its head. Not like a beast. Like a thinker. And then it lunged.
Buzz rolled, claws flashing, swinging up with all the weight in his arms. His strike landed against its shell, cutting shallow. Gold sprayed his face, burning his eyes. He screamed but didn’t stop. "Bleed for me, damn it!"
Zza’s silk snapped tight around its wing, pulling hard enough to wrench it sideways. The newborn twisted, claws raking her arm, opening deep gashes. She cried out, but held fast, her silk digging deeper, pinning the thing to the moss stones.
The old weave answered. Where her silk touched stone, the blue glow spread up her threads, crackling like veins of lightning. The newborn shrieked, jerking violently, trying to rip free.
Buzz saw the opening and went for it. His claws sank deep into its chest, ripping, tearing. Gold flooded out in thick waves, hissing against the moss. The creature staggered, but instead of retreating, it leaned into the strike.
Buzz froze as it smiled. It had learned his rhythm, his angle, his weight. The next blow slid off its shell like it was swatting a fly.
It tore Zza’s silk free, slamming her against the stone so hard her breath cracked. She screamed, blood spraying from her mouth.
"ZZA!" Buzz roared, his body moving before his mind. He launched himself, claws striking wild, desperate. His chest burned, gold veins in his blood flaring until it hurt to breathe.
The newborn caught him by the throat mid-leap. Lifted him like he was weightless. Its mandibles hissed. Gold dripped down its claws, down his shell.
"You’re mine," it whispered, not in sound but in his head.
Buzz’s vision swam. His claws scrabbled uselessly against its grip. His own blood screamed against him, the Queen’s essence trying to bend him from the inside.
And then the stones beneath them cracked.
The moss split apart as the blue glow surged. Old silk threads, buried for years, erupted in a wave. They wrapped the newborn’s legs, its arms, its wings. It screeched, thrashing, but the weave held tight.
Buzz fell to the ground, coughing, gasping, clutching at his throat. He looked up in time to see a shape rising from the cracked stone.
Not Weaverworm. Not Scarab. Not Glowbeetle.
Something older. Silk made of light, body woven of threads that hummed with memory. An ancient Weaver, taller than the trees, its voice carrying through every strand of the clearing.
"You wear her blood," it said to the newborn, voice heavy as the earth. "But you are not her."
The newborn shrieked again, fighting harder, but the ancient silk tightened, dragging it down, pinning it against the stones.
Buzz dragged himself upright, blood dripping from his throat, and whispered, "An ally."
Zza crawled to him, her face bloody, her silk frayed but her eyes burning. She grinned through broken breath. "Not just an ally. A goddamn miracle."
The newborn roared again, thrashing against the ancient net, gold clashing with blue light.
The battle wasn’t over.
It had just changed sides.