I wake up to someone tapping my nose repeatedly.

"Attacus?"

I slowly open my eyes to wake up, but Chalcedon— or someone else's— head is in the way. "Mmh," I mumble.

"Yes, yes, I know you're tired," Chalcedon whispered. "But we should go." I perk up my ears to listen to the world. Nothing. "It's day," I realise. Chalcedon's right — we need to go. We're exposed on the savanna floor. I jump up and start flying after Chalcedon. We have to be careful, as there are mind-dead queen zombies swarming the savanna.

Mostly, they're just focused on the Hives and it's kind of safe flying on the west coast of Pantala. We alternate flying and walking, doing whatever's more suitable for the situation. Chalcedon says Yellowjacket Hive stands in the distance. He also says that it's the one Hive that isn't full to the brim with either mind-controlled dragons or about-to-be-mind-controlled dragons. I guess I have no choice but to believe him and follow the course for heading over.

It's a short flight, really. Maybe it seems that way since we've been flying very low, but it just takes a few minutes to get there. Unfortunately, I don't know this until I crash headfirst into the Hive.

"Nnh," I groan, clutching my head. "Ow ow ow ow ow."

"Sorry," Chalcedon whispers. "I should have warned you."

"It's okay."

It's not okay. Now my head is bloody and there's a me-sized hole in the side of the Hive. I look in the direction of Chalcedon's voice. "So… we keep going?" I ask. Silence. "If that was a nod, I couldn't see that," I add.

"Oh," Chalcedon blurts. "Yeah. follow me."

So I do. I keep my talon on a wall and try to sense around with my antennae. We're in a corridor, and so far, nobody seems to be inside. I walk light, careful not to make any sound.

It's a while before anything happens. Just step, step, step, and try not to get caught.

Chalcedon leads me to the SilkWing hatchery, which is filled with trapped SilkWings waiting to be infected by the Othermind. There are two HiveWing guards (he says) at each door, but nowhere else.

I step around a corner, and my heart thumps as I narrowly avoid a clay pot. Step. Step. Oh no. My talon slides down, down, down, and I fall over, cutting my back talon on the clay pot.

"Run," I whisper to Chalcedon. I try to stand up, but my talon hurts so much that I give up immediately. I hear the presumably mind-controlled guards dash towards me.

"Silly little SilkWing," One of them snarls. "At least I have another puny brain to control." I freeze in shock. Past the Wasp-voice, past everything—

That's Khapra.

"Stop!" I turn my ears to the new dragon, who seems to be not under the mind control. They aim something at us (which I realise too late) and something jabs my scales. Khapra's grip on me releases and I come to the conclusion that she got hit by the thing, too. Hmm. I don't really want to run away. I'm cosy. And sleepy. Huh. Sleepy. It's like someone put the words "Sleep" and "y" together.

Sleepy…

I was in the webs. Mom was still home. There was a light breeze with a sprinkle of rain coming in. "Okay, Attacus," Mom said. "Stop hugging me, I need to go to work."

"Noo," I whined. "I wanna hug you forever and ever and you never have to go to work." This made Mom laugh. "It's fine," she cooed. "I'll be here in the morning."

"But the morning's ALLLLL so far away," I retorted. "I'll DIE."

Mom sighed. "Oh, Attacus. Maybe when you're three, you'll understand." She turned around, flew out of the webs, and set course for her job. Stupid HiveWings, I thought grumpily. First they take my eyes, then my mom. Stupid job. Stupid Wasp. STUPID EVERYTHING.

I laid there silently on the floor, waiting for her to come back. Lachia came back from lunch with her friend. Dad came back from his morning work two hours later. I didn't eat dinner. I kept waking up in the night, my heart pounding. I didn't eat my favourite breakfast of apple cakes with honey. At lunch, I stayed home again, trying to figure out my reading homework (ugh.) At least they put in little grooves so I could feel where the letters were with my claws. Apparently they had given me a short story about a HiveWing adventurer finding the Distant Kingdoms (What?) and then staying there for the rest of his life.

Lachia was next to me this time, reading her own book about the geography of Pantala. "Where's mom?" I asked.

"I don't know."

Okay, I thought, a little weirded out. She said she'd be here in the morning. Where was she?

Later that night Dad came home, tears flooding his voice. "What's wrong?" Lachia asked. Mom still wasn't home. Dad was crying. She never just… vanished. "It's your mom," he answered between sobs. "Tau said— she said that—" We clambered over to give Dad a hug — "She went to the hospital. She said that the doctors don't know when she'll wake up."

My heart broke. I sank to my knees, overcome with grief. My two-year-old self was young, but I knew plenty about loss. How were we supposed to live without our mother?