Isana felt the creature abruptly, her presence coalescing to her watercrafting senses like a suddenly rising mist. There was a sense of complete, startled surprise in her, coupled with a child’s flinching pain at rejection. The vord Queen stared at Isana in wonder for an instant—an emotion that segued rapidly toward something like...

Fear?

“That is not yours to take,” Isana said in a hard, firm tone. “Do not try to do so again.”

The vord Queen stared at her for an endless moment. Then she rose with another eerie hiss and turned away. “Do you know who I am?”

Isana frowned at the vord’s turned back. Do you? she wondered. Why else would you ask?

Aloud, she said only, “You’re the first Queen. The original, from the Wax Forest.”

The vord Queen turned to give her an oblique look. Then she said, “Yes. Do you know why I am here?”

“To destroy us,” Isana said.

The vord Queen smiled. It was not a human expression. There was nothing pleasant in it, no emotion associated with it—only a movement of muscles, something performed in imitation rather than truly understood. “I have questions. You will answer them.”

Isana returned her smile with as blank and calm an expression as she could find. “I fail to see why I should do so.”

“If you do not,” the vord Queen said, “I will cause you pain.”

Isana lifted her chin. She found herself smiling, very slightly. “It would not be the first time I have felt pain.”

“No,” the Queen said. “It would not.”

Then she turned, took two long strides, seized Araris by the front of his mail coat, and lifted him into the air. With a motion of perfectly unfiltered speed and violence, she spun and slammed his back against the croach-covered wall. Isana’s heart caught in her throat, and she waited for the Queen to strike him, or rake him with her gleaming, green-black nails.

But instead, the vord Queen simply leaned into the unconscious man.

Araris’s shoulders slowly began to sink into the glowing croach.

Isana’s throat tightened. She had read reports, spoken to holders who had seen their family or loved ones trapped beneath the croach in a similar fashion. Those so entombed did not die. They simply lay passively, as if they had drifted into a light sleep in a warm bath. And, as they drowsed, the croach slowly, painlessly ate them down to bones.

“No,” Isana said, shifting forward into a crouch, lifting one hand out. “Araris!”