Amber Honeywell's Arc

Chapter 1 of 14

Amber Honeywell wrapped the small jar in clean linen and set it on her workbench. Inside floated a single queen, drowsy and gold, the breeding mother of her best hive. Eleven years of work sat behind that jar. The recipe needed one last thing — a pollen only one woman in Quillwood still grew — and Amber had finally accepted she could not finish without asking for it. She walked the long path to the far meadow at dawn. Mirelda Crowfoot fell into step beside her near the bend, uninvited, carrying a pie. "Going to see Morgatha, dear?" Mirelda asked. Amber nodded. Mirelda shrugged. "Bring the pie too. She'll still say no. But slower." Morgatha's garden announced itself before Amber saw the woman. A tall, carved hive stood at the gate, glowing soft from within, runes cut deep into its sides. Behind it rose a low stone house whose windows shimmered with a cloud of strange, iridescent bees — hundreds of them, pollen-heavy, wings catching light like wet glass. The rarest bloom in the wood grew only inside those walls, and Morgatha kept the key on her belt. Amber set the jar on the stone between them. "A breeding queen," she said. "From my strongest line. For a season's share of the pollen." Morgatha looked at the jar a long moment. Then she looked at Amber's face. "No," she said. "Not for a queen. Not for ten queens. That pollen stays mine." She slid the jar back across the stone without breaking her gaze. Amber did not argue. She picked up the jar. On the path home she found Winter Flint waiting at the crooked stump, leaning on his staff as though he had known she would come this way. "She refused you," he said. It was not a question. Amber nodded once. Winter looked past her toward the meadow. "Morgatha doesn't trade. She hoards. You'll have to find another way in, or another source." He paused. "There isn't another source." Amber tucked the jar back against her chest. The queen stirred inside, alive and unspent. The door she had counted on was closed, and the only door left was one she would have to make herself.