Queen & Commander (Hive Queen Saga, #1)

by Janine A. Southard

  Water fell down onto his forehead. Gwyn. He wrested dirt-crusted fingers from the ground and brushed them against her pale cheeks, smearing her perfect face with brown mud. Even in their shared pain, looking at her made his mouth tremble upwards and his lungs expand.

  “Shh, shhh.”

  He sat up to wrap Gwyn in his arms, chancing a brief hug. Their love had been hidden away from the world for the last two years, like water at the bottom of a core-deep well.

  “We can find a way to be together. If not now, maybe in twenty years. I’ll be old enough then to have contact with women outside my Hive.”

  She clutched at his shirt. Victor gave up on speaking. He rested his head on her silken hair, rubbing it with his cheek. It wasn’t fair! Why couldn’t Gwyn be a Queen? Why couldn’t he have both a Queen and a love? Gods knew his own often-absent father tried to have both. Though Dad spends more time with his Queen than with us.

  She pushed back from him, Their eyes met, dull brown to greening hazel. Her nose scrunched, reddening already.

  He had to make this better somehow. Victor leaned forward and slanted his mouth across hers. He wanted to fix things, to make her concentrate on the good they still had left. He wanted to eat her sadness until none remained.

  Pressed against her, surrounded by tender sorrow, Victor didn’t notice the interloper until it was too late.

  A throat cleared behind him. They’d been found out. His new university would be warned. They’d be told that he was defective, previously involved with a non-Queen. They’d whisper about him in the university halls. They’d never let him see Gwyn again, not even twenty years from now.

  Victor’s anxious eyes flitted past grey scaly tree bark. Past his bicycle’s front wheel, tilted at a useless angle. To the newcomer’s heeled boots, graduating into crimson silk harem pants. That style was not at all fashionable in Dyfed’s cities and towns. In fact, he only knew one person who’d wear such clothing.

  A strangled breath rushed from him, falling harmlessly to the ground.

  Victor pulled Gwyn tighter against his side. Her cool peacefulness stabilized him. “Hey, Gav.”

  “We survived!” Gavin crowed. He held out a hand, palm facing down, for a celebratory handshake. When Victor didn’t reciprocate, the hand fell back to Gavin’s bulky-trousered side. “Ooookay.” Gavin drew out the word in friendly mockery and flopped onto the grass beside them.

  The contented bastard.

  Gavin looked up into the grey-blue sky to point towards a shiny cloud cluster where the spaceport orbited. “There’s a new ship in at the spaceport,” he said, apropos of nothing.

  Just what I need, another anywhere-but-here rant about leaving our planet behind. “What’s this one?” Victor asked. He wished his friend would go away and leave him and Gwyn to mourn their imminent sundering.

  Gavin popped a Tribute in his mouth. Victor and Gwyn both declined the package he offered.

  “The Ceridwen’s Cauldron. She’s an in-system hauler right now, but she’s about to change her complement completely. I hear she’s being put into the Hive-training system. Only needs a Queen and five Devoted crewmembers. Wish I was one. What I wouldn’t give to get away from Dyfed! I’d even be a toilet scrubber to get out of this crazy place. What was Mom thinking when she brought me here?”

  He struck a pose. “Was she thinking my face was old and tired? I wasn’t normal, but I was happy,” he declaimed. Gavin’s mom was a renowned and well-traveled actress, so Gavin’s schooling came from plays and foreigners. It showed whenever he quoted supposedly famous plays that no one else had ever heard of. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, Gav.

  Victor’s heart had finally slowed to its original steady pace. He’d been half-relieved to get caught with his beloved. It made him wonder. Maybe he should do what his dad didn’t. Maybe he should skip going to university, skip finding a suitable Queen. Maybe he should bow to his Devoted nature, should give himself to his true love. He could hunt for a Queen later. If any still wanted him.

  But to do that, he and his love—his Gwyn—needed to escape Dyfed. Needed to get away from the society whose life-planning linked the brightest male minds with a brilliantly charismatic female. Young Hives depended on their members’ romantic love for a Queen. It unified them. But at the price of outside relationships. Victor didn’t want to be like his dad, who split his love between his family and a woman Victor had met only once. He didn’t want to feel this way about anyone other than Gwyn.

  What choice did he have? But Gavin had roused an idea... They could go somewhere far away from here in the Ceridwen’s Cauldron, could come back when they were old enough to raise no questions of propriety. Gavin knew all about off-planet living. Even though his mom was Dyfed-raised, he’d only moved back this year.

  If the ship needed a Hive crew and captain, all they needed was a Queen-captain who would accept them all.

  “Did you know?” Victor said. Casual as mentioning a tree’s growth. “Rhiannon Tested as Queen and Commander this morning.” Scores weren’t supposed to be released till the next day at school, but the pathetic security guarding them was made to be bypassed. He’d checked all his friends’ results.

  Gwyn straightened from her cuddled position against his side.

  “She did?” she asked, incredulous. “Good for her.” She settled against him again with a sigh. “I’m glad one of us got everything she wanted.”

  They weren’t getting it.

  Victor tried again. “So if she’s a Queen, she and her Hive qualify for the Cauldron. We three make most of the crew, even if Gwyn can’t technically Devote. We’d just need two more to fit the ship’s requirements.” He gripped Gwyn’s shoulders tightly. Rhiannon’s the perfect solution. She won’t try to steal my love away from her best friend. “We could do this. We could stay together.”

  Gavin stood, his blue eyes focused on the sky-speck above. “Far away from here, in a better place.” His shoulders hunched forward. “I wouldn’t really have to Devote to your friend, would I? This whole stupid planet with its stupid Devoted Hives and stupid expectation of everlasting obsession makes me sick.”

  Victor shook his head, dark brown hair flopping into his eyes. You don’t even know Rhiannon yet. You might end up loving her as a Devoted should. What are you worried about? “We’ll pretend. I mean, Gwyn’s a girl and can’t Devote at all, and I’m not sure about splitting myself between two women. But it’ll work. We can pay lip-service to Devotion and still get everything.”

  This time when Gavin held out a hand to perform a victory handshake, Victor let himself be pulled into the motions. Even the cheek kiss and hop in a circle. When he tried to get Gwyn to try it as well, though, she moved away.

  “Hey, no.” He reached for her again, but she danced backwards. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He caught her delicate wrist in the noose of his thumb and middle finger.

  Her face was cautious. “We don’t know that Rhi will even go for this. I don’t want to ruin her life. She made Queen and Commander. Do you know what that must mean for her?”

  Victor didn’t care what it meant for her. He just knew what it meant for them. Rhiannon was their ticket to freedom and the perfect life. “Of course she’ll go for it if you ask her. Call her, right now. Ask her to meet us here. The worst she can say is no.”

  He’d never seen Rhiannon deny Gwyn anything. Two years ago, he’d wondered if he even had a chance with the shy, sweet Gwyn or if the girls were dating each other.

  Gwyn thrust her hands into pockets too small for her long fingers. But after a bit more wheedling, she pulled out her pad and flashed the message to Rhiannon.

  The new Queenlet would never know what hit her.

  Chapter Three: Center of My Universe

  By late afternoon on Test Day, the wide streets were still mostly empty. Whistling breezes echoed in the middle of civilization, usually unheard outside the groves.

  Everyone had stayed home that day—work stopped, play stopped, dri
nking stopped—to make sure that the Test could be administered free of distraction. The only people out in the dimming red light now were the truly stressed and the happily aimless, flitting to their new destinations on their own time.

  Rhiannon fell into the flitting category. She approached the park, still dazed from the morning’s happy outcome. She closed her eyes to better bask in the sunlight bathing her face. Its happy warmth reminded her of times with her mother.

  A tear cooled her cheek at the thought. Rhiannon took pride that it was only one.

  Up ahead, three figures sat beneath the tree she’d marked as Gwyn’s. She waved an arm over her head, and the large motion filled her with extra adrenaline. She jogged the rest of the way. Twigs crunched beneath her polished boots as she closed with them.

  She couldn’t wait to tell Gwyn all about making Queen and Commander. The administrator had said something about not telling anyone that enough pre-Testing made actual Testing irrelevant. So, fine, she could skip that part. But the part about getting out of Perceivership and into Queen training? She was bursting to share that with her best friend, her only friend since Mom died.

  Her smile faded as she recognized Victor in the little coterie. While Rhiannon had gotten what she wanted on the Test, Gwyn hadn’t gotten everything. Gwyn would be forced away from Victor.

  Victor pounced upon her the moment she drew close enough. “You want Gwyn to be happy, right?”

  Oh, this can’t be good. Of course she wanted Gwyn to be happy. No one meant more to her than Gwyn. Gwyn, who had become Rhiannon’s sun and water during the hard years after her mother’s death. Gwyn, who had offered unconditional friendship when Rhiannon had forgotten how to interact with other children. Gwyn, who had never given up during Rhiannon’s awkward phase.

  Yes, Rhiannon wanted Gwyn to be happy. But she wasn’t sure that Victor wanted Rhiannon to be happy.

  Well, on one score, she and Victor agreed: Gwyn came first.

  She ignored the question. “Hello, Victor.” She passed him to hug her best friend. She extended a hand to the third party member— a runner-thin, flamboyant dresser. “Hi, I’m Rhiannon.”

  The boy had reddish blonde hair, a mischievous grin, and an exceedingly thin nose surrounded by an outdoor-person’s freckles. He scrambled to his feet and took that hand, bending over it like a Shakespearean actor. “Gavin. It’s an honor to meet you.” He looked up at her through playful eyelashes, still bent over her hand. “My lady.”

  What a ham! But a delightful ham. Not that she could do anything about it for another few decades. Queenship’s downside: no relationships that might damage your Hive’s dynamic.

  Someday, though. Someday, she’d meet someone she truly loved, and her Hive would allow her to pursue that someone.

  In her peripheral vision, graceful Gwyn stumbled forward to get her attention.

  “We, well Victor wanted me to ask... That is, he thinks we could...” Gwyn gave up, and Rhiannon wished she could protect the other girl from whatever had upset her so.

  “What Gwyn’s trying to say.” Victor stepped forward to speak for Gwyn. That brassed Rhiannon. Sure, the girl was wobbling into her explanations, but that was no reason to cut her off. Ugh. Then again, Rhiannon had been known to take over in high-anxiety situations, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. “She’s trying to ask you to join us.”

  “Join you?”

  “Join our Hive. As our Queen.”

  She blanked her face into the unamused non-expression. That made as close to no sense as made no difference. You couldn’t ask a Queen to join a Hive. That was backwards. If you were lucky, maybe she asked you. Otherwise, you begged to join her. But the other way around?

  The Shakespearean ham in the overwhelmingly voluminous clothes tried to salvage the conversation. Clearly he at least understood what her tightening eyebrows meant.

  “We were talking about starting an Explorer Hive,” he explained deferentially, “and Victor said we couldn’t do it with any Queen but you.”

  I’ll just bet. No other Queen would accept him and Gwyn. On the one ash branch, it sounded ideal. A ready-made Hive that needed her to step in. But on the other branch... “I haven’t been trained.” Bran’s blood! I earned that training. Even the laughable nervousness counseling.

  She needed that training too. She’d be the first to admit that she had no idea how to be charismatic, half a Queen’s job. And she couldn’t even identify the other half!

  Not to mention she wanted the Commander classes. She wanted to learn personnel organization, much made of in military film. She wanted to be with people. To be a part of the world, not locked away and buried under soulless data.

  Gavin shrugged slender shoulders, displaying impressive muscles in the process. “I’m sure you can read all about it. And we’d be there to help you with the exercises in any textbooks you bring.”

  It was true that she could study on her own. She’d never needed to physically attend a class before, and those first Queens had found their own ways. But still. “I got into New Cardiff, you know. A degree from there, the potential Devotees I’d connect with... I hate to lose those. Can’t this plan wait a few years? I’ll still happily take you.”

  Victor buried his head in his hands, a good copy of her own favorite posture for communicating frustration. She found it hard to take seriously.

  Gavin pointed skyward, his many sleeves inching up towards his head. “Ah, but in a few years there won’t be a ship at the spaceport ripe for the picking.”

  The sun and the terrible metaphor momentarily blinded her. “Come again?”

  Gavin explained. He explained about the ship, Ceridwen’s Cauldron, with its beautiful, alliterative name. He explained that this was the perfect opportunity to provide for the skill-crossed lovers and to get practical experience. He explained that this chance might not come again for decades. He explained his general dissatisfaction with the Devotion system, but that he’d been struck by her sensibility and was happy to join her Hive if she’d have him.

  He didn’t explain that their whole ridiculous plan hinged on her.

  But she understood it anyway. Without her, Gwyn couldn’t go with Victor. Without her, Victor would grow into a man who considered today’s foibles a youthful dalliance. Without her, Gavin... Well, she wasn’t sure about Gavin yet.

  The point was, without her, their plan crumbled. With her, her own plans crumbled. She’d never be able to come back. If she left, she forfeited her place at New Cardiff. She’d be labeled an unreliable Queen. The Senedd might try to rehabilitate a damaged Queen, with Queens in such demand, but it wasn’t the way she’d bet.

  Gwyn pushed past the boys, her white-blonde hair shimmering in the early-evening sunlight. She stooped to equalize their heights and tangled her long, garden-rough fingers with Rhiannon’s.

  “Please.” Gwyn whispered it first, then repeated it more loudly. “Please, Rhi. Don’t send me away.”

  Away from Victor or away from Rhiannon? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t deny the quiet plea. “Anything for you, love. You know you can count on me.”

  That was the end of that. No use dwelling on what she couldn’t change.

  Fingers still grasping Gwyn’s chapped skin, she addressed Gavin, who seemed the most knowledgeable in these matters. “What will we need?”

  “Six crew, including the Queen-captain, and an application form,” he answered promptly. “I have one right here.”

  She bit back a laugh at his preparedness. Perhaps Victor and Gwyn only just concocted this scheme, but the new guy had seen the light long ago. “Since you’re so keen,” she said, tilting her head to keep the words from seeming too serious, “you can fill out all the essays.”

  She could always revise whatever he wrote. Plus, it wasn’t like she had plans for the ship yet. Reading his compositions would give her more information about his style and intentions. Maybe she’d get lucky and he’d be a terrible writer.

  He raised a hand to his ear without actually
tucking any hair behind it. His cheeks puffed into circles. “I’m honored that you trust me with such a task.”

  She refused to feel guilty over hoping for unsalvageable essays. Either they’d get the ship, thanks to his solid work. Or their application would be rejected and it wouldn’t be Rhiannon’s fault.

  That part delegated, she still needed to find two more crew for her faux-Hive. She wouldn’t let Victor get them for her. He already had more control over this scheme than she did, no matter who bore which title. No, she had an idea for their merry band’s next member. She probably shouldn’t involve him, but she was sure that Luciano would follow her anywhere.

  Even if he shouldn’t.

  She’d destroy him, she knew. She’d pull him away from his well-planned future, the future he’d moved to Dyfed to pursue. But that wouldn’t stop her.

  She’d destroy him for Gwyn.

  Chapter Four: For the Right Queen

  The day after the Test, no teachers expected their sixteen-year-old students to pay attention. God knew that Luciano tried, but he’d spent most periods thinking about his spectacular good fortune. He’d Tested as Devoted and Medical Doctor. The Senedd would pay for his education!

  He drafted a million letters home in his head. His mother and sister on the mining colony Nuova would be so proud. They’d also be pleased they’d enjoy a greater portion of his paychecks, once the Senedd started sponsoring his tuition and board at the University of Dyfed.

  Rhiannon came up beside him after his last class. Her matte red tunic made her dark locks shine.

  “Hi, Luciano,” she said.

  That was something he’d adored about Rhiannon since he’d met her. She always said his full name. She never called him Luke or Lucky, like the construction crew at his off-campus job. She never assumed his Italian-miner accent made him an idiot.

  When the Test results had gone up, he’d checked her name in the lists. He’d worried that she’d grow apart from him and start spending time with the vapid Queenlets who sat in front of the vending machines and demanded favors to let anyone pass. Yet here she was, initiating conversation.