The forest had burned, healed, and burned again. By the time the sky paled, its heart had stopped echoing gold. Smoke drifted through the trees like ghosts that didn't know where to go.
Buzz and Zza moved through it slow, silent, careful not to stir the ash. Their shells were dulled from the fight, streaked with dried ichor and soot. They hadn't spoken since the nest fell silent. Some silences carried more weight than words.
Zza broke it first. "They'll come looking," she said. "Someone has to. We weren't the only ones who survived."
Buzz didn't look back. "If they come, they'll see the nests. They'll think we failed."
"They'll come anyway."
He didn't argue. He didn't want to.
The forest's path wound down into a valley, where the air turned cold and wet. A stream cut through the mud, carrying flecks of gold downstream. They followed it for hours until shapes began to appear ahead—shadows of movement, faint, deliberate.
