"That one," Mikhailis said softly. He always dropped his voice when something mattered. "Clever, and the nurses like her."
Thalatha stepped closer to the console until the glow rose up into her eyes. She watched how the nurses adjusted to the little one, how they bent a fraction to let her pass, how none of them corrected her tracing. The respect there was small and honest. "House-scent to keep the breathing steady," she said. The words were not just tactics; they were an old truth she trusted.
Mikhailis nodded. Make a room breathe first, then command it. "She'll be queen under the Regent. The Necrolord keeps the crown-spine. The little one keeps the cadence. You and I and Rodion are only the backplane."
Thalatha's eyes narrowed in that particular way that meant agreement, not suspicion. "Layered authority avoids stupid fights."
"I hate stupid fights," he said, then allowed himself an extra beat because he couldn't resist, "the entertaining ones are acceptable."
She didn't give him the satisfaction of a laugh, but a small sound escaped anyway, like a coin tapping wood.
Columns popped up—Rodion's version of neat handwriting. They were aligned so straight it could make a sergeant cry.
<Allied Sub-Hive Total ≈400. Workers 220. Soldiers 120. Nurses 40. Wardens/Artisans 20.>
<Command Spine: Regent (Riftborne Necrolord) → Queen-to-be (house scent & domestic cadence) → Nurse Council → Soldier Captains → Workers.>
"Put a Hypnoveil as court-keeper," Thalatha said, already thinking three steps and one ceremony ahead. "Rites need doors that open and close on time."
<Added.> The new element slotted into the chain with a satisfying click. Rodion shaded the Hypnoveil node with a silver fringe, as if giving it a slim collar.
Formations animated across the map like small toys lining up for work. Ant symbols shuffled into practiced lines.
<Ribbon Scout: Scurabon point, six soldier ants, eight workers, one nurse. Job: tempo and safe-rib marking.>
Mikhailis pointed without touching. "Prime number pauses. No one gets to feel clever about our steps."
<Prime cadence engaged.>
<Wedge Quiet: Hypnoveil at nose. Soldiers low. Workers in paired drift. Skeleton pair at tail, blades reversed.>
"Backs turned," Thalatha said. "Always."
Rodion flashed a tiny icon on the skeleton pair—their blades symbolized with a U-shape, indicating the blunt backs forward. It looked almost funny. It felt like respect.
"SOPs?" Mikhailis asked, palms up.
Thalatha lifted three fingers like she was swearing in a witness. "Exhale. No chasing brightness. Return at first night."
<Logged.> The board stamped the three rules in small text on the lower right, next to a more private note only the three of them saw: "No heroics."
The console's heartbeat steadied. The ant icons began to spread like ink finding channels in paper. You could see the floor begin to draw itself.
Thalatha glanced sideways without moving her head much. "What should we do?"
Mikhailis interlaced his fingers, letting his breath fall into the Anchor's tempo like he was catching a bus he'd planned to catch. "Wait," he said. "Let them bring us the floor on a tray."
The words made a face enter her eyes—a quick thought, a shadow. She didn't fight it; she turned and looked at it. "Strange," she said slowly, like she was testing a bridge with one foot. "To think a human—"
"Not 'a human,'" he cut gently, leaning just enough to catch her gaze without pinning it. "Me. Singular."
Her eyes held his for a beat. She was measuring weight, not popularity. Whatever she weighed, it balanced. She nodded once, a small yes that felt like putting a stone in the right place, then turned back to the feeds. "Fine."
The slot changed with them. The veil-mouth kept its dull shimmer. Rodion pulsed new panels in a calm rhythm, like a teacher who trusted the class.
<Feed One: Glowcap stacks—three nets. Quality adequate.>
The feed panned over a storage niche. Glowcaps sat in slings like pale moons in hammocks. Workers tested a cap's gills, then tucked it back with casual respect. Rodion added a counting tick to the corner: 1/3, 2/3, 3/3.
<Feed Three: Dead-echo pocket—avoid. Hypnoveil laying boredom.>
The camera turned to a corridor where sound wanted to bounce and come home louder than you sent it. The Hypnoveil slid in and yawned on purpose. The wall forgot to be interesting. In the lower corner, a tiny sigh icon appeared and then vanished as if embarrassed.
The lines grew quick. Workers (blue) flowed past soldiers (white). Scurabons glided like quiet knives, points out, bodies light; their leg tips touched down and lifted in a rhythm that did not stay long enough to be punished. The nurses stopped, sniffed, annotated the corner with small scent flicks; Rodion captured the flicks as two-character notes: "sweet-warm," "bitter-wet," "old shoes," which, incredibly, meant something exact to ants.
Thalatha leaned closer without meaning to, the cup's rim grazing her knuckles. "They pivot fast."
"They listen fast," Mikhailis said. Because nobody is shouting to be seen. It was one of his private rules: give the room to the workers, then take the corners away from the monsters.
Rodion highlighted an eel mouth set like a socket under a resin lip. A white dot pulsed at its edge; a breath later the Hypnoveil brushed it with a sleeve of fog and the eel's lazy lure light gave up. Next box: a micro-crack thin as thread splashed across a load rib. Scurabons slowed the ribbon, two workers pressed resin with their bellies and smoothed it with forelegs, one nurse counted under her breath—ants counted differently, but counting's soul is the same.
A patch where the stone "sneezed" blew dust after each footfall, trying to turn steps into gossip; Slime skimmed a palm over it, the dust stuck, the patch forgot its hobby. Each time a hazard tried to be proud, something thoughtful made it boring again.
Rodion began throwing soft highlights with the restraint of a good editor. The panel labeled RESOURCES blinked patiently: ironvine veins under a bone seam; resin reservoirs behind a hymnal of ribs; a cluster of forgotten bone hooks that would save them thirty heartbeats later. Each pin came with a tiny bubble: who found it (worker 18, nurse 3), who tagged it (Scurabon B), and how to touch it without making it angry.
Thalatha's respect arrived without announcement. The smart part wasn't loud. It was how cleanly he routed dozens of tiny choices with zero swagger. He didn't push his stamp onto every moment. He let the map breathe and only touched the thin places, the places that would fray first. It made her shoulders stay low.
Their eyes met over the board without planning it. The hum under their boots was steady. Steam from the forgotten cups curled in front of them and thinned. For a second the room shrank to a warm circle and their faces sat on the edge of it. Her gaze softened in a way she wouldn't admit to anyone. His did too. They leaned in a fraction, and the temperature between them shifted like someone had opened a kiln door far away—
Both of them coughed at the same time like dust had agreed to rescue them. Mikhailis straightened so fast it looked like a joke. "Right," he said briskly, as if a meeting had suddenly started. "Time to go."
"Work," Thalatha agreed, and the single syllable carried a hidden smile she let him hear.
They packed their small home like people who had done this too many times—an efficient kind of tenderness. Hypnoveils folded themselves as if they wanted to be good blankets. Warm stones sighed and slid into pockets. The skeleton chair tilted to its resting angle and locked with a quiet click. The silk cones stacked like shells on a clean shore. Rodion collapsed the tiny kitchen with the dignity of a butler closing a travel case: spoon, bowl, lid, wipe, tuck. No clatter. He even polished the small ring where the tea tray had sat, as if the stone would write a review.
They stood for a breath and looked. The slot had been ugly and kind. It had let them sleep without asking for gratitude. It had held their quiet and did not tell on them. The thin light from the ember caught the edges of the chair and made them a little dear.
"What a shame," Thalatha said softly. The words were not for the place. They were for what the place had allowed.
Mikhailis took her hand like it was simple and normal, because it was. His palm was warm, the callus at the base of his thumb smooth from knives and cups. "This won't be the only place, will it?"
Her eyes widened a fraction. Surprise, not fear. A yes came to her mouth the way a breath does when a window opens. Then the real smile—rare, unarmored—appeared and stayed. "Okay."