Only Lily and I entered the old nest.
The independent captain remained at the entrance. The white threads made his core strain towards the centre.
Styx lay on a piece of titanic bone. One wing was gone, and her body had shrunk below the size of an ordinary mosquito. She was drawing the remnant of the Crown into herself, keeping it from reaching the eggs of the new brood.
A ring of charred shells surrounded the bone. Styx was destroying them one by one, sealing the white thread inside each empty shell. That was why the captains had been unable to find her before: whenever an independent core came near, the remnant of the Crown reached for it and tried to assemble a single swarm again.
She had not been hiding from us.
She had been keeping us away.
"Can it be destroyed?" I asked.
A faint whine resolved into words:
"It can."
Titanic blood could restore her Queen form and burn out the infection. But along with the power, the seed of a new owner would remain inside Styx. The second path was simpler: seal the burrow and let her die with the white threads.
I offered to take the infection into myself. Since the System had disappeared, my body no longer had a control node, and Mira believed such a transfer was impossible. Styx struck the bone with one leg all the same.
"No."
The word was weak, but recognisable.
Lily found an old laboratory plate under a stone. A diagram had survived on it: the remnant of the Crown could be dispersed among thousands of new cores. Each creature would receive an almost imperceptible share of the white thread, and no complete owner would ever be born.
For the System, it was the best solution.
Lily pointed out the thousands of shells around the bone. If we divided the infection among them, no single part could restore the Crown.
But the creatures inside had not hatched yet. We could not ask them.
Styx touched the nearest clutch.
"Mine. Not me."
Then she added:
"My responsibility."
She began destroying the eggs before they could hatch. Each shell she opened drew in part of the white thread and burned. Styx was depriving herself of a new swarm, but she would not force it to be born with our task already inside it.
I guided the threads into the empty shells. Lily held the light.
The work went slowly. The white threads scorched my fingers, and after each shell Styx lay motionless a little longer. Several times I reached to shield her from the light with my palm. At the last moment, I left my hand beside her, not above.
One intact egg remained by the far wall. A larva was already stirring inside.
Styx crawled over to it and stopped.
I waited for her to break the shell again. Instead, Styx pushed the egg beyond the edge of the white circle. The remnant of the Crown did not reach for it.
"Can we leave this one?" Lily asked.
Styx touched the shell.
"Free."
We did not know whether the larva would survive without a queen or the shared rhythm. We took the egg in a separate open carrier and did not connect it to the swarms.
By dawn, the nest had gone dark.
Styx collapsed onto the bone. I held out the tin box and left the lid open.
She could stay.
Several minutes later, Styx crawled inside on her own.
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