The Beekeeper's Vow

The ferry's horn cut through the salt haze, a sound that scraped against a memory you'd buried deep. The island rose from the mist like a half-drowned corpse—green terraces crumbling into white cliffs, the old estate houses staring out with black windows. On the dock, a figure waited beneath a frayed umbrella, and even at this distance you recognized the set of Elias Thorne's shoulders. He'd lost weight. The wind pressed his coat against him too easily.

You stepped off the gangplank, your boots finding the weathered planks with an old familiarity. The air smelled of rot and honey—a sickly sweetness that turned your stomach.

"Beekeeper." His voice was rougher than you remembered, stripped of its old authority. His hand moved toward yours, then stopped. "You came."

"You paid for passage twice over, Thorne. I figured you'd stopped trusting the mail."

His smile didn't reach his eyes. Behind him, the hives stood in rows along the hillside, their white boxes dull with neglect. A few bees crawled over the entrances, moving slow, drunk on something dying.

"I need you to see the Hive Mother," he said. "She's failing."