Queen & Commander (Book One of the Hive Queen Saga)

Chapter One: Trial by Multiple Choice

For months, Rhiannon hunched over borrowed old exams while her friends danced and sang outdoors. Her nights were consumed with studying. This day, Test Day, she’d learn whether all that effort could lead to the future she wanted. Not the future society wanted for her.

She stood in silence on the well-swept stone floor outside the classroom. The stitched ash tree on her uniform shirt scraped against her skin. What was the point of wearing it anyway, hidden beneath impractical, white formal robes?

At the head of the line, a boy palmed in under the proctor’s watchful eye. He collected his blue pad—embossed with the same ash tree symbol, officially encrypted—and entered the Test room.

Everyone shuffled forward a space. Rhiannon among them.

Soon enough, though, she’d be admitted. Soon enough, she’d read the familiar questions. Soon enough, she could change out of this formal wear.

They said it was impossible to study for the Test. Oh, you could study facts and figures. You could study poets and history. But you couldn’t study yourself into being an extrovert or into analytical inclinations. You couldn’t cheat all of society. And if you tried, you’d be found out. Or, at least, very unhappy in your unsuited life.

Rhiannon had studied.

When she was nine and her mother had died, she’d studied heart conditions; she’d studied doctors’ expressions as they swore it wasn’t her fault. When the other students in third form enthused over competitive choir, she’d studied the usual things—math, biology, poetry—but so ferociously that no one noticed her lack of choral talent. When Gwyn’s attention turned more to horticulture than her best friend, Rhiannon had studied plant genera and topiaries in order to follow her into this new territory.

This year, her final school year, she’d studied for the Test.

She looked beyond the proctor who guarded the door, checking whether she’d have a friend inside. Even if it was forbidden to talk in the Test room, she’d still prefer to sit beside Gwyn—or even Victor—than some stranger from the other side of town. She didn’t want to be alone.

The kid in front of her palmed in, collected his blue pad, and joined the other sixteen-year-olds, cutting her seeking short. The odd cough or bootscrape on vomit-yellow carpet surprised the hush of the room beyond.

Her turn. Rhiannon pressed her skin to the sticky, warm identification plate.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The proctor turned his pad to face her. It flashed a message: Report to room 203. / Cer i’r ystafell 203.

Her jaw resonated, hollow, with her measured breaths.

I’m not in trouble. Students get sent to new rooms all the time during standardized testing. Plenty of people might get reshuffled on Test Day.

No one could possibly suspect her illicit studying. Everyone knew that life’s happiness flowed from honest answers. Ever since the first Test 120 years ago. One hundred twenty years in mlynedd Cymraeg, just over 135 Earth years.

She spared the room one more look. Gwyn sat near the window, somehow elegant in the too-small desk, twisting her near-white hair around a finger.

Rhiannon adored Gwyn’s snowy hair. She’d nicknamed her for it on the day they met. In a way, the name was Rhiannon’s mark, transforming Gwyn from random kid into Rhiannon’s friend as far as their teachers were concerned.

Gwyn beckoned her over, but Rhiannon shook her head. She had somewhere else to be, it seemed.

Everything was fine. She’d find room 203 and take the Test as planned. She’d prepared for this. Nothing could go wrong.