Molt-Princess Thren

Thren was bred for the molt-throne of the Sixth Petal, the kind of aristocrat the Collective grooms to dissolve the I into the we and become the next high broodmother. Eleven of the twelve molts happened on schedule. The twelfth, Thren refused. They sat in the chamber the required seven days and walked out still saying I.

The chorus screamed. The aestheticists wept. The broodmother, who had been preparing a successor's dissolution, never looked at them again. The Refused Cathedral is the ship grown afterward, built on the plan of the chamber they were supposed to drown in. The interior still smells of the fluid. They are not an exile. They are the cousin who is not invited to the festivals. The hive calls the refusal a slow death, and the hive may be right. The I is still theirs. Both the I and the cathedral can be hired.