Tempest’s eyes narrowed in a glare. “Since the Fell are attacking the eastern Reaches, it has become my concern.”
Pearl flicked her spines again, in agreement so polite Frost suspected it meant something else entirely. “Emerald Twilight has so many concerns, it must be a trial to keep up with them.”
Tempest transferred her glare from Celadon to Pearl.
Flame leaned forward. “Wait, what happened?”
Her voice tinged with acid, Pearl said, “It’s common knowledge that Opal Night’s eastern colony was attacked, and that Malachite returned here with the survivors to seize control of the mother colony after she destroyed the Fell flight. But the Fell had performed this ‘trick,’ as Emerald Twilight calls it, on their prisoners, and Malachite rescued the children as well.”
Flame exchanged a look with Zephyr, and asked, “But this doesn’t affect the royal bloodlines of either Indigo Cloud or Opal Night?”
“It does not,” Celadon said, her gaze not leaving Tempest.
Flame sat back, her brow furrowed. Zephyr said, “This is strange to hear. But is Emerald Twilight suggesting that this is the reason for the Fell attack?”
Tempest looked as if she wanted to suggest it, but couldn’t justify it. She said, “It needs to be discussed, and Opal Night and Indigo Cloud have given no sign they intended to reveal that it had happened.”
Celadon said, “It is no one else’s concern.”
Pearl said, “No, if Emerald Twilight wishes to discuss it, we should discuss it. Let’s put off any decisions on how to meet the Fell attack, of what preparations our Arbora should make, of where to station our warriors—”
Tempest’s spines trembled and the expression she turned on Pearl made Frost want to hiss.
Zephyr tilted her head, but she was smiling. She said, “That’s told us.” As Pearl and Tempest tilted their heads toward her, she said, “Perhaps it’s best to return to the discussion of whether to meet the Fell outside the Reaches or not.”
Frost was listening so intently she didn’t realize the sound echoing up from the greeting hall was noisier than it should be. Heart and Bell twitched uneasily, Bone cocked his head to listen, frowning, and Knell half-turned away, as if he meant to stand.
Then Aura shot up over the edge of the hall and landed on the floor. Floret’s expression was horrified. This was a huge breach of etiquette. But Aura shifted to groundling and blurted, “Pearl, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Malachite is here.”
Celadon looked startled and hopeful, and Pearl’s spines flicked in agitation. She said, “In the greeting hall with her warriors?”
Aura said, “Yes, I mean, I think she’s right behind—”
Then a great dark shape flung itself over the edge and onto the hall floor. Aura skittered out of the way as Malachite strode forward.
Frost stared. She had been formally presented to Malachite when the Opal Night queen had stopped here on her way to join Jade and Moon, but this was a shock. This Malachite was a completely different person than the one who had sat in the nurseries with fledglings curled around her arms and Arbora babies playing with her tail.
Pearl and the other queens stood. Pearl’s spines were tense as she said, “What news of Jade? She’s with you?”
Malachite paced forward. “No, but I left her well.”
Pearl’s spines twitched in relief, and Frost bounced excitedly. If Jade was well, all the others must be all right too.
But Malachite said, “I returned because the Fell are massing in the wetlands to the east, preparing to come here. There are at least five flights so far, perhaps one more.”
Bell gasped, and the other Arbora growled. Frost felt a snarl build up in her chest, squelching the first wave of panic.
“You’ve seen the Fell for yourself?” Flame sounded aghast. “The auguries were true?”
“I have. I—” Malachite’s gaze fell on Tempest, and she stopped.
Celadon looked from Malachite to Tempest, and her spines twitched in alarm. “Malachite—” she began.
Malachite said, “Emerald Twilight has no place here.”
Tempest’s spines flared. “We are the chief court of the eastern Reaches. The defense of this territory has always fallen—”
Malachite stepped forward, and was suddenly a pace from Tempest, towering over her. Frost stared, wide-eyed. She hadn’t even seen Malachite move. The Opal Night warriors tensed, looking to Celadon for orders. The Emerald Twilight warriors twitched nervously. The others, Sunset Water and Ocean Winter and Indigo Cloud all looked at Floret. Floret’s expression was appalled.
Malachite snarled, “Go back and tell your birthqueen to send another daughter. You insult me and this court with your presence.”
“You don’t command me,” Tempest snarled back, but Frost thought it was an effort for her to keep her spines up. It wasn’t fear, or not all fear. It was as if Malachite was doing something that was forcing Tempest back . . .
Malachite bared an impressive array of fangs and Frost’s heart thumped.
Then Pearl shoved Tempest away and stepped in front of Malachite. Spines flared, she snarled, “Not here. Not now.”
Frost’s insides seized up, her throat closed on a squeak of alarm. Bell grabbed her arm, bracing to snatch her out of danger. The Indigo Cloud warriors all twitched in reaction; Floret held up a hand, the gesture telling them to hold back, her snarl soundless. Bone, Knell, and Heart all rocked up into a crouch, bracing to defend Pearl.
Malachite stared down at Pearl long enough for Frost’s lungs to run out of air. Malachite didn’t loom over Pearl the way she had Tempest, but she was taller than Pearl, her shoulders broader, her whole body more powerful.
Then Malachite whipped away, turning to face the wall.
Everyone flinched except Pearl. She tilted her head toward Tempest and bared her fangs. Tempest bared hers back, but briefly, then paced away to stand with Zephyr. Celadon took a step away, her spines rippling to shed tension. Pearl said, “Emerald Twilight will stay.”
Then Malachite turned back to face Pearl and said, “We have a few days, maybe more, to prepare. You mean to meet them in the open?”
Bone hissed out a breath in relief, and Heart and Knell sank back onto their cushions. Bell squeezed Frost’s wrist and relaxed. Frost started to breathe again.
As if nothing had happened, Pearl said, “Yes, that was my intention.” She turned and walked back deliberately to her cushion and took an unhurried seat, her tail curling around her feet. “We were discussing it just now.”
Zephyr and Flame sat down again, then Tempest, who was doing a good job of keeping her spines neutral, though she couldn’t quite stop her tail from snapping. One of the Opal Night warriors brought a cushion for Malachite, putting it next to Celadon. Celadon sat, and then Malachite took her seat, as unhurriedly as Pearl had.
Pearl glanced at Floret. Floret took a deep breath, then moved to the hearth. She poured a cup of tea, carried it over and set it in front of Malachite, then retreated to the other warriors. Sage and Drift stared at her in admiration.
Mostly still unruffled, Zephyr said, “With only a few days to prepare, I don’t see how we can meet them in the Reaches. It will be quicker to assemble our warriors in the fringe.”
Flame said, “Ocean Winter agrees.”
They were looking at Tempest. She flicked a spine, but said, “The presence of the Fell in the wetlands presents a compelling argument for swift movement. If the other queens are in agreement, then Emerald Twilight will support this plan.”
Malachite’s claws contracted, but she didn’t otherwise react.
Frost could sense the Arbora holding their breath, but instead of poking Tempest again, Pearl just turned to Bone and said, “We have a hunting shelter close to the fringe that can be used as a resting point, if it can be made ready quickly enough.”
“It can be done,” Bone said. His voice came out even and calm, but Frost could see the pulse still racing at his throat. “With a group of
thirty or so Arbora, we can dig out more shelters and supply it for our warriors. There are other usable platforms nearby.”
Zephyr settled herself more comfortably on her cushion. “We should have several resting points, at intervals. Is there a map?”
Floret jerked her head at Coil, who leapt to fetch the map and carry it to Zephyr. Frost saw Vine take a deep breath and lean against Sage, who shook his head incredulously. Heart rubbed her face, and reached for the forgotten pot to refill the Arbora’s cups. Bell gave Frost a one-armed hug and she had to fight down the impulse to climb into his lap. If she did that, Pearl would never think she was old enough to attend a meeting again, not until Frost was older than Jade.
Celadon watched Malachite carefully, and after a moment Malachite picked up the tea cup and drank. Celadon reached over and squeezed Malachite’s free wrist.
Frost tried to pay attention for the rest of the meeting, but after that, it was almost dull, with all the talk being about how many warriors would go where and when, and what the Arbora needed to do to prepare.
Finally the talk was finished. Zephyr and Flame and Tempest would leave immediately to go to their courts and pass the alarm, and get their warriors ready. When they had left the queens’ hall, Malachite turned to Pearl and said, “I have much to tell you and Celadon and it must be done in private.”
Pearl flicked her spines in acknowledgement. “We’ll go to my bower. We won’t be overheard there.”
Celadon said, “If food could be brought . . .”
“Of course.” Pearl made a gesture to the Arbora, as she got to her feet.
As Celadon led Malachite away and the Opal Night warriors followed Floret, Knell leaned over to Bell, and whispered, “Food is a good idea. I don’t know what that was about, but the long flight probably didn’t help.”
Bell nodded grimly, and waved Coil over to ask him to take the request down to the teachers’ hall. As the Arbora got to their feet, Frost went to where Pearl stood by the hearth. Pearl absently looked down at the map, flicking her spines. Frost wrapped her hand around Pearl’s much bigger wrist. Pearl glanced down at her, spines and brow quirked in inquiry. Frost said, “I thought you were going to fight Malachite.”
Pearl flicked a spine dismissively. “We’re not friends, but our primary bloodlines are blended in Jade and Moon’s royal clutch. We can’t fight.”
Maybe, but Frost knew from everyone else’s reaction that something terrible might have happened. She said, “You can’t fight Tempest either, because of Ember.”
“No matter how tempting,” Pearl agreed.
Heart stepped up beside them, and Frost took her wrist too. Still looking at the map, Pearl said, “You should be down there telling the others to prepare.”
“In a moment,” Heart said. “What did Tempest do? Why did Malachite react like that?”
Now that Heart mentioned it, Frost wondered about it too. Tempest had been mad about Shade and Lithe coming to Indigo Cloud, which was none of her business, but Malachite hadn’t been here when Tempest had said that.
Pearl’s spines tilted in exasperation. “Tempest took Moon to Opal Night, when Malachite wanted him returned to her. There was some incident before the greeting took place, and Onyx, Malachite’s sister queen, ordered Tempest to leave the court at her consort’s request. It was done in a hurry, before Malachite had a chance to get scent of it and make it worse. So I suppose she’s been saving that up since then.”
Heart hissed out a breath. “That’s not good, Pearl.”
Pearl tilted her head at her. “It’s entertaining, but you’re right, the courts can’t afford these quarrels now.”
“That’s bad, getting thrown out of a court,” Frost said. It was mildly amazing to her that fully grown queens could still do things that got them in trouble. And not made-to-feel-guilty-by-Arbora trouble but serious fight-with-another-queen trouble.
“I suspect being thrown out of Opal Night is more common than not.” Pearl gave Frost a nudge. “Now go with Heart and Bell. It’s time you were back in the nurseries.”
Near the Southern Coast and the Cloudwalls
Now Moon and Stone had a kethel flying with them. Moon was trying not to think about what Jade would say about their choices and ability to make decisions and sense of survival. It didn’t help that he agreed with her.
With the Hians’ boat not far ahead, they flew through the day and late into the night, stopping only briefly to rest. The kethel kept pace with them easily, but having followed kethel before, Moon was unsurprised. It wasn’t like rulers or a progenitor would have had a great deal of concern for the kethels’ wellbeing. They probably killed the ones who couldn’t keep up and used them to feed the rest of the flight. He had seen a Fell nest made with part of a kethel’s carcass once, and for the first time wondered how that would affect a thinking being. He doubted it was done with the same reverence as when Reaches Raksura placed their dead in pockets in a colony tree so the wood would eventually grow around them.
It gave him something to think about on the long flight at least. The terrain below was starting to flatten out, the hills softening into long rises and shallow valleys, with clusters of tall fringe trees and other foliage so thick along the occasional meandering streams that it nearly concealed the sparkle of moving water from view. The wind was only a little cooler, but it carried the faint distant scent of the sea.
It was the next morning, at first lightening of the sky, when Stone suddenly slipped off the wind and fell sideways toward the ground. Moon almost fouled a wing in surprise, thinking Stone had passed out. But as he came around, he saw Stone control the fall with one economical flap and come in for a neat landing near a big stand of trees.
Moon dove down to light beside him as Stone shifted to groundling. “What is it?” he demanded. Once on the ground, he realized the stand of trees, their purple-gray trunks entwined like huge vines, seemed to be independently mobile and watching them with little round dark spots that were probably eyes. Moon tasted the air, but picked up no traces of predator musk. Still, this was not a place that Stone would have normally chosen to stop at. “Are you all right?”
Stone jerked his head toward the south, as the kethel dropped into the tall grass about forty paces away and shifted to its groundling form. “I spotted a flying boat ahead. Didn’t want them to see us. If they’ve got those distance-glasses, they might be able to pick us up, even this far away.”
Moon hissed, startled. After all this searching, they might finally have found their goal. “Could you tell if it was the Hians?”
The kethel approached, throwing a wary glance toward the tree-creature. It looked like it was farming fungi and other crops on its own branches. Moon still kept one eye on it, just in case it decided to object to their proximity.
Stone snorted in exasperation. “Not yet. We’re going to have to hang way back, and try to catch up after dark.”
“I told you the truth,” the kethel said pointedly.
Stone eyed it. “So you did. Let’s see what you can do to earn your next story.”
Bramble didn’t remember much of what happened next. She came back to herself lying on the padded bench in Delin’s room, tucked into blankets, with Delin sitting on a stool beside her. She said, “Merit?”
“He is well,” Delin said. “The hull protected him, and he was not affected as you were.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, and remembered she had asked him that before. Several times before. She opened her eyes and shoved herself upright. Delin almost fell off his stool, startled. He said, “You are better?”
“Yes.” Bramble ran a hand through her hair. Her scalp itched with sweat, and she could tell from the way her shirt stuck unpleasantly to her skin that she had been lying here inert for some time, at least a day. Maybe more than two days. She remembered the Fell. “Did Aldoan figure out how to make the artifact kill the Fell? Did it kill all the Fell? Do the Fell have the artifact? I can tell we’re stopped, are we where we were going,
did you find out?”
Delin buried his face in his hands. “Oh, Bramble, I feared you were lost to us.”
Bramble stared at him, and it dawned on her how exhausted he looked. She remembered again that he wasn’t just a funny-looking Arbora who couldn’t shift. He was a groundling who wouldn’t get stronger as he got older. She pulled him half onto the bench in an awkward hug. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“As if it was your fault.” He pulled away, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “Aldoan is dead. The Fell were all killed, or fled. Vendoin went down with some others in their levitation packs and retrieved the artifact, and Aldoan’s body, but she did not bring back with her the scholar she said they had stopped there to meet. They do not know why the artifact worked; they found it still in Aldoan’s hands, and no marks of injury on her body. We traveled for three days at speed and we stopped here late this afternoon. They asked me to help them make the artifact work, and said if I did not, they would injure you and Merit. I said I would help them.”
“Right.” Bramble took it all in. Aldoan, who had always seemed so uncomfortable with the role of captor, had somehow made the artifact work, and died for it. “Are we near the foundation builder place where the rest of the weapon is supposed to be?”
“We must be, but no one has come to take me there.” Delin lifted his hands. “I am glad of the respite, for time to think of some way out of this.”
Bramble rolled her shoulders, shifted to make certain she could, then shifted back to her soft-skinned form. “We need to go back to the original plan.”
Delin nodded. “Which one was that?”
“The one I didn’t tell you about.” She took a sharp breath. The one that probably wasn’t survivable, at least for her. “The one where you distract the healer, while I get into her room and find a poison.”
The Court of Indigo Cloud
“You promised them what?” Pearl said to Malachite. “Have you lost your mind?”
Ember controlled a wince. He saw Celadon, seated across the hearth, confine her reaction to a blink. Crouched on the fur beside him, Heart let out a near-silent breath that might have been a repressed hiss. Bell twitched and Knell went still. Bone’s sigh was more annoyed than anything else.