Then Kethel said, “Where do they take it?”
Moon glanced up at Stone, who shrugged and looked out over the plain. He read that as Stone not being able to think of any particular objection to sharing this information with the kethel. Moon couldn’t think of any reason not to either. He said, “We don’t know. And we’re not sure if they know. The person who was probably going to help them figure it out died in that river trading town.”
Kethel didn’t respond, but moved to the railing, squinting as the cold wind gusted across the deck.
Chime hunched his shoulders, obviously still uneasy at the kethel’s part in the conversation. He said, “The Hians have to have some idea. They didn’t just head off at random. But if we’re lucky, it’s the wrong idea.”
Kalam said, “Perhaps Vendoin spoke more to Callumkal than she did to you and Bramble. When he wakes—I’m sure he will wake—He can tell us more.”
Faced with Kalam’s hopeful expression, Moon tried to look like he thought this was a real possibility. But he saw Rorra look away toward the rail, her face creased with worry.
It was a relief when Merit and Lithe came out of the belowdecks hatch. At least until Moon saw their expressions.
Chime sat up, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
Merit said, “Lithe and I had a vision.” He glanced at her. “Not a joint one, but still . . .”
Lithe’s expression was distressed. “The details were different, but it was the same central image. Metal buildings on a cold sea, so cold it made ice, like the top of a tall mountain. At least that’s what I thought it was.”
“That’s what you saw before,” Chime said to Merit. “Back home, in the joint vision with Heart and Thistle. Isn’t it?”
Merit nodded. “I thought it was a city. But this time I could tell it was a huge boat, a water ship, like the sunsailer but much bigger.”
Lithe let her breath out. “In those early visions, there was an image of a stone city in the clouds. We think now that was the foundation builder city in the escarpment. The feel of something powerful waiting must have been the artifact.”
“This water ship must be up here somewhere,” Merit added, making a gesture toward the plains below the wind-ship. In the distance, another flock of wingless birds rode the wind. “It must be where the Hians are going.”
Moon pushed to his feet and stepped to the rail. It was cold enough now for frost to collect on the tall grass patchworked across the rocky plain, and it glittered in the sunlight.
They must be approaching the cold sea from the mentors’ visions.
They spotted another ruin in the late afternoon, this one just a huge, partial circle of metal standing on its side, mounted in a stone base, with weather-worn designs embossed into what was left of the rim. It was so tall, the wind-ship could have brushed the top with its hull.
Leaning over the rail, Moon saw where the missing section of the rim had fallen, its outline still visible as a raised sickle-shape in the soil and grass.
“Are you certain that isn’t where they went?” Diar asked. She made a gesture. “It looks strange enough.”
Rorra lowered the distance-glass. “There’s no sign of their craft,” she said, but she didn’t look entirely satisfied with that. She turned away from the rail. “Better have Dranam check the moss again.”
Chime came to stand by Moon, squinting at the structures at the ruin’s feet. “It doesn’t look like it was made by the forerunners. It looks more like that building that was stuck in the middle of the forerunner ruin.”
But Dranam reported that the moss still showed movement, and the wind-ship sailed on. By evening they had seen four more similar ruins off in the distance, but the moss said the Hians had passed them all by.
They spent a chilly night, and finished off the dressed meat that the Opal Night warriors had stored away in the hold. It wasn’t as good as fresh, but the cold had helped keep it from rot. Stone took a portion to the kethel up on the deck. Bramble and some of the groundling crew had made a shelter for it behind the stern cistern, with some blankets and a tarp waterproofed with mountain-tree sap. Kethel seemed bemused by this gesture, but hadn’t hesitated to crawl inside.
As the dawn light gradually grew brighter, Moon got his first glimpse of the cold sea.
It stretched out from a shore concealed under a coating of snow. The low waves carried chunks of ice and had built a white wall along the water’s edge, so tall it was hard to tell if it was made entirely of ice, or if something else lay beneath it. The water washed against small ice-covered islands that spiraled out from the shore in a pattern that didn’t look natural. Moon wondered what the ice and snow concealed, if the islands were pylons for a broken causeway, or foundations for long-gone structures.
In the bow, the freezing wind pulled at Moon’s hair and stole the breath from his lungs. Even without their scales, Raksura weren’t as susceptible to the cold as other soft-skinned groundlings, but he was glad of the Islander shirt over his other clothes. He was used to snow and ice in the valleys and slopes at the top of mountains, not on flat terrain, and the strangeness of it was unnerving. There was no scent of salt in the air, so it must be a freshwater sea.
He heard Jade’s claws scrape the deck behind him. She wrapped her arms around him and he leaned back into her warmth. “Be careful,” she said, “you don’t want to get a lung sickness.”
“I think that’s going to be the least of our problems,” Moon said, keeping his voice low.
Niran stamped out of the hatch, wrapped up in a blanket. He surveyed the cold blue water in horror, muttered a curse, then turned to stamp toward the steering cabin. “Diar!”
They gathered just outside the open wall of the steering cabin, watching Dranam tease more information out of the moss. Chime sat on the deck, helping to hold the chart that Diar was drawing. Kalam and Dranam didn’t seem much bothered except by the wind, but the Golden Islanders were feeling the cold, even bundled up in all their extra clothes. They looked so uncomfortable, River actually stepped back and spread his wings to help block the wind. Delin had tried to come out on deck twice so far, and been unceremoniously bundled back below by the nearest Islander.
Lithe slipped up beside Moon, and he put an arm around her. Rorra shivered, her face pinched with cold, and Moon remembered that her clothes had always been much heavier than the Kish-Jandera’s. She stood next to Stone, leaning on him.
“I wanted to make certain before I told you,” Dranam said, “but the Hians are slowing down. I think we’re only a few hours behind them at most. I can’t be more exact.”
Jade sat on her heels to look and for once Dranam didn’t try to unobtrusively edge away. Jade’s claw tapped the point Diar had marked on the mostly empty chart. “Can you show me how far this is? Compared to how far we’ve come.”
Diar leaned forward to point. “It’s about as far as it was from the ruin to this point here, where that big waterfall was.”
Watching thoughtfully, Stone said, “We can reach that.”
Jade nodded and pushed to her feet. “I think it’s time we flew ahead.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It would be a long flight in cold weather, so they made some quick preparations first. Jade told everyone to eat, so they had some dried fruit and fish paste from the boat’s stores. Moon finished eating before the warriors and went to find his pack where it was stored in the sleeping cabin. He was bringing some food, a knife, a waterskin, flints, and a couple of extra blankets. Rorra was preparing some of the smaller fire weapons for the warriors to carry.
Kalam came in with a small pile of folded cloth. “Moon, please take these with you. For you or the others, or Jade, when she takes her smaller form.”
“Are you sure?” Moon asked, as Kalam sat on the floor beside him. “Don’t you need them?”
Kalam made a negative gesture. “Our clothes are mainly for show. Merit used some pots to make heat in the cabins for the Islanders, and they say they have enough blankets and cl
othing to stay warm.”
If the Raksura had to spend the night on one of those ice islands, more clothing to wrap up in wouldn’t hurt. Moon took the pile to hand out to the warriors, and asked, “Callumkal?”
“I think he’s better.” Kalam smiled a little wryly. “I know I keep saying that, but he swallowed water on his own and squeezed my hand. Ivar-edel thinks the poisons may be wearing off.”
“That’s good.”
They looked at each other for a moment, then Kalam reached over and squeezed Moon’s arm. “Be careful.”
Moon said, “We’ll try.” There wasn’t anything else to say.
Kalam left and Chime, Briar, and Saffron came in to make their own preparations. Bramble followed Jade, saying, “I know I could help. I know all about the Hians now. And I—”
“No,” Jade said. She took Bramble by the shoulders and said, “We don’t know what we’ll find and I don’t want to risk you. It’s bad enough that we have to bring Merit, but we may need both mentors.”
Bramble sagged in defeat. Then Root slammed into the cabin and demanded, “Why not me? I’m a better flyer than Chime, and I’ve been to more places than them.” He made a gesture toward Briar and Saffron. Briar, pulling on a borrowed Jandera jacket, turned and stared at him, startled. Saffron’s expression was already verging on the homicidal.
Chime was more shocked than offended and Bramble snarled. Moon hissed in reflex, too startled to do anything else. Root knew better than to speak to Jade like that.
Jade looked down at Root, her spines starting to spread and lift. Her voice hard, she said, “You’ve got your own behavior to blame for that. I can’t use a warrior who won’t obey.”
“I should be there.” Root barred his teeth. “I want to—”
Jade’s spines flared and she suddenly had Root pinned against the wall beside the door, her hand curled around his throat. He shifted to groundling, staring up at her, his eyes wide.
Briar and Saffron twitched back a step, Bramble flinched, and Chime made a squeak of alarm. Jade ignored them all, and said evenly, “Root, you need to think very carefully about your behavior, because I will not tolerate this.”
After a long moment, Root dropped his gaze and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Jade released her grip and moved back. “Go be sorry somewhere else.”
Root slipped out of the room. Saffron turned and busied herself with her pack while Chime and Briar stared uncomfortably at each other. Moon controlled a surge of fury; it was every Raksura in the eastern Reaches and beyond they were fighting for, but Root didn’t understand that. Maybe it was too much to get his head around and he was using Song as an excuse not to try. Whatever it was, they didn’t have time for it. He asked Jade, “Are you all right?”
She settled her spines. “It’s fine. We need to go.”
They took flight, following Dranam’s directions. As one of the stronger fliers, Moon kept to the back of the group, watching to make sure the warriors didn’t have any trouble with the harsh gusts of wind. He also wanted to keep an eye on the kethel, who trailed them at a distance. In a way it was a relief that it was following them. Moon wouldn’t have wanted to leave it on the boat with the groundlings and Bramble, with only the warriors left behind to guard them.
Before they left, Chime had said, “I’m hoping the Hians just stop out there. Maybe their moss will quit working, or they’re lost and wandering.”
Moon nodded, checking the fastening on his pack. “Sure.”
Chime sighed, his shoulders slumping. “But you don’t think so.”
No, Moon didn’t think so.
Jade had spoken last to Niran, Rorra, and Delin, telling them, “If it happens, if we don’t stop them, I think you’ll know immediately.”
She meant that the Raksura still onboard and the Jandera would drop dead. Moon was trying not to think about that. Just the idea made him want to minutely examine every sensation in his body, wondering if that was it or not. That was a quick way to drive yourself mad.
Delin stepped forward and took her hands, wrapping his soft-skinned fingers around her claws, and looked up at her. He said, “If it happens, we will not stop. We will take the artifact from them and find a way to destroy it.”
Niran had grimly agreed but Rorra had said, “It won’t happen. You’ll catch them.”
Moon hoped she was right.
The wind was rough at first, whisking away any warming effect that the bright sunlight on Moon’s scales might have. Lithe was being carried by Shade and Merit by Briar. Moon hoped they weren’t suffering too much in the cold; being carried was never easy but it was worse in bad weather.
Below them, the icy islands were further apart, but still seemed to form a loose spiral, if Moon wasn’t just seeing a pattern in a random arrangement. If it was really there, maybe the Hians had followed it to their destination, whatever it was.
As they flew, the islands grew more frequent and closer together. The larger ones were still surrounded by ice but shards and slopes of black rock were visible. They looked as cold and inhospitable as it was possible to be, but at least they were a place to land in an emergency.
It was late afternoon when Stone suddenly banked and turned aside. He’s spotted it, Moon thought, his heart starting to pound. Jade signaled the warriors to follow and they curved down toward a cluster of islands. Moon circled once, trying to glimpse what Stone had seen. He couldn’t make out the small flying boat but far ahead, there was a large gray shape on the water.
The others had gathered on an island, the warriors perched on the sharp columns of ice. Stone, shifted to groundling, stood on the gentlest slope with Jade. Moon rode a tricky draft down to the rocks below the slope and scrambled up to join them.
As he shook the icy spray off his wings, Jade said to Stone, “We can’t afford to wait until dark. We have to get closer, see what we’re dealing with.”
Stone squinted into the wind. He wore an extra jacket over his own clothes that Moon recognized as one of Rorra’s. “If we stay low, jump from island to island, we’ll have a better chance of not being seen.”
Moon flinched at a crunch near the waterline, but it was the kethel in groundling form. It climbed up to the rock just below the slope and waited expectantly.
Jade sighed. She told Stone, “You—and that—are the ones the Hians are most likely to spot. You’ll have to go high, up to cloud level, and wait for us to signal you.”
Stone grimaced but didn’t disagree. The kethel said, “Groundlings never think to look up that high.”
Everyone stared at it. Jade’s spines lifted. Moon shared a look with Stone, who sighed and wiped the ice crystals off his face. Jade hissed. “Fine, let’s go.”
A large wave hit the other side of the island and cold water filled with ice flecks rained down.
Bramble leaned on the bow, wrapped in one of Kalam’s extra jackets, trying to urge the wind-ship to go faster. After days and days of being trapped on the flying boat, she found it hard to stay in the cabins. She kept falling asleep and waking in a panic, thinking she was still in a cage. Even though the light woven walls were nothing like the flying boat’s moss, and the scents were all of Raksura and familiar groundlings mixed with their strange kethel companion, it was still uncomfortable. She hoped she could get over it, but until then the deck was better, even with cold sharp wind and the strange icy sea.
She was so lost in her own thoughts it took her a long moment to realize that Root stood nearby. She slid a look at him, not pleased to see him. She was furious at the way he had spoken to Jade.
Trying to change a queen’s mind about something was one thing; it was practically an Arbora’s duty. But for a warrior to challenge a queen, and at a time like this . . .
She knew he was upset about Song. But so was everyone else.
As if her simmering anger had actually penetrated his thick skull, he said, “Are you mad at me?”
“Yes,” Bramble snapped. “People die, Root, and sometimes
it’s like losing a limb. It always hurts and you never forget.” As if any of them had ever forgotten about Petal and Shell and Branch and all the others killed in the Fell attack on the eastern colony. “But the court has to come first. We’re fighting for all the courts in the Reaches and the east, and a bunch of Jandera groundlings in Kish, though none of them know it. If you can’t understand that, then you’re useless and you should fly off and become a solitary.”
There was a long silence, then Root said, “They don’t care because Song argued with Jade—You and Merit ripped her up because—”
Bramble turned on him with a snarl. He flared his spines. She took a deliberate step closer and said, coldly, “Think twice about that.”
A fight between them would be a disaster. Bramble didn’t want to think about what it would do to Jade, who would have to take the responsibility with Pearl. Stone would never speak to Bramble again. The entire court would be upset and there was no way she would be allowed to clutch with Moon. But Bramble had been helpless and poisoned and frightened for days and if Root touched her it would be a fight she intended to win.
A thump on the deck made them both twitch, then someone said, “Just what the shit is going on here?”
Root fell back a step and Bramble hissed out a breath. It was Spark, a female Opal Night warrior, and Flicker, Shade’s favorite. Spark stepped up to Root. She was bigger than he was, Balm’s size, and muscular across the shoulders in a way that seemed to follow the Opal Night bloodline.
Root barred his teeth at her, but his spines quivered with the urge to drop. “It’s none of your concern. We’re not part of your court.”
Spark tilted her head. “Oh, it is my concern. If you saw a belligerent warrior threatening an Arbora, you’d just stand there and watch?”
Flicker took Bramble’s wrist and tugged her over to his side. Flicker said, “We just chased the groundlings that stole her all across the Three Worlds, and you want to hurt her?”