Moon flicked his tail impatiently, scattering the little flying lizards that were trying to settle on it. “‘Can’t?’”
“Uh, shouldn’t and won’t,” Shade clarified. “Not if they won’t talk about it.”
This was frustrating. “I’m your half-clutch-brother, you have to tell me.”
“Where did you get that idea?” Shade’s spines flicked in amusement. Moon glared at him. After a bemused moment, Shade said, “Are you trying to think of a way to make me tell you?”
Shade had been raised by Malachite, there was nothing Moon could do to intimidate him. He tried, “If I guess, will you tell me if I’m right?”
Shade snorted. “No.”
Moon let Shade return to the pond and tried Chime, who didn’t know anything but was at least more supportive.
Moon found him on a balcony that overlooked the greeting hall, with pens, ink stones, and paper spread out around him. He had said he was going to write up an account of their journey to share with Delin, and Delin was off somewhere writing up one to share with Chime. Moon had no idea why they needed two different versions but it seemed to be making both of them happy.
When Moon told Chime his suspicions about Stone and Jade, Chime waved his pen in exasperation. “I noticed that too. It keeps getting worse. I don’t know what it’s about. They didn’t tell you?”
Moon slumped in disappointment. “Stone wouldn’t.” He added, frustrated, “Shade knows, why don’t you know?”
Moon hadn’t meant it seriously. But Chime considered the question, then lifted his brows. “It had to be something that happened in the ruin, right? Lithe and I were in the steering cabin of the giant boat the whole time. But Shade left to help Rorra and the warriors get to Jade.”
He was right. Moon sat up straighter, feeling he was finally close to an answer. “Bramble didn’t know either, and she was on the wind-ship. River knew, but wouldn’t talk, and he was with Jade. So anyone who was with Jade might know.”
“That’s it.” Chime decisively wiped his pen and tucked it away in its case. “Root was with Jade.”
Moon smiled grimly. “Let’s find him.”
All the warriors who had gone on the trip had been told to rest and stay around the court for the next several days, so they knew Root wouldn’t be on patrol or out guarding the hunters. They found him in the third place they looked, hanging around with some of the younger warriors at the fringes of the teachers’ hall, watching the Arbora peel roots for the next meal.
Everyone was talking and busy, but Root saw them and immediately looked guilty, which told Moon they were on the right trail. Moon motioned for Root to come to them, and Root reluctantly pushed to his feet and went to the archway. Moon took Root’s arm and pulled him down the passage into a chamber currently being used to store baskets of root peelings. “We need to talk.”
Root said quickly, “I know I’ve been a bad warrior, and taking it out on everyone.”
It was good that Root had finally come to his senses a little. Maybe the ritual for Song had helped. “Good, but we need to talk to you about something else,” Moon said.
Chime asked, “What happened down in the ruin? After you got there with Shade and Rorra.”
Root seemed uneasy and surprised to be asked, but he said, “You know that Vendoin told them there was a stone plate down there and breaking it would stop the weapon.” Chime motioned impatiently for him to continue. “Rorra had the fire weapon and Jade was helping her point it down where the plate was. The Hians down there heard them, and they told Jade if she didn’t stop the fire weapon, they’d kill you. And she didn’t stop, and they killed you. Or we thought they did.”
Chime turned to Moon, aghast. “Is that what happened?”
“I didn’t make it up,” Root protested.
“We know, just be quiet,” Chime told him.
Moon leaned against the wall, trying to sort out his memories of those moments. Most of it was obscured by a haze of pain. He knew the Hians had been talking, but couldn’t remember the words. “I don’t remember. I was already burned when that happened. Kethel and I knocked the weapon out of the holder it was in, but it was still working.”
“So it was after that.” Chime watched him intently. “Did Lavinat use a fire weapon on you again?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.” He was beginning to understand what had happened, or at least why Jade was acting the way she was. And Stone was right, it was complicated. “Did Stone try to stop Jade?” he asked Root.
“No, nobody did.” Root lifted his shoulders, uncertain. “We didn’t know what to do. It happened so fast, there was no time to think. I was mad because Song died, but the Hians were going to kill everyone in the Reaches and Jade had to let them kill you to stop them.” He met Moon’s gaze, worried. “Are you angry because we didn’t—”
“No.” On impulse, Moon pushed off the wall and pulled him into a hug. It turned out to be the right impulse, because Root wrapped himself around Moon and buried his face in Moon’s shoulder. This also explained the conversation with Malachite, Shade, and Lithe. Jade must have told Malachite, and Pearl, what had happened. Shade hadn’t wanted Malachite to interfere between Moon and Jade, and Malachite had given in to him, but had tried to let Moon know that if he wanted to leave Indigo Cloud, she would make that happen. It was an impressive display of restraint on her part. She must have been . . . And Jade must have been . . . Moon rested his chin on top of Root’s head. What Jade had gone through was terrible. Moon thought how he would feel if their positions were reversed, and his imagination just didn’t want to go there. He didn’t think he would have been strong enough to make the right choice. He said to Chime, “I wish I’d figured this out earlier.”
Chime’s mouth twisted wryly. “Me, too. Right after it happened, I was just—” He waved a hand. “Upset, and then we found out there was a chance you were alive and Jade sent Balm and the others off to the Reaches and she and Stone left with Rorra and Kalam. Everyone was frantic.”
Moon was still reeling. He had thought Jade was angry at him for getting caught, when she must have been blaming herself for his death. “Stone must have realized that she didn’t have a choice.”
Chime nodded slowly, still lost in thought. “Sure, he must have realized it, but . . . Knowing there was no other choice, and living with it are two different things.”
He was right about that. Still clinging to Moon, Root nodded agreement. Moon let his breath out and said, “Stone and Jade need to talk. Jade and I need to talk.”
Moon caught Jade in the greeting hall, where she was watching Bramble and Bone and a group of Arbora talk with Niran, Diar, and the other Golden Islanders. She stood at the outskirts of the group, a restless, unsettled air about her that would have been a clear signal that something was wrong, if everyone hadn’t been so distracted. It was a noisy group, and so no one noticed when Moon stepped up beside her and said, “We need to talk.”
Jade flicked a look at him. “Not now. I have to—”
Moon said, “Now.”
That did it. Jade turned toward him, spines starting to lift. “Or?”
Moon folded his arms. As a former mentor, Chime had been very helpful with suggestions about what options were available if Jade resisted. “Or I’ll ask Malachite and Pearl to arbitrate, with Heart as a witness.”
Jade took a step back, caught by surprise and completely appalled. “You wouldn’t.”
Chime had pointed out that it wasn’t often that a queen and consort’s birthqueens were both available for something like this, so it would be a shame not to at least threaten to take advantage of it. “I would.”
Jade barred her teeth. “Moon—”
“They’ll love it. You know how much they like to help with things like this.” This was pure sarcasm, because settling an emotional dispute was Pearl’s idea of a nightmare and she was bound to offer a lot of extremely bad advice. Malachite wasn’t much better, though she would just endure it stoically and be a hundr
ed times more judgmental.
“I told them what happened,” Jade snapped.
“You didn’t tell me,” Moon countered.
Jade snarled, grabbed his wrist and dragged him down a passage behind the fountain pool. They stopped in one of the unused bowers.
It had a balcony looking down the lower stairwell to the Arbora workrooms, and had probably been left empty because it was too noisy. Moon sat down beside the cold hearth bowl and watched Jade pace and lash her tail. After a couple of circuits of the bower, she calmed down enough to sit down and glare at him. “So talk.”
Moon said, “You need to talk to Stone, because whatever it is you think he thinks, you’re wrong.”
It startled her, which made Moon wonder what else she had expected him to say. She said, “He told you what happened.”
“No, Chime and I had to pry it out of Root.” Jade looked away, her spines making an effort not to show chagrin. “I’m not angry at you. You had no choice. I would have done the same, if it had been me up there and you with the Hians.”
Her expression was skeptical. “You would have?”
“Yes.” That was a lie. He thought he would have tried to think of a way to trick the Hians, delaying while the weapon spread further into the Reaches to touch Indigo Cloud. He might have saved Jade only to return to a colony tree full of corpses. If he had managed to make the right decision, he would have wanted to flee, to never see another Raksura again, but he would have been tied to the court by his clutch. No telling how that would have come out, except badly. “It was the whole Reaches, Jade. I’m not sure the others understood that, not really. If you hadn’t done it, I would have been angry. And dead, because Lavinat would have killed us all.”
She was quiet, watching a tiny red beetle make its way across the floor. “I didn’t understand it, either,” she said finally. “I was furious when we found that first message and realized you and Stone had kept going south, with no idea if you were heading in the right direction or not, knowing there were Fell out there and at least one kethel following you.” She shrugged her spines. “But you found the Hians and got the Arbora back and I wasn’t going to say anything. Then when Lavinat had you, and it was you or the Reaches, that was when I understood it.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “That’s why consorts are kept protected, why they stay in the colonies, so queens won’t have to make that decision.”
Moon put all his conviction into his voice and said, “But it was the right decision.”
Jade hissed a little. “Do you understand how I would feel if you weren’t here to say that?”
“Yes, but I’m here.”
Jade reached over and caught his wrist, and pulled him to her. She held him so tightly his ribs creaked, but her bite on the skin below his ear was gentle. His return bite on the scales just above her collar flange was much harder. Jade twisted and thumped him down on his back, and talking was done for a while.
Jade lay heavily on top of him. She pushed herself up and said, “That was hard. I don’t want to do it again.” She saw his lifted brows and added, “You know I don’t mean the sex.”
Moon rolled over and sat up on one elbow. There was another thing he wanted cleared up and this was a good time to do it. He wanted everything between them, anything that might keep them apart, to be dealt with. “You want me to stay in the court and be a normal consort.”
“No. Normal is one thing you’ll never be.” Jade sighed. “I want you not to get killed. But after everything we’ve done, it seems ridiculous not to make visits to other courts, like Opal Night . . .”
“And to Delin, in the Golden Isles,” Moon added. “And Callumkal said he would come visit and take us to Kedmar.”
“I hate Kish,” Jade groaned. She considered for a moment, then smiled. “Maybe after your clutch with Bramble.”
Moon thought about five little baby Arbora or warriors with Bramble’s curiosity and stubbornness. It would be more than enough to keep him busy. He nudged her foot. “You want to talk to Stone now?”
Jade sighed and pushed herself upright. “Yes.”
Moon found Stone on the consorts’ level and dragged him down to see Jade. The dragging was much easier than it might have been had Stone actually put up any kind of effective resistance, so Moon figured Stone was more than ready to talk.
It was early evening by that point. Moon looked for Chime, and found him sitting out on the big garden platform on the edge of a group of Arbora and Aeriat from both courts, and the Golden Islanders. This platform had a good view of the waterfall that rushed down from the knothole but was far enough away not to be drenched by the spray. Delin sat nearby, sketching furiously, while Bramble told the story of their journey.
“Did it work?” Chime asked, watching him hopefully.
Moon settled into the damp grass beside him. Spark bugs played between the trees of the fruit orchard on the lower part of the platform. “She’s talking to Stone now.” He nudged Chime’s arm. “Thanks for your help.”
Chime leaned over and nipped his shoulder.
Not long after, Jade and Stone came out, and they sat on the grass until the green light started to fail and Pearl sent Knell to tell everyone to come inside.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank Nancy Buchanan for the title of this book, and for continued support through thick and thin. And I want to thank Jennifer Jackson, my agent, for not giving up, and Jeremy Lassen at Night Shade Books, for believing in a weird book about flying lizard people called The Cloud Roads. Thanks also to Janna Silverstein for editorial support and guidance on the Books of the Raksura series, and to Cory Allyn at Skyhorse, and artists Matthew Stewart, Steve Argyle, and Yukari Masuike for the beautiful art and cover design.
And thanks to everyone who offered support and encouragement when I really needed it, especially Troyce Wilson, Beth Loubet, Jessica Reisman, Felicia O’Sullivan, Lisa Gaunt, Megan McIntire, Bill Page, Nora Jemisin, Sharon Shinn, Kate Elliott, and all the people following the Raksura Patreon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martha Wells has written many fantasy novels, including The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, the Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads), the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasy novels, SF novellas (like The Murderbot Diaries series), media tie-ins, short stories, and non-fiction.
Her website is www.marthawells.com.
Martha Wells, The Harbors of the Sun
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