Chime said mournfully, “It might not be.”
Jade sighed, and pulled him close to press her cheek against his. “I know. Don’t say that to the others.”
She drew back and Chime took a sharp breath and nodded. “You’d better rest, too,” he said, and she let him draw her down the deck toward the cabin door.
The Opal Night warriors, led by Rise, had organized a hunt and brought in enough game to feed all the Raksura, so instead of dried meat and bread, Jade and Balm each had half a grasseater. The hides were covered with short sharp hairs, as hard as metal, possibly due to the spiky vegetation the creatures must feed on. Rise cautioned them about it before leaving them to eat in peace on the stern deck.
“They’re very efficient,” Jade commented to Balm, meaning the Opal Night warriors. It had been a couple of turns since she had been at the Opal Night colony, and she had forgotten how they made Indigo Cloud look like a disorganized mess. She tried not to resent it.
“It makes a nice change.” Balm grinned at her. “I could get used to it.”
Jade pushed her over and Balm rolled on the deck. She landed on her back and looked up at the cabin roof. “Root, are you hungry?”
Jade glanced up but Root had already disappeared. “Is he all right?” she asked Balm.
Balm rolled back to a crouch to continue eating. “I don’t know,” she sighed.
After the meal they went down to their sleeping cabin in the hold to rest. After a brief nap, Jade was almost coherent again when the warrior on watch called out, “It’s Malachite!”
Balm was still deeply asleep, and Jade didn’t wake her when she climbed out of the blankets. She leapt up the stairs and stopped at the railing to watch the small shape in the distance grow gradually larger.
Shade, Lithe, Rise and the rest of the Opal Night warriors had gathered by the time Malachite drew near enough to make out detail. Flicker, Shade’s warrior, whispered, “Does she look mad?”
This nonsensical remark was apparently a running joke. Lithe smiled, the other warriors flicked spines in amusement. Shade snorted and gave Flicker a nudge to the shoulder.
Malachite cupped her wings and lit on the railing, compensating for the wind and the speed of the wind-ship with irritating ease. “Did you find the Hians?” Jade asked, as Malachite furled her wings. At least Malachite’s complete indifference to the customs of Raksuran politeness meant Jade didn’t have to waste time greeting her.
“No.” She stepped down to the deck. She glanced in the direction of Shade and the others, not so much a greeting as checking to make sure they were all still alive and present. “But I found something else. You need to come with me.”
CHAPTER SIX
Jade followed Malachite out over the plain, towards the foothills in the distance.
The territory was even more inhospitable, and the occasional groundling canal curved away from this direction. Jade was glad she had had the chance to eat and rest briefly; when Malachite had said to follow her, she had meant now, immediately, and the reason was urgent.
Malachite had said, “I scented Fell. They’ve been following us at a distance, probably all the way from the coast. They’ve dug in around these hills. Once the wind-ship reaches the end of these plains, they’ll move again.”
Jade had squinted into the distance. “How do we approach them?”
Malachite said, “We fly in,” and leapt into the air.
Jade hissed, looked around at Chime, Niran, and the others. They were all staring, startled and uncertain. She said, “Keep moving. We’ll catch up.”
“Take care!” Niran had shouted after her.
Now they came in low to approach the hills at an angle, sweeping across the stretch of dry sandy ground where the land sloped up. “They’ll see us,” Jade called out.
Malachite didn’t respond, and Jade snarled to herself, I suppose that’s the point.
As they crested the top of the first hill, Jade caught a glimpse of a camp nestled below, where dark shapes moved between makeshift shelters. It was such an odd sight, she thought she had imagined it.
Malachite clearly had no intention of being unobserved. She made a slow circle over the encampment as Jade followed her.
The dakti scouts must have seen them but none took to the air. The Fell had dug into the sandy ground between the outcrops in the base of the hills, creating shallow caves and rough lean-tos made of brush. Dakti peered out from around the rocks, and there were three large pale figures just inside the shadow of a cave. Even from this height, they were clearly kethel in their groundling forms. Jade spotted rough fire pits and the outline of a latrine area. Piles of bones lay nearby, but the broken skulls matched those of the grasseaters the Opal Night warriors had hunted in the plain.
It hadn’t been her imagination. It is an encampment, like the Arbora would make, she thought. Not exactly like; Arbora would have arranged it so it was invisible from the air. But this wasn’t something Fell did. Everything in a flight was geared toward the comfort of the rulers and the progenitor. Those shelters and firepits had been built for the dakti and the kethel.
Malachite finished her leisurely pass and slid across the wind, then dropped to land on a flat rock. Jade followed and landed next to her. Malachite furled her wings and just stood there. Jade did the same, and wondered if they were about to be attacked by the entire flight. It would certainly be a dramatic way to die. She doubted Moon and Balm and all the others would see it that way.
Finally Jade had to break the silence. “The kethel dug caves in the sand. I didn’t know Fell did that.” At least one large flight had used a giant sac, made from the kethels’ secretions, as a kind of shelter, but according to Moon, even it had used fragments of stolen groundling-made ships as supports. It was far more common for Fell to use the ruined remnants of other species’ settlements for shelter, usually while feeding on the other species.
“They don’t,” Malachite said.
Jade tightened her jaw. The urge to disturb that impermeable exterior was hard to fight. “So this is the flight of the half-Fell queen. You want to see her. You want to make sure she isn’t one of your consort’s fledglings.” Queens could see bloodline resemblances that were invisible even to other Raksura; Jade had seen the Fellborn queen only once, briefly, and in the dark. She hadn’t noticed any resemblance to Moon or his clutchmate Celadon, or to Shade, but she might have missed it.
Malachite turned to stare down at Jade and whatever temporary amity there had been between them snapped like a cord. It was as if Jade stood out here not with another Raksuran queen, but with a predator, pitiless and filled with silent rage.
Jade didn’t change her expression, didn’t give in to the temptation to snarl or hiss, refused to let her spines flare. You asked for this, she told herself.
A Fell flight had destroyed the eastern branch of Opal Night, killed much of the court, and taken away prisoners for forced breeding. Malachite had destroyed the flight to retrieve them, but not in time to save her consort. She had managed to save Shade and Lithe and the other half-Fell babies. Jade could imagine the thought that she might have missed one, that a fledgling might have been taken away to another Fell flight, would haunt her.
Stone had said that for Malachite that turns-old disaster had happened yesterday, was still happening, would always be happening. Jade should have remembered that. She said, “Moon said the half-Fell queen was young, almost still a fledgling herself. She couldn’t be from your consort’s bloodline.”
Malachite gave no sign that Jade could read, not one spine dip or tail twitch. But suddenly the deadly stillness was gone, and it was like the person poured back into the predator’s shell. Malachite said, “Moon may have been mistaken. He hasn’t had much chance to observe fledgling queens as they mature.”
Jade kept her spines neutral, glad Balm hadn’t been here to see that. She would have heard about it for the rest of her life.
From the camp, two figures leapt into the air, a ruler and a dakt
i. No, not a ruler, Jade thought grimly as the two shapes circled down. A queen.
The Fellborn queen and a dakti landed a dozen paces away, at the edge of the rock. The queen had the Fell crest and the Raksuran spines, but her scales were matte black, like a ruler or a Raksuran consort. Looking closely, Jade saw she had the contrasting color pattern of a queen, but it was in a lighter shade of black, barely visible.
Jade slid a glance at Malachite. She couldn’t see a bloodline resemblance between the Fellborn queen and any of the surviving issue of Dusk, Malachite’s consort. Malachite dipped one spine in a negative, actually making the gesture broad enough for Jade to read. Jade felt all the relief that Malachite wouldn’t show. That’s one less thing to worry about.
There was nothing different about the dakti, at least as far as Jade could see or scent. Dakti were half the size of an adult warrior, with armored plates on their backs and shoulders in place of scales. Their jaws were oddly long with the double row of fangs exposed. This one crouched at the Fellborn queen’s feet, watching them warily. No, it is different, Jade thought. She had never seen a dakti with that much intelligent awareness in its eyes.
“You found us,” the queen said. She spoke Raksuran. Her gaze went from Jade to Malachite and back. “We thought we were hiding.”
Malachite said nothing. Jade set her jaw. She suspected she was going to have to be the one to do all the talking, probably right up until Malachite abruptly decided to change the plan, whatever it was. Jade said, “You followed us here from the sel-Selatra.”
The Fellborn queen dropped her gaze and dragged her foot claws across the rock. The dakti studied them with doubt and suspicion. The queen said, “We were going the same way.”
Jade tilted her head, resisting the urge to show her fangs. “Do you mean to attack us?”
The queen looked up at her, spines flicking. “No.” Then she shifted. Her form flowed into a figure who could have been mistaken for a Raksuran warrior. But her skin was bone white, like the groundling form of a Fell ruler, like Shade, and her dark hair was long and straight. But unlike Shade, there were patches of dark scales on her cheeks, down her neck and shoulders. She still had her frills, but they were heavier than Jade’s, with a texture more like hair. It was like a queen’s Arbora form blended with a ruler’s groundling form. She wore a loose dark tunic, patched and stained around the hem. She said, “Is this what you look like when you change?”
“No,” Jade said.
“Will you show me?”
Jade’s spines wanted to lift and she forced them back into a neutral angle. “No.”
The queen’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
Moon had been right, it was oddly like talking to a fledgling. A frighteningly strong fledgling with dakti and kethel at her call. Jade drew breath to answer, but Malachite said, “Did they name you?”
The Fell queen flinched, staring at Malachite. The dakti edged closer to her knee and its wings fluttered nervously.
Jade stared at Malachite, frowning. The Fell queen acted as if she had forgotten Malachite was there, or somehow never seen her. Jade knew Malachite could make herself so unobtrusive she seemed to disappear. This was the first time it had occurred to her that Malachite might actually be able to effectively disappear, by somehow using the same ability that allowed a queen to connect with her court and to keep any Aeriat and Arbora from shifting. No, that’s not it. The Fellborn queen saw her, I saw her look at Malachite. But had Malachite been able to make the Fellborn queen forget she was there?
Watching Malachite with suspicion now, the Fell queen didn’t answer.
She said, “I’m Malachite of Opal Night. That is Jade of Indigo Cloud. What are you called?”
Jade had a twinge at the idea of Fell knowing her name and her court’s name. Hearing your name spoken by Fell was never a good thing, though concealing it from them was nearly impossible.
The silence held for so long Jade didn’t think the Fellborn queen would answer. Then she said, “Consolation. The . . . The flight doesn’t have a name. Yet.”
Jade’s chest went tight. She threw another glance at Malachite, unable to help herself. Apparently unmoved, Malachite said, “Who gave you that name?”
“The consort. Our consort.” Consolation hesitated. “Is it a good name?”
He loved her, Jade thought, and suppressed a hiss. “Consolation” wasn’t a name for hatred or irony or even wry regret. Jade wanted to ask what the consort’s name was, if he had said what court he came from, but she reminded herself that it was in the past, that he was as dead as the progenitor who had stolen him, and there was nothing they could do about it now. If she thought about what life had been like for him in a Fell flight for who knew how many turns, she wouldn’t be able to keep her temper and somebody was going to die. She couldn’t imagine what Malachite was feeling under her impenetrable expression.
Malachite said, “Yes, it’s a good name. The progenitor let him raise you.”
Consolation drew her foot claws over the rock again. “She had to. The others didn’t know how to take care of me.” She tilted her head to study Malachite. “A mistake. She made mistakes.”
“You killed her,” Malachite said, still even and expressionless. “What about the rulers?”
“I didn’t kill the older ones.” She looked down at the dakti. It grimaced at her. She looked up again and said, “Someone else did that.”
The dakti and kethel, Jade thought. The progenitor had made mistakes all right.
Consolation looked from Jade to Malachite, eyes narrow. “You’re a queen too?” she said.
Startled, Jade realized that she must have been the first Raksuran queen that Consolation had ever seen, that night outside the foundation builder city. That she and Malachite were different enough that it might be confusing to unaccustomed eyes. Malachite said, “Yes.”
Still crouching, the dakti nudged Consolation’s knee. Consolation twitched at the reminder and said, “Why do you want to talk now? You didn’t before.”
Jade countered, “Why are you still following us?”
“Because you’re here.” Consolation seemed to think it was obvious. “Why are you here? Why didn’t you go back to the Reaches? He said the groundlings took a weapon out of the old sea city, is that why?”
Rage burned in Jade’s chest at the reminder that this deceptively naive queen had tried to steal Moon off the sunsailer. Would have stolen him, if River and Rorra hadn’t delayed her long enough for Malachite to arrive.
Malachite said nothing, and Jade forced herself to answer, “That was true.”
Then Malachite said, “They stole two of our Arbora, and two of our groundlings.”
Jade managed to control her reaction down to a tail lash. It couldn’t be a good idea to give that much information to Fell, but Malachite apparently didn’t care.
Consolation frowned at the ground again. “I saw that. Some of that. I didn’t understand it.” The dakti nudged her again and she stepped out of its reach.
“You did understand it,” Malachite said. Her head tilted. “You tried to steal the consort.”
Consolation’s head jerked up to meet her gaze, as if that slight change in tone had been a shout. “Not like that,” she said. She was angry, and the sheer audacity of that made Jade’s fury rise until she could taste blood in her throat. But Consolation said, “We need help. We need someone to tell us things. The young rulers are useless. Our consort died. We need . . .” She looked from Jade to Malachite again, and let the words die away, as if it was just occurring to her that two Raksuran queens might not react well to talk of stealing consorts, whatever the reason. The dakti tugged belatedly on her ankle.
Malachite said, “You wanted a consort to help you rule the flight.”
“There’s a lot I don’t know,” Consolation muttered, and kicked at a drift of sand. She said suddenly, “The other Fell hate us. They want to use us to fight you, like back at the sea city.”
“Where is that flight???
? Jade asked. The last thing they needed was another Fell flight involved in this. “We know you fought them.”
“They’re here somewhere,” Consolation admitted. “Their rulers told the rest of the Fell what happened.” She hesitated, then finished, “The Fell think everything that’s wrong is because of you. That it was all a big trick.” The dakti stared at her in apparent shock. “What?” she asked it. “What do we owe the Fell? They hate us.”
Jade didn’t understand. “What’s all a big trick?”
“Me, and the others.” She indicated the dakti with her foot. Malachite’s gaze went to it and it huddled in on itself, covering its face with a wing. Consolation said, “That it was a trick to make us.”
“A trick,” Malachite repeated. Her spines didn’t move, but it was as if the air around her had gotten colder. Jade’s fangs itched in reaction. For once, she knew what Malachite was thinking. All that pain the Fell had caused, the consorts and Arbora stolen for forced breeding, the courts destroyed, the fate of the crossbred offspring not strong enough to survive. A trick.
Apparently oblivious to Malachite’s reaction, Consolation said, “Making Fell who are part Raksura just gets flights killed, and there’s never any advantage, like was promised.”
“We weren’t the ones who promised them,” Jade said, part of her attention on Malachite. She couldn’t decide if an explosion was imminent or not. She had always thought that Malachite’s self-control was more daunting than her rage, but she might be about to be proved wrong. “Raksura had nothing to do with it.”
Consolation watched them, the breeze stirring her frills, her brow furrowing as if it was just occurring to her that something was wrong. Jade’s jaw hurt from gritting her teeth. She wasn’t certain what Malachite wanted from this meeting, if she was asking the right questions, if there was any point to this. In a small voice, Consolation said, “That’s what they think.”
Jade snarled, mostly at herself. She thought they had heard everything they needed to hear. “We should go.”