Rise hesitated, as if there was more she wanted to say but didn’t quite dare, but then she ducked her head. “I’ll tell the reigning queen you’re settled here.”
Moon decided to just ask; the greeting ritual had all gone to piss anyway, and they couldn’t blame him for that. “Rise, are there any other visitors? A group from Indigo Cloud was coming here.”
Rise stared at him, taken aback, but then said, “No, consort, I’m sorry. No one else has come.”
Moon’s throat went tight. He had really been expecting her to say Jade was here, or had been here and been turned away, told to come back later, something.
Confused, Rise added, “But the weather has been terrible for flying for the past few days. If they were coming here they may have been delayed.”
“I’m sure that’s the case,” Tempest said. Her voice was smooth but her spines were quivering in anger. “Thank you.”
Rise nodded, threw another worried look at Moon, and made her way out.
Beacon turned accusingly to Moon. “You spoke to her. Don’t you know—”
“Everybody spoke to her,” he said, and it came out as a growl.
Beacon stepped back, and all the other warriors twitched and stared at him warily. Tempest, in the middle of drawing a breath to speak, stopped and settled her spines. After a moment, she said, “I doubt it will matter. If their queens won’t greet visitors, they can hardly accuse us of rudeness.”
Moon knew he had given away much more than he had meant to. Furious at himself, at Beacon, Tempest, everyone and everything, he went to the front of the room near the hearth and tossed his pack down on the bench that was closest to the side wall. His thoughts were bouncing from Jade lied to me to something happened on the way here and Jade’s dead, with Chime and Balm and whoever else was with her to something happened at the colony before they left and they’re all dead.
An uneasy silence settled over the room.
After a long moment, Beacon cleared her throat and said quietly to Tempest, “So this court really has two dominant bloodlines.”
“I had heard that rumor,” Tempest said. “But I didn’t put much credit in it before now.”
Prize looked at Moon. “If he’s really the only consort from the reigning queen’s last clutch, why didn’t she come out?”
Then Dart said, “She saw him.”
Gust snorted a laugh, as if it was a joke, and Beacon gave him a weary look.
Dart protested, “It’s true. The queen started to come in, saw him, and left.”
The others went quiet. Moon flushed cold, staring at Dart. He said, “You’re lying.”
Dart twitched uneasily, but said, “No. I saw her. She was dark green, that’s all I could tell. She looked right at you.”
Moon turned away and felt every nerve in his body pull as tight as wire.
No one said anything. Tempest stirred uneasily, and said, “Dart, that’s enough.”
In the quiet, Moon heard footsteps coming down the corridor. He hoped for an instant it was Jade, arriving late. Then Rise and several Arbora stepped into the room.
The Arbora carried platters of raw meat and baskets of fruit and bread. The warriors perked up, immediately interested.
The Arbora set the food down near the hearth and one put a kettle on the warming stones, then most withdrew. Rise nodded politely to Tempest and Beacon. There were three Arbora behind her, an older female who stood patiently waiting, and two younger males who craned their necks to see around Rise. They were wearing robes, red-brown and silver gray, probably hastily thrown on over other clothes, if Indigo Cloud’s reaction to unexpected visitors was anything to judge by. One of the younger Arbora spotted Moon and nudged the other with an elbow. They both stared until the older woman glanced at them and hissed. Abashed, both retreated into the passage.
Speaking directly to Tempest again, Rise said, “The reigning queen of our bloodline thought that the consort might be more comfortable in a bower with more privacy.”
Now everyone turned to stare at him. Right, Moon thought, bitterly amused. He could choose between the hospitality of a queen who had been disgusted at the sight of him or Tempest and her noisy, ignorant warriors. He said, “No.”
Tempest turned back to Rise and said, “He thanks the reigning queen for her kind offer, but declines to accept it.”
Rise frowned. The Arbora behind her exchanged looks of consternation. Rise pressed her lips together, obviously struggling with a reply, then finally said, “I see. I will give the queen his answer.”
Rise left and the last three Arbora trailed reluctantly after her. Moon heard them break out into a tense whispered conversation further down the hall, but he couldn’t make out the words. Everyone just stood around uneasily for a moment, then Tempest lowered her spines in resignation. “We’ve food and a dry place to sleep, and hopefully there’s hot water in the bathing room; take advantage of it. We won’t be staying here long if I can avoid it.”
She wasn’t talking to Moon. He went to the bench he had picked out, and lay down on it with his pack under his head and his back to the others. He tried to ignore their quiet talk as they ate, then explored the bathing room and settled for the night. The blankets were soft and smelled of fresh greenery, as if they had been recently aired.
It was a long way here from Indigo Cloud, and there were so many ways for even a queen as used to travel as Jade to get hurt, to get killed. And Jade didn’t know the Reaches anywhere near as well as Tempest, she wouldn’t know where the small obscure courts like Viridian Sea were, wouldn’t know where to go for help and shelter. If she had ever left Indigo Cloud at all.
Torn between despair and fear, if Moon slept at all, it was by accident. He heard every sound the warriors made, every breath, every faint noise from the corridor. At one point he came out of a light doze convinced that someone—something—was out in the passage, standing still and listening. Moon didn’t move, barely breathed, for a long time, stretching every sense. Finally he turned his head toward the doorway, but nothing stood there and no shadow fell across the floor. After a while he heard what might have been a footfall, and gradually the sensation of being watched faded.
It was a relief when he finally felt the sun lift into dawn. He got up and took advantage of the bathing room while Tempest and the warriors were still stirring. It was big enough for three or four times their number, with small pools fed by streams of water channeled down the stone walls, drapes of vines and the pillar-size roots winding between them. Moon picked a pool that had warming stones in it and took his first real bath since they had left Viridian Sea, using a soap that smelled faintly of unfamiliar flowers. He changed into the spare clothes he had brought, which had managed to stay mostly dry in his pack, and washed the others.
When he went back to the main room, the Arbora who had come to the door with Rise had returned, bringing tea and plates of fruit and flatbread. They didn’t stare at Moon the way they had last night, but he caught a few sideways looks from the younger ones.
“Is the daughter queen returned yet?” Beacon asked the older female, who was putting a kettle onto the warming stones of the hearth.
“She should be back sometime today,” the Arbora said, getting to her feet. “We thought she would come last night, but she must have decided not to fly in the storm.” She threw a quick opaque glance at Moon. “I know she would want to be here.”
“Did any visitors come last night, after we arrived?” The question was out before Moon realized he was going to ask it.
The Arbora blinked, surprised, but said readily, “No, no one’s come except you.”
Moon looked away. He hadn’t really expected a different answer.
Tempest sat on one of the benches, her tail folded neatly around her feet, watching them. She had slept in her Arbora form, but had put on her winged form again for the visitors. She said, “I want to see one of the queens, it doesn’t matter which.”
Her tone had an edge to it, and the Arbora woman
looked up, startled. The younger Arbora, waiting beside the door, twitched uneasily, the silk of their robes whispering. Beacon folded her arms and seemed unmoved, but the other warriors radiated discomfort.
Tempest was treading a fine line, risking rudeness to the Arbora and an insult to Opal Night. She kept her spines down, but didn’t soften her voice. She said, “We have long days of travel to return to our court, and I’m anxious to discharge this burden. Will you take that message to your queen, whichever one is most concerned?”
This burden, Moon thought, his mouth twisting sardonically. He tried not to feel rejected by the comment. It wasn’t as if he was fond of Tempest.
The Arbora got to her feet. Moon judged her age as well into maturity, but not near the point where the dark bronze sheen of her skin would begin to gray. Her dark hair was straight and her face round, her features pleasant. She looked Tempest right in the eye and said, “My name is Russet, teacher of Opal Night. I’ll tell our queen what you’ve said, and how you speak of the consort you’re supposedly protecting.”
Moon blinked, caught off guard. Even Tempest looked more surprised than offended.
Arbora had a higher status within the court than warriors, but seeing one actually confront a queen was rare.
Beacon and the other warriors looked equally taken aback. Tempest said, slowly, incredulously, as if she couldn’t believe she was having this conversation, “I meant no disrespect toward the consort.”
Russet’s eyes narrowed. Obviously unconvinced, she inclined her head stiffly to Tempest and walked out, the younger Arbora in the doorway scattering before her.
Tempest sighed, and lowered her brows to give Moon a look that suggested that this was clearly his fault. Moon hissed at her and headed for the back of the main chamber. As he passed Dart, he heard the warrior mutter to Gust, “They’re not going to invite us to eat with them, are they?”
Moon went to stand in front of the opening into the central well. The huge space was lit from high above, the shafts of morning light making the green drapes of vine darker and glinting off the mist from the waterfall. He could see garden terraces a few hundred paces below this level, all heavily planted with bushes, small trees, vines, berry brambles, and the green leafy plants that usually meant belowground root vegetables. The reservoir that caught the waterfall runoff was lined with flat gray stones. Several Arbora walked along it, some of them pausing to pull up basket traps that might be for fish or crustaceans.
Russet’s reaction had confused him. But then Russet was just one Arbora, doing what Arbora did best and reminding the Aeriat to follow their own rules.
Vines rustled as Tempest moved up behind him. Moon felt the back of his neck itch with her proximity, but he didn’t shift. She said, “If they don’t send someone to greet me before the sun reaches noon, we’re leaving.”
Moon’s breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t considered this, that Opal Night’s failure to greet Tempest might negate the whole arrangement. If Tempest took him back to Indigo Cloud, they couldn’t refuse to accept him, could they? If they weren’t all dead, if Jade hadn’t run into disaster on her way here. He said, carefully keeping his voice neutral, “‘We?’”
“Not you,” she said, her voice dry. “If Indigo Cloud refuses to take you back, I’m not getting stuck with you.”
Moon’s whole body went tight, as if somebody had punched him in the heart. Jade’s not coming. Tempest knows she’s not coming.
He flung himself away from the wall, shoved past Tempest, and slammed across the room to the bench where he had left his pack. He didn’t realize he had shifted until he reached for the worn leather and saw the black scales and fully extended claws.
He started for the door and Tempest came from overhead, bounced off a root pillar and landed in front of him. She demanded, “What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving.” You would think it was obvious.
“What? You can’t—” She hissed in disbelief, then said, “Moon, that was a joke.”
Moon lashed his tail, frustrated, furious. It struck him then, the difference between what she had said and what he had somehow heard. But he was too angry for that to make much of a difference. “Get out of my way.”
She growled in exasperation. “You can’t go back to Indigo Cloud! They can’t take you in unless Opal Night formally gives you up—”
“I know that!” He meant to say the words but they came out as a snarl of rage so loud the watching warriors flinched. He hissed in a breath, and forced his voice down to the normal range. “Get out of my way.”
Behind him, stupid Dart said, “He wouldn’t really go solitary—”
“He is a solitary, idiot,” Streak told him. “That’s why this queen doesn’t want him.”
Beacon hissed at them. “Shut up.”
Tempest watched him intently. She knew he was serious now. She thought he was crazy, but she knew he meant every word. She said, “You know I have to stop you.”
Moon could feel her trying to force him to shift to groundling, but that was much harder to do when he was already in this form. Pearl hadn’t been able to make him shift, and Tempest wasn’t nearly so strong. He showed his front row of fangs. “So stop me.”
She grimaced in disbelief. “You won’t fight a queen.”
There was an idea. Fighting to the death with Tempest would solve all his problems. He sneered, “That’s what your dead sister thought.”
Tempest hit him in pure reflex, a backhanded blow that rocked Moon back even though he had been prepared for it. He didn’t give her a chance to think twice. He dropped to grab the kettle from the hearth and flung it into her face. She ducked, the ceramic shattered against the stone doorframe, and she charged him. He fell back, used her own momentum to flip her over his head. She tumbled but rolled to her feet, braced to lunge at him.
The ear-shattering roar from the corridor startled Tempest into bouncing backward and sent Moon leaping up to sink his claws into the wall. The scattered warriors all shifted to groundling and huddled in place.
The consort who stepped into the room was in his winged form, a full head taller than Moon and broader in the shoulders and chest. His spines were flared, his wings partially extended to brush both sides of the wide doorway.
In a level voice that still managed to convey boiling rage, he said, “What is this?”
Uh oh, Moon thought, still breathing hard from the aborted fight.
Moving slowly and carefully, Tempest straightened up and dropped her spines. “It was a misunderstanding.” The consort regarded her for what felt like far too many heartbeats. It seemed evident that he considered that explanation inadequate. Moon wasn’t sure how bad it was for a visiting queen to be caught fighting a consort, especially a consort who didn’t belong to her. From everyone’s reaction, he was guessing it was fairly serious. Tempest added, belatedly, “I thank you for your intervention.”
The consort didn’t react, not with so much as a flick of a spine. After a very long, silent moment, he cocked his head toward Moon. “Get down from there.”
Moon thought about it, but decided he didn’t have much of a choice. After this, Tempest was unlikely to let him provoke her enough to kill him. He dropped to the floor.
He landed two paces away from the consort, who stared down at him. The room was so silent it didn’t sound as if anyone was breathing. Moon realized what the consort was waiting for, and thought, Why not? He had no reason to protect himself and being knocked unconscious would be a relief. He shifted to groundling.
The blood pounding in his temples was suddenly louder, and the room swayed. Moon took a deep breath and stayed on his feet. The cheekbone where Tempest’s first blow had landed was numb and he could feel the skin around his eye swelling. Tempest made a sound, a faint intake of breath; possibly she hadn’t realized how hard she had hit him.
The consort twitched a spine, the only hint of agitation he had shown so far. His gaze moved over Moon from head to toe. Betraying nothing,
he said, “Get your things.”
Well, you got your wish, Moon thought sourly, and looked around for his pack. He was getting thrown out. Leaning over to pick up the fallen pack made him feel less faint but more nauseous. He stumbled a little as he straightened up.
The consort still stared at him. “That’s all you brought?” He turned to Tempest.
Moon didn’t understand what he meant, but she did. She said, stiffly, “He was given the opportunity to bring his belongings. We didn’t—”
“This is all I had to bring,” Moon interrupted. “I came there with nothing. Everything I had were gifts because I was the consort. I’m not their consort anymore.” Sanity was returning like a wash of freezing water. It occurred to him that he had been doing that thing again, pretending not to feel, or pretending the feelings were about something else. Except that he seemed to have lost the knack for it, and instead of remaining safely buried it had all exploded out. He didn’t want to be dead, and he hadn’t wanted Tempest to kill him. But in that moment he had been willing to do anything to stop feeling, to change what was happening, fleeing the colony and becoming a solitary, fighting to the death with a queen, anything. He added, “It wasn’t Tempest’s fault. I made her fight me.”
“No, I—” Tempest began, then stopped, her spines flicking in agitation. Moon realized he had given her an out, that if he took responsibility for the fight, then Opal Night couldn’t blame Emerald Twilight.
The consort hissed, grabbed Moon’s wrist and pulled him out of the room. Out in the passage, several Arbora and warriors waited, listening intently, frozen in consternation. As the consort appeared, they hurriedly cleared a path, some of them climbing right up the walls. The only one Moon recognized was Russet. As they passed her, the consort snapped, “Send for Lithe.”
The consort took the first turn up a ramp that wound deeper into the tree. Moon had assumed he was being thrown out of the court, but this wasn’t the way to the colony’s main entrance. He planted his feet and wrenched his wrist out of the consort’s grip, scales rasping against his groundling skin. The consort turned back, spines lifting. Moon said, “Where are we going?”