The ruler said easily, “How unusual, to see a consort outside a court, only one young queen for protection. So vulnerable.” He was speaking in Kedaic, the way Fell always spoke the language of their prey.
Moon showed his fangs. This close, more sheltered from the wind, the Fell stench was thick. “Free the groundling and you can have me,” he said, not that he thought it would work. Presumably the ruler would realize that Moon hadn’t chased him through the city because he was reluctant to fight.
Celadon’s spines rattled in threat. She said, “Take us both.”
“Perhaps later.” The ruler laughed.
Behind them, Ennia said, “Free the boy, and we will not pursue you. Or you can have trade goods, precious metal. You know how wealthy we are—”
The ruler ignored her. He said to Moon, “You must not be a particularly valued consort, for a queen to use you as bait.”
Celadon hissed, but Moon had heard it too often to be bothered anymore. He made himself look away from the boy, whose gray skin was going white from shock, and focus on the ruler. Moon said, “You had the groundlings fooled until you ran. Your flight will be disappointed. You could have handed this city to them, and instead you’re going to die in it.”
“I told the groundlings nothing but the truth. They have nothing to fear from me.” Fell never admitted to lies, almost as if they thought truth was whatever they said it was; arguing with one about what was true and what wasn’t was as pointless as talking to a well. “And perhaps I have accomplished everything exactly as planned. I am Ivades. What court are you from?”
Celadon flicked a glance at Moon, and answered, “What does it matter to you?”
He’s young, Moon thought suddenly. The question had been too direct, not subtle enough. Young and curious and overconfident, bored with pretending to be a trader among people who had never heard of Fell before and were easy prey. If this flight came from the east, maybe this ruler’s never been this close to a Raksura before, let alone a consort. Surely they could use that, somehow.
Then Ivades said, “Is it perhaps Opal Night?”
Moon went still. Celadon snarled, “How did you know that?”
Ivades’ tail lashed in amusement.
Putting contempt into his voice, Moon told Celadon, “It’s nothing. The groundlings told him about us.”
That had the desired effect. Ivades answered, “We know much about the machinations of the Raksura.” It looked from Celadon to Moon with that unnerving intensity, then its gaze settled on Moon. It was probably trying to affect Moon’s thoughts somehow, the way it could affect a groundling’s, but Moon didn’t feel anything. “We know Opal Night has more in common with us than it will admit.”
Moon had heard this before, and Ivades was nowhere near as frightening as Ranea. “I know—Aeriat Raksura and Fell were once the same species. Is that what you told the groundlings?”
Ivades was clearly enjoying this, though wasn’t distracted enough to loosen his grip on the boy’s throat. “But our relationship with Opal Night is closer than that.”
“It can’t be,” Celadon said.
“But you have Fell children. You are part of us.”
Oh, no, Moon thought, his heart sinking. This was worse than just Fell coming to the Reaches. The dead flight couldn’t have shared that memory. The progenitors and rulers had died without knowing that Malachite would keep their crossbreed children. Celadon demanded, “Who told you that? How did you know?”
Ivades seemed to realize he had said too much. Or perhaps he had said exactly as much as he had meant to. He whipped away, leapt to the top of the railing in a blur of motion, dragging the boy with him.
The groundlings shouted in dismay. Moon and Celadon lunged forward, but Ivades jumped and flung the boy off the balcony. Both vanished.
Then two large dark-clawed hands shot up over the railing. One crushed the Fell ruler, the other carefully held the groundling. Moon hissed in relief as he skidded to a halt. Stone must have been under the balcony the whole time, holding on by his foot-claws.
Moon neatly caught the groundling as Stone released him. The boy was limp but still breathing. Then he backed away as Stone used his now free hand to pull himself up by the balcony railing. Stone leaned forward and slammed the ruler into the paving, once, twice. The third time, the ruler shifted to groundling.
Stone let go and Celadon pounced to pin the battered body to the ground. Stone shifted to his groundling form and hauled himself over the railing to stand on the balcony. Moon said, “So that’s where you were.”
Stone dusted his hands. “I expected the damn thing to come out further down.”
The other Aventerans staggered to their feet, peered out from behind the columns. Moon shifted to groundling so hopefully no one would shoot projectiles at him, and handed off the unconscious boy to the first Aventeran brave enough to come forward.
He went to where Celadon had Ivades pinned to the floor, and crouched about a pace away. In groundling form, Ivades’ skin was white and smooth, his long dark hair a tangled bloody mess. Moon saw his eyelids twitch. “He’s still alive.”
Celadon shook the limp body. “Why do you want the crossbreeds?”
Ivades snarled, but it was weak and breathy. “To eat.”
Ennia and Havram came forward, staring down at the creature. Ennia’s gray skin was pale, and Havram’s face was a mix of fury and chagrin.
Celadon put more pressure on Ivades’ neck. “You can eat anywhere in the Three Worlds. How did you know to come here? How did you find out about Opal Night?”
Ivades made a noise of bitter amusement, choked out dark-colored blood, and died.
Celadon’s warriors had been perched below the balcony with Stone, waiting for a chance at the Fell. There was some hysteria from the Aventerans when they climbed onto the balcony, but a few sharp words from Ennia calmed them down.
As Celadon explained the necessity of removing the ruler’s head and burying it somewhere, Moon went inside to look for the injured groundling boy. He found him in a large sitting room with a colorful mosaic floor, lying on a couch with several groundlings gathered around. A man pressed a cloth to the bleeding scratches on the boy’s neck, and a woman crouched anxiously beside him.
“Is he all right?” Moon asked. The boy blinked up at him, then his eyes widened in recognition. He had been staring at Moon’s face through the entire tense conversation with the ruler, and must have seen enough to recognize him in his other form.
The man who was tending the boy, presumably a healer, eyed him sharply and said, “It depends. Are your claws poisonous?”
Moon set his jaw and managed not to hiss. It was good to know the groundling world hadn’t changed any. “No, and if they were, it wouldn’t matter, because I’m not the one who clawed him.”
The woman said fiercely, “They offered themselves in my son’s place. None of the rest of you did.”
Moon decided Aventeran gratitude was even more uncomfortable than ingratitude, and retreated to the balcony.
Out there, Ivades’ corpse still lay on the paving, but someone had tossed a blanket over it. From the outline, the head was still there. Havram faced Celadon and Stone, while Ennia stood by. Some of the other groundlings gathered at a wary distance, but one stood next to Havram, a young man dressed in the same rich style. This didn’t look good.
His voice tight as wire, Havram said, “Livan is an archimaster. He has never heard of this barbaric practice.”
“Livan has never heard of the Fell.” Celadon’s whole body was tense, her spines trembled with the effort to stay flat, and she looked almost more angry than when facing down the ruler. “So his opinion on the best way to dispose of their remains is irrelevant at best.”
“What?” Moon asked Stone.
In Raksuran, Stone replied wearily, “That’s their magic-maker, here to tell everybody how this is all our fault.”
“What?” Moon repeated.
“Perhaps you should go for now,??
? Ennia told Celadon. “Later, after we speak of this—”
“Just go,” Havram interrupted. “And stop trying to involve us in your disagreements.”
Stone made an exasperated noise. He looked from Celadon to Moon and said, “Have you two seen enough? Are you happy now? Can we leave?”
Moon was more than ready to get out of this place. He was almost as tired of Ennia’s attempts to pretend all was well when she clearly knew better as he was of Havram’s obstinacy.
Celadon growled in her throat. “Yes, we can go.” She stepped over to Ivades, tossed the blanket aside, planted her foot on the corpse and ripped its head off with one twist. She straightened up and said to Ennia and Havram, “The Fell will come. I hope at least some of your people survive.”
They took flight from the balcony, leaping off it to fight the wind.
Celadon guided them over the plateau, out of sight of the city and its patrolling bladder-boats, to one of the flying islands. It was a small one, only a few hundred paces long and wide, and almost buried in wind-blown greenery. There was an old ruin on it, but it was just a few roofless stone walls covered in vines. One side was open to a sheer cliff where the rest of the structure had fallen away when the island had broken apart. Moon wondered if the people of Aventera knew about the stone at the heart of the islands that contained the magic to keep them aloft. He doubted it, since they used the awkward bladder-boats for air travel.
They landed, and the warriors busied themselves finding dry wood for the crude firepit already constructed against the outer wall of the ruin. Apparently this was where Celadon had stayed on her previous visits to the city. One of the warriors told Moon, “There’s a better ruin on one of the other islands, but it has flying snakes.”
Moon nodded absently, then realized that the warrior had been apologizing for the lack of accommodation. Moon had slept in much worse places, but it was always interesting to be treated like a real consort.
Once a fire was built, Celadon sent the warriors away to bury the ruler’s head on the plain and to hunt. Then she sat down beside the hearth with Moon and Stone. She looked weary, dispirited, and worried. To Moon, she said formally, “Thank you for insisting we go to the city again. If we hadn’t, we wouldn’t know...about this.”
Moon shrugged uncomfortably. He wasn’t particularly proud of his performance in the city. He felt it would have turned out better if he had been more persuasive, if he could have given more examples of how the Fell preyed on groundlings. The whole thing had seemed to start out well and then devolve into a disaster almost before he noticed. Not that that’s unusual. But there was nothing they could do about it now. “You were right, about attacking the ruler. You should have gone out first. It wouldn’t have been expecting me to follow you.”
She gestured that away. “That wasn’t your fault. Next time we’ll both know better.” She hesitated. “It’s very odd, to think of fighting Fell with a consort’s help.”
Moon wanted to talk about the more important point. “If Malachite and the warriors killed all the rulers from the flight that attacked the colony in the east...”
Celadon said, “They did. All the rulers would have died, and they must have believed that Malachite also meant to kill the crossbreeds. There is no way another Fell flight could know she took them to the west with her,” she finished, her expression grim. “Someone would have had to tell the Fell afterward. Someone from our court.”
Stone said, “Then it looks like you’ve got a problem.”
Celadon met his gaze. “It wasn’t one of the crossbreeds. If they had heard the Fell speak in their heads, they would have told us.”
“They might not know,” Moon pointed out. “We know the Fell rulers share memories from flight to flight, but we don’t know how they do it. Or if it would work differently between rulers and crossbreed Raksura. Once this flight got close enough, the rulers could have sensed the crossbreeds without them knowing.”
Celadon frowned, thinking it over. “That could be it.”
Stone gave Moon an exasperated look. “That doesn’t explain why the flight came here in the first place.”
“Because they’re Fell.” Celadon gestured impatiently. “They go everywhere looking for groundlings to eat.”
“And they like soft eastern cities best. It’s not like there’s any shortage of groundlings back there.” Stone rubbed his forehead. “I don’t have any answers. I’m just trying to get you to realize these are important questions.”
“Yes. Yes, they are.” She looked away, letting out her breath in a long sigh. “I just don’t know what we should do.”
Neither did Moon.
Stone just groaned under his breath and moved over to lie down on a soft patch of grass. “I need a nap. Wake me when the food gets here.”
Chapter Eleven
Moon and Celadon and her warriors left the flying island at dawn the next morning. Stone stayed behind, telling Celadon that he wanted to scout the area, to try to find the resting site of the Fell flight. Moon just hoped he was careful.
Before they left, Stone took Moon aside to tell him, “You watch your back in that colony. Don’t trust any of those people.”
Fortunately, Celadon didn’t overhear.
It was a bright clear day which made for an uneventful flight, giving Moon plenty of leisure to worry, come up with various plans, and discard them. It was late afternoon by the time they reached the colony and he was no better off than he had been when they started.
But as they came over the ridge and within sight of the lower portion of the split mountain-tree, Moon hissed in surprise. Nestled between the wall and the slanting bulk of the trunk was what appeared at first glance to be a sailing ship out of water. It was a flying boat, a real one, a wind-ship of the Golden Isles.
At first Moon thought he was looking at either the Indala or the Valendera, but it was smaller than either, only fifty or so paces from bow to stern. It was tethered to the rocks and broken pillars below the colony’s landing platform, the long lacquered hull swaying in the wind, the fan-shaped sails furled and folded up into the mast. Several crew members stood on the deck, watching his approach. They were definitely Golden Islanders, all slim, most a little shorter than the average Arbora, with the distinctive golden skin. The sailors wore pants cropped at the knees and loose shirts, with scarves to contain their long white hair.
This had to be Delin’s ship, the one that had traveled with Stone’s group of warriors and Arbora, back from the Golden Isles. But what’s it doing here?
Moon dove for the ship. When he was close enough he tilted his wings to slow down and dropped lightly onto the deck. He furled his wings and shifted to groundling. Before he could speak, Chime darted from the steering cabin and flung himself at Moon.
Moon caught him, stumbled back a step as Chime hugged him tightly enough to stop his breath. “Are you all right?” Moon croaked out, startled. “What happened?”
“Me?” Chime let him go and stepped back, badly flustered. “The warriors here said you were sick!”
“What?” The word must have gotten around that Lithe had been called to help him the night Stone arrived. “I wasn’t sick, I was—” He really didn’t want to explain that right now. “Where’s Jade? What are you doing here?”
“She’s inside the colony, meeting with their queen.” Chime waved his arms. Past him, Moon saw three other familiar faces. In groundling form, Root, Song, and Floret hurried across the deck toward them. “What do you mean, what are we doing here? We came to get you.”
“But Jade sent Stone—”
“Because she couldn’t fly,” Floret said as she reached them. “Then the nice old groundling said he’d take her on this boat—”
“She means Delin,” Chime interposed. “We got here this morning, then the Raksura here wouldn’t tell us where you were, or where Stone was—”
Moon interrupted, “We were with Celadon. Is Jade meeting with Onyx or Malachite?”
“I don’t
know.” Chime looked past him, frowning. Moon glanced back to see that Celadon had followed him down and now stood perched on the railing, shading her eyes to look up at the mast with its fan-folded sails. Her warriors must have gone ahead into the colony. “Who’s Celadon?”
“She’s my clutchmate.”
“Oh,” Chime said, startled and for some reason sounding pleased. “That’s good.” Song and Floret exchanged a relieved look.
Moon was in too much of a hurry to wonder about their odd reaction. “I’ll be back. I need to find Jade.”
He shifted and bounced back to the railing to land next to Celadon. “What is this thing?” she asked, looking down at the Islander crew, who stared at her with equal curiosity.
“Jade’s here.” Moon hoped he sounded mostly calm. “My queen, from Indigo Cloud.”
Celadon quirked her spines, bemused. “She travels on this contraption?”
“Just this time. She couldn’t fly; she was wounded.” Moon crouched and leapt across and down to the landing platform. The entrance doors already stood open, and a few Arbora and warriors gathered there, watching the flying boat as if they wanted to examine it more closely but weren’t certain of their welcome. As they hurriedly made way for Moon, Celadon caught up with him. She said, “I take it her arrival is a good thing.”
He remembered he hadn’t said anything to Celadon about Jade specifically, just that he wanted to leave Opal Night. “Yes.”
She watched him a moment, as if undergoing some inner debate. Abruptly she made a decision. “It’s probably Onyx who agreed to meet her. Come on.”
She led the way from the greeting hall and took the same passage that Rise had shown them when Moon had first arrived. As they passed the big opening into the central garden well, Moon heard voices and caught Jade’s scent just before they reached the queens’ greeting chamber.