The room was better lit than it had been that first night, glowing stones catching highlights in the carved images of the warriors and the queen arching across the ceiling. But all Moon could see was Jade, with Balm, seated across from Onyx and an array of Opal Night daughter queens and warriors.
Balm saw him first. At her startled intake of breath, everyone looked up.
Jade whipped around, then pushed to her feet. Her gaze went from Moon to Celadon, and her spines started to lift. Celadon’s started to lift in response.
It finally dawned on Moon why Chime and the other warriors had been so disturbed to see him with another queen. Exasperated, he said, “She’s my clutchmate.”
Jade’s spines froze. She looked from Celadon to Moon again, searching for that bloodline resemblance that only queens could see. The hard line of her jaw softened and her spines lowered. Celadon lowered her spines in response, with a tail twitch of amusement. She said, “I’m Celadon, daughter queen to Malachite of Opal Night.”
Jade said, “Jade, sister queen of Indigo Cloud.” Then she added, “I would like to speak to my consort in private.”
Onyx’s spines and tail twitched with irritation at the interruption. “He is no longer your consort.”
Jade’s lip curled, but before she could respond, Celadon said to Onyx, “And he’s not yours to order.” She glanced at Moon, then inclined her head to Jade. “Come to our consorts’ hall and you can speak to him there.”
Onyx lashed her tail but didn’t object.
Balm stood to accompany them, and gave Moon’s wrist a quick squeeze as she stepped past him. They followed the two queens through the empty passages, and Moon realized he had no idea what he was going to say to Jade, or what Jade was going to say to him.
“I’m surprised Onyx greeted you,” Celadon said to Jade. Moon was surprised, too. Jade had managed a bigger dent in Opal Night’s impenetrable surface than Tempest had, and in much less time. Celadon continued, “Onyx hasn’t wanted to involve herself in... this situation. She refused to greet the Emerald Twilight queen who brought Moon.”
“I think it was our flying boat,” Jade answered with a trace of wryness. “She was so curious, she had to ask about it.”
A few Arbora lurked in the passage, but the consorts’ hall itself was empty. Celadon told Moon, “I have to tell Malachite what we discovered in the city.” She glanced at Jade. “Don’t be long.”
Jade gave Celadon a nod and a noncommittal expression. Balm followed her out, and Moon found himself facing Jade. His heart pounded so hard he knew she could hear it.
Her expression was worried, the small blue scales above her brow furrowed with concern. “They said you were ill.”
He shook his head. “I just didn’t eat or sleep much for a while and it caught up with me.”
She lifted her brows. “Didn’t eat or sleep?”
“It was an accident.” He hoped that was the last time he had to explain that to anyone. “Stone said you were hurt, fighting a snatcher. Did your wing heal?”
“It’s fine now.” She shrugged the joint to demonstrate, but bit her lip as if holding back a wince.
“Let me see.”
She turned, and he stepped close to look, lifting her frills and flattened spines out of the way. The heavy joint that attached the folded weight of the wing to her back was lumpy instead of smooth and felt a little too warm, though the scales weren’t broken. She must have shifted back to her winged form too soon. He touched the lumpy spot carefully. “It’s still swollen along the bone here.”
Jade turned her head so he could see her profile. She was looking down, eyes hooded by the edge of the feathery protective membrane that substituted for eyelashes in the shifted form. “It was stupid. I let the thing get too close.”
Her voice sounded even, but he sensed the tension in her body, humming through her scales. He had missed Jade with his heart and every other part of him, but it hadn’t occurred to him that she might have missed him the same way. And if he stayed where he was a moment more, they might end up wrapped together on the floor, no matter what Celadon and his Arbora chaperones thought.
As attractive as that possibility sounded, he suspected it wouldn’t help the situation with Malachite any.
When Jade reached up to touch his hand, he dropped her frills and stepped back. “Were the hunters all right?” His voice came out mostly even.
Jade turned slowly, watching him. “Yes. Frightened, but hopefully they’ve learned to be more careful.” She looked down, still worried. “So... do you like your birthcourt?”
“No. Some of them. I don’t know.” He didn’t mean to say it, but the words came out anyway. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
Jade didn’t seem surprised by that revelation, or angry, or anything that he expected. She sighed, her expression turning unhappy and resigned. “I know. That’s why I was so anxious to get here. Before she died, Flower told me you didn’t really trust us yet, that you were just... playing along. She said every time we proved to you that you could trust us was important, but that it would take a long time to make a real difference. She said it might be turns before you really saw yourself as one of us.”
“I thought I was...” Moon had to stop and clear his throat. It was brutally hard to be honest about this. “I thought I’d gotten better at it.” He was starting to realize that maybe he didn’t actually know the difference between trusting people and just pretending to trust them while bracing for the betrayal.
Jade smiled a little. “I think you have.” She shook her frills, as if shaking off the uncomfortable subject. “We had a plan to steal you. I take it that’s not necessary?”
Moon’s jaw dropped. “To steal me?”
“Yes. Delin volunteered to help, so it involved sending the flying boat off in one direction to distract them. We meant for Stone to have a part in it too, but I wasn’t sure where he was or if he’d managed to see you.”
Moon couldn’t believe she was serious, except apparently she was. “It sounds complicated.”
“Well, I had several days to come up with it, sitting around on the boat. And Chime and Balm made a lot of suggestions. It may have gotten a little out of hand,” she admitted.
“Is that why you sent Stone on ahead?”
“No. I was afraid that if I was too late, you’d give up and leave.”
So she had seen that, too. Moon was torn between relief that he didn’t have to conceal it or find a way to tell her, and guilt for feeling it in the first place.
Watching his expression carefully, Jade nodded to herself. “I didn’t think another court would understand that you aren’t like an ordinary consort. You wouldn’t be afraid to just fly away on your own, leave the Reaches behind.” She settled her spines again. “In one way it was a relief. I knew they couldn’t treat you too badly, or you’d just leave. But if you did, I had no idea where you’d go, or how I’d find you.”
He took a deep breath. “I thought about it. But I didn’t want to give up, just yet.”
“Well, that’s good.” Jade’s tail moved restlessly, betraying her nerves.
“How are Frost and Thorn and Bitter?” Moon asked, because he wanted to know and it was a less fraught subject. “Did Frost make trouble?” The last time Moon had left for any length of time, Frost had kept the nurseries in chaos with dire predictions.
Jade said, “She did at first, but I told her that another queen had stolen you and I was going to fight her for you, and she was happy with that. Thorn and Bitter seemed to be withholding their approval until I actually brought you back.” She added, “Your birthqueen hasn’t met with me yet, but your clutchmate seems reasonable. Have they tried to make you accept another queen?”
“No.” Moon absently scratched the back of his head, still trying to get his mind around the fact that Jade had come up with an elaborate plan to rescue him. “I don’t think they’ve thought that far ahead. They just keep saying they wanted to see me.”
“What
a strange thing to say.” Jade mocked him gently.
Moon heard someone rustle outside in the hall, and remembered they didn’t have much time. “I need to tell you what’s going on here.”
She frowned. “That sounds ominous.”
“It is.”
They sat down on the furs, and he told her about the crossbreeds, the Fell, and what the ruler in Aventera had said.
Jade listened with growing consternation. “I can’t believe your birthqueen kept the crossbreeds. I can’t believe she managed to get the court to accept them. She must be... very strong-willed.”
Moon agreed. “That’s one word for it.”
“But if the Fell can hear them...”
“If they can, I don’t think it’s on purpose.” Jade gave him a look, and he said, “I know, but...” He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I don’t know. The point is, we have to stop the Fell here. If they take Aventera, they’ll head into the Reaches.”
“Yes, but I can’t bring the court into this. There’s just not enough of us to fight off another Fell flight, even if we’re acting in concert with another court. We can’t afford to lose more warriors. We’re barely large enough to survive as it is.” She made an annoyed gesture. “Please don’t repeat that to your clutchmate or your birthqueen. I’m going to have trouble enough getting you back without them thinking they’re sending you off to starve.”
He hissed in annoyance. “Of course I won’t repeat that. And the court won’t starve. I can bring in enough game to feed a lot of Raksura.” And Ember can’t, he didn’t add. He didn’t want to mention Ember, since Jade hadn’t, but the other consort’s presence in Indigo Cloud was hanging on him like a weight. There was something else he had to mention, though. “So you still want me back, even though I have half-Fell relatives?”
“It’s not your half, that’s all that matters.” Distracted, Jade tapped her claws on the wooden floor. “I have an idea.”
That was a relief. “What?”
She hesitated. “I’d better save it for the meeting with your birthqueen.”
Before he could press her to tell him, Balm stepped into the doorway and cleared her throat. She said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a warrior here who says if you want to speak further to Onyx, you need to go now.”
Jade’s spines twitched in annoyance. She told Moon, “Better warn Delin about the Fell.”
Moon agreed, still reluctant, and Jade and Balm left to return to the awkward meeting with Onyx. Moon wondered if Celadon would help Jade or argue against her, or just stay neutral. He still wasn’t sure how Celadon felt toward him, or how he felt toward her.
As soon as the queens had gone, Russet and a few other Arbora came in. Russet said, “Would you like something to eat? Or perhaps to rest?”
Moon was beginning to share Stone’s opinion of interfering Arbora. He said, “No,” and walked out before they could argue with him.
Moon returned to the colony’s main entrance. The flying boat still had an audience, the Arbora sitting on the rocks below it and the warriors clinging to the crags of the ridge or lying on the broad branches of the slanted mountain-tree. Ignoring them, Moon shifted and reached the ship’s rail with a couple of bounds.
Chime and the others were still out on deck, and now Delin was with them. As Moon landed and shifted back to his groundling form, Delin came forward eagerly. “So you are well! When we arrived at Indigo Cloud and heard you had been carried off, we were very worried.”
Delin was elderly but had all the determination and stubbornness of his grandson Niran, and that was saying something. His hair, beard, and mustache were silky white, a contrast against gold skin weathered by many long voyages on his family’s wind-ships. He had a pad of paper tucked under one arm, with a half-completed sketch of Opal Night’s split mountain-tree and the wall and valley. “I’m glad you’re here,” Moon said, and was a little surprised to discover how much he meant it. It would be a relief to have someone around who understood about Raksura but wasn’t one. “Can we talk somewhere?” Delin also knew a great deal about the Fell from an Islander scholar who had made a study of predators. That particular scholar hadn’t survived his obsession with various groundling-eating species, but he had passed along a lot of his knowledge before he died.
Delin eyed him sharply, then motioned for him to follow. “This way.”
As Delin led them across the deck, Chime asked anxiously, “Did you see Jade? What did—Uh, I mean, how did—”
“It’s fine.” Moon hoped that was enough of an answer for now. “She’s trying to talk to them about getting me back.” He had to add, “So the plan to steal me is off for now.”
Chime twitched, embarrassed. “Oh, she told you about that.”
“It was a good plan,” Song said from behind them. “It’s almost a shame to give it up.”
Delin took them down the hatch near the deck’s steering cabin, into the ship’s hold. There were multiple chambers down here, and cargo space for storing water jars and food. They went from the passage into a long room the ship’s crew used for eating. There was a low table down the center with stools, and in an attached cubby was a small metal cooking stove carefully insulated from the wooden floor and walls with thin sheets of slate.
Delin chased out two women who were talking at the table and a man who was chopping up root vegetables, then gestured for the Raksura to sit. In Raksuran, he said to Moon, “I have been learning your language, somewhat.” His accent was terrible, but he managed to make the words understandable; Moon was impressed. “But if it is a complicated subject, we should perhaps speak in Altanic.”
“Wait,” Chime said. He jerked his head significantly toward Root. “Is it private? You know what he’s like.”
Root hissed at Chime. “I won’t tell anyone.” He turned to Moon in appeal. “Don’t make me leave! We’ve been wondering what happened to you, and if you were all right, and—”
“Root, you can stay.” The problem was that Chime was right; Root did have a tendency to blurt out whatever was on the top of his mind. And he also had a tendency to say things that were true but that no one particularly wanted said aloud. “Just don’t say anything in front of anyone from Opal Night. I don’t want them to know I told you.”
Root nodded, solemn and serious. “I won’t.”
Song pressed Root’s hand. “Just don’t say anything.”
Moon turned to Delin. “There’s a part of this story that other Raksuran courts can’t know. Will you promise not to tell anyone about it?”
Delin considered this seriously. “What I learn I put into my books. But they are written in the old language of the Golden Isles, and not a trade language. If it is nothing that directly affects my people, I will give my bond not to speak of it to any Raksura, excepting yourselves.”
Moon thought that was good enough. He told the story again, the same way he had told Jade, leaving out any of his personal feelings, or trying to. When he was finished, Delin looked thoughtful and all the Raksura aghast.
“They kept the crossbreeds?” Horrified, Floret spoke for all of them. “Why? Why would they even...? How could they think...?”
“I don’t know, but they did.” Moon rubbed his eyes wearily. He had eaten with Celadon and the warriors before they left the flying island this morning, and it hadn’t been a particularly tiring flight, but the conversation with Jade had left him emotionally raw.
“And one is even a mentor?” Chime clutched his temples, as if thinking about it hurt his head. “They were raised as Raksura, so they act like Raksura.”
“Would that work?” Song said, incredulous. Root was obeying the injunction not to talk, but was listening intently. Probably committing everything everyone said to memory to remind them of it later.
“Apparently it did.” Chime shook his head.
“But how?” Floret still sounded horrified. “It’s not like you could take a groundling baby and raise it as a Raksura. It couldn’t shift—”
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“But it would speak Raksuran,” Moon interrupted, tired of hearing about it, “and it would know what you mean when you flick your spines or move your tails, and know all your stories, and how to act. It would do everything you do except shift. It would be more Raksuran than me.”
“Well, yes, but...” Floret frowned, confused and upset. “Let me think about it.”
Song said, reluctantly, “But it wasn’t a good idea in the end, was it? If the Fell can hear what the crossbreeds think, even if the crossbreeds don’t know about it like you and the daughter queen believe, that’s bad, very bad. We don’t know how much the Fell can find out from them.”
Chime turned to Delin. “What do you think?”
Delin had been lost in thought through the entire conversation. “I wonder where the Fell got the idea to make crossbreeds.”
Chime said, puzzled, “What do you mean?”
Moon said, “Malachite said the Opal Night mentors were trying to find out why the Fell wanted crossbreeds, but there was nothing in the histories about it.”
Delin said, “The one thing we know, that almost everyone knows, about the Fell is that they are parasites. They take everything from other species. They descend on a city or dwelling place, kill and eat the inhabitants, steal their clothing, their treasures, live in the ruins of their homes, until they grow bored and hungry and move on. They make nothing of their own. No one has ever found any evidence that they even write down their own language, or keep any kind of histories. Perhaps not even oral histories. The scholar Venar-Inram-Alil was a great fool in some ways, but he traveled a long distance to talk to survivors of Fell attacks, and to look at the remains of the places they lived, and he believed they were creatures of the moment, like animals, who thought little or nothing of their past or future.” He spread his hands. “Where would such creatures get so radical a notion, to not only crossbreed with their most deadly enemies, distant relations or not, but to keep the children alive and raise them.” He leaned his elbows on the table. “It doesn’t surprise me that Raksura re-captured the crossbred children and raised them as their own; it astonishes me that Fell thought to create them in the first place.”