Weary past bearing, Moon said, “If you don’t want to stay up here alone, take the spiral stair at the west end of this level all the way down to the greeting hall. The hall just below it belongs to the teachers. They always have food there and they’ll take care of you.” He knew the teachers would take care of Ember, once they got a look at him; they had even taken care of Moon when he had first arrived, an unwanted feral solitary. That seemed like it was half a lifetime ago, not just the better part of a turn.
Ember looked up at him, wary but hopeful. Moon turned away, unable to take it a moment more.
He was in the doorway when Ember said, “Shadow said that I shouldn’t be afraid of you.”
Moon stopped. He had a surge of bitter jealousy for Shadow, secure in his court with more clutches than he could probably remember fathering. He said, “Shadow doesn’t know me.”
He left the bowers, avoiding the common area, finding his way through the back passages and out to the open gallery above the queens’ level and the central well. He shifted and jumped off, snapping his wings out to slow his fall, and landed on the floor of the greeting hall.
A group of warriors, Tempest and Zephyr’s attendants, sat grouped around the hearth basin near the fountain, watching him with wary curiosity. Ignoring them, he took the stairs down to the teachers’ hall. Several Arbora sat around the hearth, but Moon whipped past before anyone could try to speak to him and fled down the passage to the nurseries.
Outside the door with its carvings of fledglings and baby Arbora at play, he stopped and shifted to groundling. It was hard to make himself step through into the room beyond.
Inside was a big low-ceilinged chamber, well-lit, with a maze of smaller rooms opening off the main area, and several shallow fountain pools, each filled just enough to wash and play but not drown in. Most of the younger fledglings and Arbora were still asleep, curled up in nests of furs and blankets on the floor.
Bark crossed the main area, carrying a basket, still mussed with sleep herself. She saw Moon and stopped, staring. “Oh, Moon. I—”
“I need to see the royal clutch.”
She hesitated, but didn’t ask why. The word must have spread last night. “They’re asleep, but—” She bit her lip. “Yes, you’d better.”
She led him to a small room off the main area. The three royal fledglings slept in a pile of blankets, surrounded by baskets, rag toys, and some carved wooden grasseater figures. Bark crouched beside the nest to gently wake the occupants. She separated out two warrior fledglings and an Arbora toddler, gathered them up despite sleepy protests and carried them away.
As she left, Frost, Thorn, and Bitter were sitting up, blinking and yawning. Thorn and Bitter were in their groundling forms, dressed in soft old hand-me-down shirts, and Frost was in her smaller Arbora form, her spines and frills looking oddly abbreviated. They didn’t seem surprised to see Moon despite the early hour, and Bitter immediately tried to climb into his lap and go to sleep again. Moon sat him back down between Frost and Thorn. “I came to tell you that I have to go away for a little while.”
Frost immediately went from soft and drowsy to wide awake and mutinous. “You can’t leave. Who’s going to teach Bitter to fly?”
“I don’t have a choice.” Moon took a deep breath, and forced the sharpness out of his tone. “When Stone comes back, he can teach Bitter.”
There was a short startled silence. Reluctantly, Frost settled her ruffled spines. “Did someone steal the seed again?”
“No, nothing like that.” Everyone else seemed to have forgotten that incident. Or instead of remembering Moon’s place in it as the consort who helped find and retrieve the precious seed, he had somehow morphed into the consort who had just gone along for the flight. “You’ll be fine here.”
He thought he was doing fairly well at keeping his emotions off his face, but Frost exchanged an uneasy look with Bitter. Some communication seemed to pass between them, and Frost turned back to Moon. She said, “If you’ll stay, Bitter will fly.”
Bitter nodded gravely, with the attitude of someone making a terrible sacrifice for the greater good.
Moon rubbed his eyes. Oh fine, Bitter’s been faking it all this time just for attention. You would think, as the smallest royal fledgling, Bitter had more attention than he could handle. But after what Bitter had been through, maybe no amount was enough. And Moon had thought raising fledglings was one of the few Raksuran things he might be good at. “So Bitter has been able to fly all this time.”
Thorn shrugged uneasily and pulled Bitter into his lap. “Yes, but he’s not good at it. The last time he tried, the Fell caught him. We went back to get him, and they caught us too.”
So that explained it. Bitter buried his face against Thorn’s arm. Moon had to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment before he could say, “I appreciate the offer, but I told you, I don’t have a choice.”
Thorn watched Moon carefully, his brow furrowed with increasing concern. He said, “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing. I have to visit another court for a while. I’ll—” Moon meant to say I’ll be back soon but the easy lie froze in his throat. He had been lying all his life, but for some reason the knack had deserted him just when he needed it the most. He finished, “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
Frost shook her head, in denial and protest. “But—”
“That’s all, I have to leave now.” He had to leave before he made a bigger mess of this than he already had. Before he could get up, Bitter lunged into his lap for a hug. So he held each of them for a moment, then made himself get up and leave the nursery.
He took the interior stairs up through the tree, avoiding the populated sections. When he reached the consorts’ level, Chime and Balm were gone from the common area. He wasn’t sure if that was a relief or not.
In his bower, Moon rummaged through the basket for things he would need if the new court took one look at him and threw him out immediately. He found a battered leather travel pack and put in a knife, some flints, spare clothes, the sash Rill had made him, a rolled-up waterskin and a thick blanket. He had arrived at Indigo Cloud with nothing, but he thought fighting the Fell and helping to recover the seed was worth at least this much.
Getting to his feet, he looked around the room. After a moment of arguing with himself, he picked up a tiny rag doll Thorn had made for him. It was just a twist of black cloth with a dried leathery palm leaf for wings, but he put it carefully in the bottom of the pack.
He left his gold consort’s bracelet on the edge of the hearth basin.
Chapter Five
By the time Moon took the interior stairs down to the greeting hall, Tempest and Zephyr had joined their warriors. Jade was there as well, with Balm, Chime, and Heart. A number of Arbora watched from the balconies in the levels above, and warriors hung from every vantage point.
Despite that, it was very quiet in the hall.
As Moon walked toward the queens, Zephyr was saying, “No, I won’t be going to Opal Night. I’m returning to my court.”
Jade tilted her head and fixed her gaze on Tempest. “You’ve kept that to yourself.”
Tempest bristled. “You didn’t ask.”
Jade’s spines rose. “You let me assume you wouldn’t be taking this long journey alone with your warriors. And my consort.”
“You think I’ll take advantage?” Tempest laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
It wasn’t until then that Moon understood what they were talking about. He stopped and folded his arms, growling under his breath. At that moment, if he never saw a Raksuran queen again, it would be too soon.
In the quiet, the growl was perfectly audible. The conversation stopped abruptly and the whole group turned to stare at him.
With a wry tilt to her head, Zephyr said, “Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be a concern.”
Jade dismissed Tempest with a flick of her spines, and crossed the hall to stand in front of Moon. He didn’t think she w
ould notice, but it was the first thing she saw. She lifted his bare wrist and rubbed her thumb over the pulse point. She met his eyes, her expression glum, and said, “If you accept another queen before I get there, I’ll kill you both.”
He freed his wrist. He refused to feel like he was the one rejecting her. “It’s a deal.”
Jade let out a huff of breath, bitterly amused. “That was good. I think you just managed to insult your entire race and culture in one sentence.” She added deliberately, “I’ll leave for Opal Night tomorrow at dawn.”
Moon wanted to believe that so much it made his whole body hurt. But everything in his life up to this point said that this was the end, that he would never see her or any of the others again. Trying to struggle out from under the weight of the past was like drowning. After a strangled moment, he managed to choke out, “I’ll be waiting.”
Jade reached for him impulsively and Moon stepped back. He couldn’t look at her anymore, he couldn’t touch her. He had to be able to walk out of here, and not be dragged out screaming, trying to get his teeth into Tempest’s throat. Jade hesitated, then dropped her hand. “Do you want to say...I mean, talk to anyone?”
She meant say goodbye. Though he refused to look at them, Moon could feel Chime, Balm, and Heart staring at him, but he didn’t see any point to a formal farewell. If Jade was telling the truth, he would be back here soon, and if she wasn’t...He still didn’t see any point to it. “No.”
Tempest and Zephyr moved toward the passage to the knothole, and Moon turned to follow them.
There was still no sound or movement from any of the Arbora or Aeriat watching from above, and the silence burned into Moon’s back as he crossed the hall. He realized a very stupid part of him was hoping someone would yell “Stop!” at the last moment. His throat started to ache, choking him with an urge to do...something. Maybe wail in pain, the way Raksura expressed their grief.
He conquered the impulse, and followed the queens through the passage out of Indigo Cloud.
Zephyr took her warriors away toward Sunset Water, and Moon flew with Tempest and the others through the great green caverns of the suspended forest.
They passed through a light rain at midday, but the wind stayed calm. Tempest kept to an easy pace for the slower-flying warriors’ sake, and following her lead didn’t require much of Moon’s attention. He would have preferred a more difficult trip; the last thing he needed was time to think.
When the day’s light began to fail, Tempest slowed their flight and banked down to a platform high in the branches of a mountain-tree. The platform supported a stand of trees with bright green canopies and white flowers, common to the forest. The Arbora called them puffblossoms, because the flowers dropped their seeds in delicate puffy globes that caught and traveled in the breeze. These were in seed now, and the whole platform was covered in drifts of white fluff.
Tempest and the warriors landed in the high grass at the edge of the stand, their wings stirring up a storm of delicate blossoms. Moon lighted a little distance away, rippling his spines to shake off the puffy seeds and folding his wings.
The others moved into the trees, to a spot where the grass was sparse, and spread out to scout the area. There was a pond there, fed by a fall of water from one of the mountain-tree’s higher branches. Moon turned and walked away from the grove, toward a spot of flat bare moss and hard dirt at the edge of the run-off from the pond.
Across the canyon formed by the enormous canopies, another mountain-tree boasted larger platforms, some with open stretches of grass and others thickly clustered with smaller trees. As Moon focused on it, movement on one of the lower platforms resolved into a herd of furry grasseaters; probably the reason Tempest had picked this place to stop.
He glanced back at the camp. Three of the warriors had shifted to groundling and were sorting through the packs, shaking out blankets, filling a waterskin from the fall into the pond. The two others had kept their winged forms and had taken up guard positions in the puffblossom branches.
Moon didn’t want to shift; he already felt too vulnerable, from the dangers of the suspended forest, from his companions. But his back ached from flying with tense muscles and he needed to rest. Reluctantly, he took his groundling form.
Losing the weight of his wings was a relief, and he stretched until his joints popped, then sat down beside the stream. He wasn’t looking forward to the night. He hoped making it clear that he wanted to be alone would keep the warriors away from him. Of course, beating one or two of them senseless would keep them away from him too, but he didn’t want to give Tempest an excuse to keep him from shifting.
He was watching the multi-colored snails inching along the wood at the water’s edge when he sensed someone approaching. He looked up to see Tempest coming toward him.
Moon tensed, bracing himself to simultaneously shift and leap backward. Tempest stopped, dropped her spines and held up her hands, claws retracted. With an edge of ironic amusement in her voice, she said, “Easy, I just want to talk.”
Moon settled reluctantly, watching her. She came closer, stopped about five paces away and eased down to sit on her heels so they were eye level. She said, with a trace of skepticism, “I find it hard to believe you became that attached to Indigo Cloud in such a short time.”
Moon bared his teeth, not in a smile. “It’s not as exciting as Emerald Twilight. No sister queens plotting to take over the court.”
Her jaw tightened, her spines shivered with the effort not to flare, and she looked away. After a long moment, she let her breath out, and flicked away a drift of puffblossom. “I asked for that.” Her voice was dry. “I’ve paid for it, too. I don’t have so many sisters that I can lose one. Even one who hated me.”
After their trading visit to Emerald Twilight, the warriors and Arbora had brought back a rumor that Ice had tried to exile Halcyon for plotting against Tempest and Ash, Halcyon had refused to go, and Tempest and Halcyon had settled the matter by fighting to the death. Though Moon had felt sorry for Ice and Shadow at the time, overall he thought it was good riddance. He thought Tempest deserved an honest answer as to his feelings now, so he said, “I don’t care.”
It surprised her and she glanced at him, lifting a brow. “You aren’t a shy one, are you.”
Moon just continued to regard her, certain that was probably intended as more of an insult than it sounded. Consorts his age were supposed to be shy and reserved, like Ember. Not sullen and reticent, like him. If Moon was just a little more suspicious, he might wonder if he had been lured out of the court so that Tempest could kill him, as revenge for what had happened with Halcyon. The only reason that wasn’t more than an idle thought was the fact that Tempest could have killed him anytime in the past day, with no one but her warriors the wiser; there was no reason to travel any further.
Apparently expecting more of a response, Tempest snorted in exasperation. “Are you planning to behave this way at Opal Night?”
Meaning she expected him to have to beg to be accepted. Moon knew how that would go. “I’ve lived in a Raksuran court for only six months out of more than forty turns. If you think I’m afraid to be alone, you’re wrong.”
Tempest frowned, the skepticism in her expression gradually giving way to something harder to read. “It’s your birthcourt. It’s the largest court of the far west Reaches. You don’t see this as an opportunity?”
An opportunity for what? He didn’t know why Opal Night had demanded him, except that it was a way to exercise power over another court. If it was so large then it should have no need for extra consorts; if Moon was stuck there, the best he could expect was to be handed off to some unknown queen who was unlikely to consider a former feral solitary as any great prize. The worst...He didn’t know what the worst would be. Though Tempest might. Watching her intently, he said, “Maybe they don’t want a feral solitary in their bloodline.”
Tempest drew back, spines lifting in affront. “What do you mean?”
“They left me t
o die in a forest when I was a fledgling. How do I know they don’t want to finish what they started?”
Tempest hissed, surged to her feet in one fluid motion, spines rigid with contempt. “If you really believe that’s even remotely possible, you know little of us.”
Moon glared up at her. “I think I know too much of you.”
Tempest lashed her tail, crouched and leapt upward. Two strong flaps took her up to one of the mountain-tree’s lower branches. The gust of air stirred by her wings would have knocked Moon over, if he hadn’t braced himself.
From the shelter of the puffblossom trees, the warriors stared.
Moon let out his breath and flicked water over the snails. Apparently he had won; he didn’t feel proud of the victory.
Later, Tempest sent two of the warriors over to the grasseaters grazing on the platforms of the other mountain-tree to take a kill. They divided the meat up among the whole group, and Moon made himself eat, even though he wasn’t hungry. The light rain returned as full darkness fell, and the warriors put up a couple of thin stretches of fabric for a shelter. The cloth was treated with a kind of tree sap to keep the water from soaking through it.
Tempest and her female warriors Beacon and Prize took one tent, with Moon ordered to take the other, with two of the male warriors for company. The fifth warrior was set on watch, the others to trade out with him during the night.
It was full dark by the time Moon ducked into the tent, and the two warriors, Dart and Gust, were already occupying one end of the space. At least he didn’t have to look at them, though the scent of unfamiliar Aeriat put his nerves on edge. He had been too long in Indigo Cloud, where everyone was familiar, even if he didn’t like all of them.