“Where’s Pearl?” Jade hissed out a sigh and punched the cushions again. “Is anything going on?”
Weirdly, all conflict between Pearl and Jade had ceased as soon as it became clear the clutch was coming to term. Pearl was the court’s reigning queen and Jade’s birthqueen, and they had never gotten along. Apparently queens liked clutches, and liked it when other queens had clutches, but just didn’t care for the actual process of giving birth to them.
Stone checked the teapot and frowned at the contents. He had been born with one eye partially blinded by a white haze across the pupil, so when he frowned, the effect was pronounced. “Pearl’s in her bower, and no, nothing’s going on, unless you want to hear about how Snap thinks he’s tracked down the drain blockage under the latrines below the moss-flower platform.”
Disgruntled was a mild way to describe Jade’s expression. She said, “Have we had any more word from Violet Springflower? Are they coming to us or are we going to have to go to them?”
Stone set the tea pot aside. “Sure, there’s been a dozen courts in and out of here asking for alliances, we just didn’t tell you.”
Jade glared. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
They had gotten word from Sunset Water that a court called Violet Springflower might be interested in an alliance and trade with them. Violet Springflower was rumored to have extensive garden platforms, some of which had been around since before the Great Leaving, when many Raksuran courts had abandoned the Reaches for more open territory. They were certain to have plant varieties that were native to the Reaches that Indigo Cloud needed. Moon said, “There’s plenty of time. It’s too late to plant anything new right now anyway.”
“Violet Springflower is a ridiculous name for a court.” Jade settled back, a grumble of discontent under her breath. “I hate these games. If they want trade, why can’t they just come and ask for it?”
Stone said, “You’re a queen, you tell me.”
Moon rubbed his eyes wearily. He knew Stone was just distracting Jade, giving her something to expend her fluctuating temper on, but it wasn’t helping what was left of his nerves.
It wasn’t Jade’s uncertain temper that was making the whole thing difficult. Moon was pretty certain that if he was the one with babies growing in his stomach, he would be hard to get along with right now too. It was the terror and the protective fury that sat on his chest like a weight when he thought of anything happening to this clutch.
He had thought he had felt protective of the Sky Copper clutch, and of all the children in the Indigo Cloud nurseries, but this was so much more intense. Thinking rationally about it, which wasn’t easy, he knew it would lessen as the children grew older and better able to fend for themselves. At least he hoped it would.
“Moon,” Stone said, and Moon realized Stone had been saying it for several moments, trying to get him to give an opinion on whether queens were arbitrary all the time or just most of it. “What is wrong with you?”
Before Moon could think of an answer that was a good lie, Jade snarled, “He’s nervous about the clutch, what do you think is wrong with him? Leave him alone.”
It must have been obvious from his expression. Stone nudged him and said, “Go take a break. I’ll be here for a while.”
“Yes,” Jade said, “Go tell Balm to come in. I want to talk to someone rational!”
Moon found Balm in her bower, a few levels down in the warriors’ living area. Balm had a very nice bower, with a balcony looking out on the central well, next to a room with a hot bathing pool. This whole cluster of bowers had been claimed by female warriors and the older males like Vine and Sage. From what Moon could tell, they had all sensibly forced the younger males to go live somewhere else.
He knew Balm had gone down here earlier to sleep, but she was sitting on the furs near her hearth bowl, holding a book but not reading it. She looked up when he ducked in.
He said quickly, “Jade wants you to sit with her,” so she wouldn’t think anything was wrong.
Balm rolled the book up and tucked it back into its cover. “How is she?” She was in her groundling form, her build slim but strong, with her skin a dark bronze and her hair curly and honey-colored. Jade and Balm had come from the same clutch, and it had taken Moon a while to see it, but Balm’s sharp features bore a distinct resemblance to Jade’s. In her winged form she had gold scales, close to Pearl’s shade.
“About the same,” Moon told her. “Mad. Stone said he could still hear the babies, and everyone is acting like everything is fine.”
Balm nodded. “How are you?”
Moon shrugged, and said, honestly, “I have no idea. How are you?”
“I didn’t think it would be this … nerve-racking,” Balm admitted. “The Arbora make it look so easy, even when it’s their first time.” She frowned as she got to her feet. “Part of me is excited and can’t wait to see the babies. Another part of me is terrified something will go wrong and I feel like if I have to wait any longer, the top of my head will split. I can’t think about anything else.”
That was a good description of it. Moon didn’t know why everyone didn’t feel that way.
Balm took the direct route up the central well to the queens’ hall, but Moon knew he did need a break. Flying to expend some nervous energy would make him feel better, but he had no intention of leaving the vicinity of the colony, and a few fast loops around the outside of the mountain-tree weren’t very fulfilling. So he went down to the nurseries.
They were deep into the trunk of the mountain-tree, near the teachers’ hall. A maze of well-lit, low-ceilinged chambers, with several shallow fountain pools, now comfortably noisy with Aeriat fledglings and young Arbora and the teachers who took care of them. Moon lay on his back on the floor in the main area and let the babies sit on his chest. It helped a little.
Most of his life had been spent in a state of painful anxiety and tension while trying to appear normal—or whatever passed for normal wherever he currently was—on the surface. Waiting for the clutch to arrive should have been easy, or at least no more nerve-racking than he was normally used to. But this tension was almost unbearable.
The other thing the arrival of the clutch would mean was the formal sealing of Moon’s position in the Indigo Cloud court; he would be as much a member of the court as if he had been born here. It would be a relief to have it settled, since it would make it next to impossible to throw Moon out of the colony, no matter what happened.
Finding out that he came from Opal Night had taken a lot of the sting out of jibes involving feral solitaries and bad bloodlines polluting Indigo Cloud. It had also given him a place to go if for some reason he did get thrown out. His birthqueen Malachite had only grudgingly let Jade have him, and would have taken him back if asked. But Moon had known that if he ever wanted to leave Indigo Cloud, he would never want to see another Raksuran court again.
Maybe the anxiety came from a combination of the waiting and the responsibility that Moon would be under once the fledglings arrived. He ruffled the frill of the Arbora baby that was currently trying to sink her teeth into his collarbone. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want fledglings; in many ways he just wanted them to get here so he could get started raising them.
Maybe he had just used up all his capacity to live with constant anxiety over the turns and he just couldn’t handle it anymore.
Frost leaned over him. “No babies yet?” The little queen was from the royal clutch who had been the only survivors of the Fell attack on the court of Sky Copper. Since arriving at Indigo Cloud, she and her two consort brothers had been the only royal Aeriat in the nurseries. Moon had wondered if she would be jealous of having to share his attention with a new royal clutch, but she seemed mostly interested in whether there would be new consorts as prospective mates for her and queens for Thorn and Bitter.
“Not yet,” Moon told her. “Several more days.”
“That’s what you said last time,” Frost complained. She was in her Arbora form at
the moment, her mane of spines still soft and short.
“That’s because the last time you asked was yesterday.”
Thorn plunked down beside her, and pulled one of the Arbora babies off Moon’s chest and into his own lap. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Moon started to disentangle himself from the other clinging babies. He should get back to the queens’ hall, and he wasn’t sure he was up to an interrogation by the Sky Copper clutch. “This is just how long having a clutch takes.”
“No, I know that.” Thorn was patient with this obtuseness. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Uh.” While Moon was struggling for an answer Bitter sat down next to Thorn. Moon handed him the last baby. He wasn’t sure whether to be honest or not. Maybe not. He didn’t want to bring up the possibility that something might go wrong during the birth. The Sky Copper clutch seemed to be looking forward to it with nothing but happy anticipation and he didn’t want to ruin that. “I don’t know.”
Thorn nodded slowly, as if Moon had said something a great deal more meaningful. He said, “When you figure it out, it won’t be so bad.”
Moon didn’t know how to answer that one. Thorn was by far the most perceptive member of the clutch, though since Bitter still preferred not to speak or fly where anyone else could see him and might be concealing an entire second identity as far as Moon knew, it was hard to tell. Bitter patted his arm sympathetically. Frost, queen-like, just said, “Well, hurry up and get over it, and bring us a new royal clutch.”
Moon went back up to the queens’ hall and found Chime, Root, and Song gathered around the bowl hearth in the sitting area that was usually used for meeting with foreign courts. Many of Jade’s warriors had been lingering up there off and on for news, and to be ready to run errands. Raksuran warriors were all infertile, so babies were more a spectator activity for them.
The queens’ hall was a big chamber, one side open to the colony tree’s central well. There was a fountain against the inner wall that fell down into a shallow pool, and above it a huge sculpture of a queen. Her outspread wings stretched out across the walls to circle the entire hall to finally meet tip to tip. Her scales, set with polished sunstones, glinted faintly in the soft light of shells mounted on the walls. The open gallery of the mostly untenanted consorts’ level looked down over the hall.
Ember, Pearl’s young consort, had just taken a seat with the warriors. As Moon wandered up, Ember pushed a cushion over for him and said, “No news?”
“No. Stone says everything’s still fine, though.” Moon sat down, close enough to feel the heat of the stones in the hearth. The other side effect of waiting with nothing to do was a kind of pointless, causeless exhaustion; he felt as if his muscles should be aching even though he hadn’t actually done anything more physical than climbing or walking up and down the colony.
“I never got a chance to do a queen’s clutching,” Chime said, handing Moon a cup of tea. Chime’s groundling form had dark bronze skin like Moon and flyaway brown hair, and he was Moon’s closest friend in the court. Though he was now a warrior, he had been an Arbora and a mentor before the court had moved to the new colony. Since warriors couldn’t be mentors, he had lost his ability to do magic. It wasn’t something that happened often, Arbora changing suddenly into warriors, but it was apparently a natural response to a failing court, and the old colony had been on its last legs before Moon had arrived. Chime seemed more reconciled to it now, but the change had had some odd effects on him. “Flower talked a lot about what Pearl was like, and said she almost got some permanent scars.”
“It’s the consort’s duty to prevent that,” Ember said. He was still slender, but he had filled out a little and no longer looked like a tall fledgling, too young to be out of the nurseries let alone taken by a reigning queen. His groundling form was a lighter bronze than usual for Indigo Cloud or for Emerald Twilight, where he was from. He also had a sweet nature which was somewhat unusual for the Aeriat of both courts. He added, “Of course, that’s easier said than done.” He reached over and squeezed Moon’s wrist. “I’m sure Jade won’t be like that.”
It was pretty clear that Ember wasn’t sure of that at all, but it wasn’t Jade that Moon was worried about. It wouldn’t be any worse than facing a Fell progenitor, or a crossbreed Fell queen, or his mother.
Moon liked Ember, but the only thing they had in common was that they were both Raksura. Their lives had been so different, they might as well have been different species. Except that Moon could think of several members of different species that he had had a much deeper understanding with.
Song sipped tea and said, “Moon’s not afraid of Jade.” She set her cup down. She had a passing resemblance to Balm, though was much younger. The scar across her throat where she had almost been killed by a Fell was still visible against her dark bronze skin, but it had faded in the past few months. “Moon, what are you afraid of?”
Moon turned his own cup around, looking into the green dregs, debating whether to be honest or not. He finally said, “That something will happen to the clutch.”
Root shook the tea pot and everyone else nodded absently, as if he hadn’t said anything particularly interesting. “Everyone’s afraid of that,” Song said. “I mean, are you afraid of anything? I’ve never seen you seem scared, even of the Fell.”
“I’m afraid of a lot of things, especially the Fell,” Moon said. It was somewhat disconcerting to speak your secret dark fear and have it discarded as inadequate. His fear for the clutch felt overwhelming, and in a completely different category from the more commonplace fears of being eaten.
“Come on, tell us,” Song persisted.
“What is wrong with you today?” Chime asked her, exasperated. He slapped Root’s hand away from the tea pot. “Why are you interrogating the first consort?”
“I’m bored,” Song admitted. “There’s nothing to do but wait.”
“It has been boring lately,” Root seconded, finally leaving the tea pot alone. He had the reddish-brown hair and copper skin common to some of Indigo Cloud’s bloodlines, and the big mouth and lack of discretion that was also sadly common to many of Indigo Cloud’s warriors. “No trading, no exploring, hardly any hunting, and all the Arbora want to talk about is babies. Please Moon, tell us things.”
Chime eyed Root with disfavor. “He’s going to tell you to shut up.”
Fortunately at that moment Bead came out of the passage that led to the main stairwell. She shifted to her groundling form because Moon and Ember were in theirs; this was a basic courtesy in formal situations for Raksuran courts, so engrained everyone but Moon did it without having to think. She asked, “Is Pearl in her bower?”
“Yes, she is,” Ember said, and Moon asked, “What’s wrong?” Because something was obviously wrong. Bead hadn’t stopped to wash the gardening mud off her scales and it had transferred to her kilt and her bare feet.
“Something odd happened outside,” Bead said. Her expression was a combination of worry and excitement. “We think someone’s sent us a message.”
Moon followed with Chime and some of the other warriors as Bead led Pearl and Stone outside to one of the colony tree’s garden platforms. As Moon flew down from the knothole entrance with the others, it hit him how much a relief it was to be outside. The air was fresh from a recent rain that had heightened the tree’s own musky-sweet scent, and his wings felt as if they hadn’t been stretched for a month. Maybe a few fast circuits around the tree’s clearing wouldn’t be as unfulfilling as he thought.
The platforms grew on all the mountain-trees and formed the suspended forest, the multi-leveled midsection of the Reaches, below the overarching canopy but well above the dangers of the forest floor. The trees’ thick branches grew together and intertwined in broad swathes, and collected windblown dirt that eventually grew grasses and small forests, collected water, and became home to a large number of the creatures that lived in the Reaches. Including predators. On the colony tree the multiple levels of p
latforms had been planted as gardens and orchards, fed by the water expelled through the tree’s knothole. The waterfall fell from pools on platform to platform, until it vanished in the mists above the forest floor.
Vine carried Bead, who directed them down toward the platform with the large patches of berry bushes. They landed out towards the edge, where Braid, one of the Arbora hunters, stood holding something that looked like a dead bladder fish. He was surrounded by a group of curious Arbora and warriors.
As they approached, Bead continued her explanation, “We noticed it when it floated up past the groundfruit garden. We thought it was an animal, and we were keeping an eye on it to make sure it didn’t come at us. But then Needle saw it had that tied to it.”
Needle, a young teacher, held up a big leaf rolled and tied with a dried vine, with a purple-blue flower tucked into the knot. “Briar flew out and got it, but she accidentally poked the bladder thing with a claw and all the air came out.”
Stone took the dead bladder fish from Braid and held it up. It was actually several smaller membranes carefully sewn together, like the air bladder ships that the Aventerans used, but much smaller. Moon said, “Which direction did it come from?” Stone handed him the bladder, and he handed it to Chime, who spread it out to examine it.
“Up from below,” Braid said, pointing down. Several of the warriors went to lean over the edge of the platform, but the mist was rising and Moon doubted they would be able to see anything.
“Hmm,” was Pearl’s comment. The reigning queen, she was a head taller than any of the Aeriat. Her scales were brilliant gold, the webbed pattern overlaying them a deep blue. The frilled mane behind her head was bigger than Jade’s, and there were more frills on the tips of her folded wings and on the end of her tail. She wore only jewelry, a broad necklace with gold chains and polished blue stones. She held out a hand and Needle hurriedly put the leaf scroll into it. Pearl briefly examined the flower, then sliced through the vine with her claws and unrolled the leaf. The warriors and Arbora were too respectful of Pearl and her temper to cluster around. But Stone stepped in to look past Pearl’s shoulder and Moon stepped in to look past his.