“Will a healing sleep help?” Jade said. Moon had been wondering that himself.
It was Chime who answered her this time, and he sounded frightened and miserable. “Not for poison.”
Moon didn’t find any of this very encouraging.
A sudden commotion at the door caused everyone except the queens and Delin to scramble away. Stone stepped into view, picked up Delin by the shoulders and set him aside, and took his place beside Moon. Delin moved to a vantage point near Moon’s feet, and said, “We believe he has been poisoned, but we aren’t sure how, or with what.”
Poisoned, Moon thought. Now he remembered.
Rise’s voice came from the other side of the room. “Umber invited him to his consorts’ hall. They would have had tea, and probably food. But how could that be poisoned?”
“Because someone put poison in it,” Jade snarled. “This was no accident.”
“Would one of the younger consorts do this out of jealousy?” Celadon asked, but she didn’t sound as if she thought it was very likely. “Someone go to Umber, make sure he and the others are well.”
As a warrior pushed through the onlookers and out of the room, Lithe said, “But how would they think of it? And what would they use?”
Another Arbora said, “No one’s ever done anything like this here, not as long as I can remember. Raksura don’t poison each other!”
Moon wrapped his hand around Stone’s wrist. Moving was a huge effort, but talking was worse. He croaked out, “Check the tea in the pot.”
Stone’s gaze snapped to the hearth, then he looked around the room. “There’s no pot here.”
“There was earlier.” Moon was certain now. “It was bitter.” He forced more words out past the pain in his throat. “It’s the only thing I had to eat or drink here today that I didn’t share with someone.”
Stone stared at Moon, realization hardening his expression. “The morning after you were sick the first time. The tea the Arbora left here smelled wrong, so I didn’t use it. I thought it had gone bad.”
Jade hissed in fury. “Who removed the pot?”
“It must have been the Arbora who were watching him.” Celadon’s voice held a suppressed growl. “Find them.”
Pain seized Moon’s stomach again, not a stabbing sensation but a burning one, extending out through his arms and legs, as if tracing the path the poison took through his body. For a time he wasn’t aware of anything else, then someone wiped his face with a cool damp cloth, and made him drink something that tasted pungent and milky. It was like the simple Lithe had given him before, and it eased the pain a little. Then he heard more people enter the room, and voices raised in argument.
He heard Russet say, “It was Moss who tended the bowers today.”
A young male voice answered, sounding confused and taken aback. “No, I did it before they left with Celadon for the groundling city. I was working in the gardens today. You were the only one who came up here.”
Russet was calm. “No, you’re mistaken. I wasn’t up here. You were the only one in the hall.”
“I’m not mistaken,” Moss said, his voice trembling. “I – I—”
“Moss is twenty turns old and barely out of the nurseries.” Celadon cut through the voices raised in protest. “What reason does he have to poison a consort he has never met?”
“What reason does Russet have?” someone countered. “She helped take care of the royal clutches in the nurseries, with Feather and Yarrow, when the Fell attacked.”
Her voice grating with the effort not to growl, Jade said, “So the boy Moss has never met Moon before, but Russet has.”
“And she’s met the Fell,” Chime said, grimly. “Why else would someone do this, unless they were influenced by the Fell?”
Still sounding far too calm, Russet said, “Lithe was the one who gave him a simple.”
Moon managed to get his eyes open. He couldn’t see Russet, who must be standing toward the front of the room. Jade still sat next to him, her claws clenched and her spines raised in impotent fury. Celadon stood just past her, facing the group of Arbora. Her spines shivered and her shoulder muscles bunched, and with a clarity born of the near-death experience he was having, Moon read frustration and a slowly growing, incredulous rage in her body language. Celadon said, “That was two days ago, and Lithe wasn’t born when the Fell attacked. Obviously.” The last word grated like claws on rock.
Stone tilted his head in a way that suggested his patience was about to violently snap. His growl made the floor vibrate as he said, “And I tasted that simple. It was herbs and plant milk, that was all.”
Incredibly, Russet sounded unmoved. “Herbs can be poisonous.”
Jade hissed and surged to her feet. Balm lunged forward and caught her arm.
As Jade wrenched free, Celadon snapped, “Stop!” Jade hesitated, threw a desperate look down at Moon, then stepped back. Balm hissed in relief.
Celadon turned again to the Arbora. “One of the other mentors will look into the minds of Russet and Moss and Lithe, and settle this.”
Still as cool as if Moon wasn’t dying here in the middle of the room, Russet said, “No. I refuse. Why does everyone doubt me?”
Lithe snarled, “I’ll let a mentor—any mentor—look into my mind. I have nothing to hide. What about you, Moss?”
“Me, too.” Moss’s voice trembled, but more with anger than fear. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
Russet said again, “I refuse.”
Moon had to see her. He tried to get his arms to move, to lever himself up, but he felt as if there were rocks piled on his chest. Stone slid an arm under him and pulled him up into a sitting position. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and focused on Russet.
She stood alone against the wall of the bower. The other Arbora had stepped away from her, staring in a mix of bewilderment and growing consternation. Moon gasped, “I know it was you.”
Russet focused on him, and her expression abruptly went from calmly neutral to wildly furious. “I knew you were lying when you said you didn’t remember.”
Jade surged forward again, slamming into Celadon’s shoulder. “What did you give him?”
Lithe stepped toward Russet, her fists knotted. “Tell us! What did you give him?” Russet just stared at her. Lithe bared her teeth, unexpectedly fierce. “I can make you tell me.”
Moon felt Stone tense, felt something in the room change behind him, as if a predator had hidden nearby and had suddenly revealed itself for the kill. He looked around just as Malachite uncoiled like a snake and stood. He had forgotten she was in the room, or she had made him forget. From the shocked silence of the others, he wasn’t the only one.
The warriors and Arbora shrunk away, leaving a clear path to Russet. Russet’s breath caught in her throat and she pressed herself against the wall. Malachite stepped around Moon and Stone, almost delicately. Her partially extended claws clicked against the smooth wood of the floor, the only sound in the room. She moved deliberately toward Russet until she stood barely a pace away.
It was Russet’s turn to tremble, but she couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t look away. Malachite’s tail made one slow, almost languid lash. Moon’s skin went cold, a chill that cut right through the rising heat in his body, as if Malachite had just done something that had drawn all the warmth out of the room.
Malachite said, softly, “What did you put in the tea?”
Eyes wide with terror, Russet whispered, “The hunters killed a tree-asp and brought it back to the larder. There was venom still in the sacs. The first time I tried I didn’t use enough—” She stopped abruptly as two of the mentors jumped up and shoved their way through the other Arbora and ran out of the bower.
Lithe turned away, dumped her satchel to scrabble through the various packets of herbs. She muttered, “I think we can… There’s an antidote but we have to…”
Moon rolled over and curled into Stone’s lap. He didn’t want to hear anymore. Stone patted him on the back and Mo
on concentrated on listening to Stone’s heartbeat and the deep growl vibrating through his chest.
He growled himself when Stone lifted him up. He blinked away pain tears to see the two mentors who had run out were back, huddling with Lithe over a multi-colored concoction in a bowl. It steamed a little in the damp air. They were the only ones here; everyone else had left the bower.
Lithe dipped a cup into the liquid and handed it to Stone, who put it into Moon’s hands and helped him lift it to his lips. The scent that rose from it was like rot, like the simple had been cooked in the body of a dead grasseater, but Moon had just enough sense left to force it down anyway. He gagged once but managed to swallow most of it. Once it was in his throat, it felt cool and smooth, as if he was drinking very fine silk. It soothed his abraded throat, and the sensation continued down into his stomach, the relief so intense he sank back into Stone’s lap and folded up like a sleeping fledgling. He heard Stone ask, “Another dose?”
“No,” Lithe replied. “Too much could hurt him. Let him rest, and we’ll see how he is.”
His head pillowed on Stone’s thigh, Moon mumbled, “Why did she do it? I was lying when I said I remembered her.”
“We don’t know,” Stone said, and ruffled his hair. “Go to sleep.”
Moon opened his eyes sometime later to a fall of dawn light from the opening to the central well. A stir of air carried the damp scent of the waterfall. He was curled in a nest of blankets near the hearth, his clothes were soaked with sweat, and he felt as if he had slept face down in cold mud all night.
Stone lay a short distance away, sprawled on his back and growling faintly in his sleep. They were alone except for an Arbora, an older male with dark copper skin and dark curly hair, who sat on the other side of the hearth. Moon recognized him as one of the mentors who had helped Lithe last night. At least he assumed it was last night. The bedding had been changed and the place cleaned; it smelled of nothing now except the waterfall and the green scents drifting in from the central well.
The Arbora said, “I’m Auburn. How are you feeling?”
Moon croaked, “Hollow.” He had a vague dream-like memory of having to get up in the middle of the night for an urgent visit to the latrine in the bathing room. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience. He still felt like he had lost some important internal organs in the process.
“Ah.” Auburn set a kettle on the heating stones. “I have a tea that should help, very mild. Will you take some?”
Moon started to say yes, then remembered that accepting food from Opal Night Arbora was what got him into this. Auburn seemed to realize that, and said, with a wry smile, “I’ll drink a cup first.”
Moon nodded. Watching Auburn sort pressed leaves into the pot, he asked, “If nobody poisons anybody here, why did you have an antidote to what Russet gave me?”
“We have an antidote to tree-asp stings,” Auburn corrected. “The hunters and soldiers get bitten occasionally. Since you actually had the venom inside you, we had to modify that simple and combine it with something that would protect your stomach and gut while the antidote was working.” He poured the warm water into the pot, and added grimly, “Fortunately, Russet is not a mentor, and didn’t know how to make a truly effective poison from the venom.”
If that wasn’t effective, Moon would have hated to see one that was.
Stone snorted and sat straight up, so suddenly that Auburn flinched. Moon was still too half-conscious to flinch. Stone rubbed his face, and squinted at Moon. “You all right?”
Moon nodded and shrugged. He felt terrible, but he was pretty certain he wasn’t dying anymore. Stone yawned.
It didn’t look like Stone had had a very good night either. Considering the condition Moon had been in, he was glad Stone was the only one to see it besides the mentors. “Where’s Jade and the others?”
Auburn said, “Malachite made everyone leave except your line-grandfather to give us room to work. Lithe and Reed are taking their turn to rest.” He poured a cup of tea, drank it, then poured a second and handed it to Moon. “I’ll go and tell them all you’re awake. I know they’ve been very worried, even after you took a turn for the better last night.”
As Auburn got to his feet and left the bower, Moon sniffed the tea cautiously, then tasted it. It was warm water barely flavored with tea, but when he drank the cup it soothed his dry throat, and his stomach decided it might live after all. “What happened to Russet?” he asked Stone.
“Nothing, yet. They had to wait to see if you recovered.” Stone scratched his head vigorously, still trying to wake himself up. “It’s a bad situation for the whole court.”
Moon refused to feel guilty, or tried to. Every Raksuran court he visited seemed to face trouble because of him, sooner or later. He just hoped nothing had happened to Viridian Sea. And while Tempest’s sister Halcyon had ended up fighting to the death, and he knew warriors were punished with exile and became solitaries, he had never seen or heard of an Arbora doing anything bad enough to warrant any punishment whatsoever. He had never even seen one get the slap to the head usually meted out to warriors for their transgressions. “So… what are they going to do to her?”
Stone gave him a look. “She tried to kill a consort. The only consort left in the reigning queen’s bloodline. What do you think they’re going to do to her?”
Moon wanted nothing more than to crawl back into the blankets and sleep, but there was too much that had to be done.
Auburn returned with Lithe and two more mentors, who came to check Moon over again and to advise that he sleep for the rest of the day. Moon sent them away to tell Malachite that whatever she planned to do with Russet, he wanted to be there, and to tell her he was going back to the groundling city to talk to them again about the Fell unless somebody came up with a better plan.
He had been thinking of Malachite as an enemy. It had finally hit home at some point last night, maybe when she had touched his face, that what Celadon and Umber and everyone else had told him was true. That she might be a powerful ally.
She already meant to stop the Fell. Getting her to stop them before they destroyed Aventera was going to be the problem. Once Moon had that figured out, getting her to let him return to Indigo Cloud with Jade shouldn’t be nearly as difficult. He hoped.
One thing he desperately needed before any of this was a bath, and he was standing under the cool water channel when Chime walked into the bathing room with a bundle under his arm. Chime said, “Good, you really are better. From the message you sent with the Arbora, we thought so, but it’s a relief to see it.”
“Where’s Jade?”
“In the queens’ hall with Malachite. She sent the rest of us back to the flying boat to rest, but she stayed.” He regarded Moon intently. “So… how are you?”
“Fine.” At Chime’s expression, Moon admitted, “Not so good. But we don’t have time.”
Chime hesitated, then clearly decided there was no point in arguing. He put the bundle down on the flat stone table used for drying clothes. “Your mother sent you some gifts. If you don’t take them, she might kill me. I mean, that was just the impression I got.”
Moon stepped out of the pool and dried off. He felt more alert, more able to at least get his eyes all the way open. He hadn’t tried to shift yet, and he still felt too weak to make the effort. He felt too weak to be standing up, actually, and sat down on the edge of the bathing pool. “What did she send?”
Chime opened the bundle and pulled out clothes, laying them out on the drying rock. They were of a very fine material but sturdy, like the cloth Indigo Cloud had made at the old colony. The shirt was black and the pants a dark gray, and there was a belt made of a very soft, dark mottled hide, set with tiny rounds of bone intricately carved into flowers. There was also a long robe, the dark fabric woven in strips of different textures, the collar trimmed with a heavy brocade. It was possibly the most expensive looking garment Moon had ever seen in his life.
Watching Moon’s lack of reaction
, Chime said, “This is nice, and probably meant well, and accepting presents from your birthqueen doesn’t obligate you to anything—”
“It’s all right, Chime,” Moon said, too weary to be really exasperated. “I won’t send them back.”
“Oh, good.” Chime looked relieved. “There was this, too. I think it’s jewelry.” He held out a small packet of silky cloth.
Moon unwrapped the piece. It was a small disk made of ivory, carved into waved lines that in Raksuran art symbolized the wind. The pointed ends all went to the left, which meant it was a west wind. A darker rim of jade had once circled it, but had snapped off halfway around. From that and the rough texture of the back, Moon could tell it had once been part of a larger piece.
Chime leaned over to see, and his brow furrowed in confusion. “It’s broken.”
Moon rubbed his thumb over a reddish stain on the ivory. “That’s blood.”
They looked at each other. Chime said, “Your mother is strange. I think I owe Pearl an apology for all the things I’ve ever thought…” He drew in a sharp breath in realization. “Unless that belonged to…”
“Her consort, my father.” Moon closed his hand over the disk.
Stone and Chime walked Moon to the queens’ hall and stopped outside. Only Opal Night Raksura were to be present for this.
When Moon stepped into the queens’ hall, everyone stared at him. For once he didn’t mind. He had meant to make an entrance this time.
Malachite, with Celadon behind her, sat in the center of the chamber. Around the walls were twenty or so older Arbora, probably the leaders of the castes and all the prominent elders, plus all the mentors Moon had seen last night. Moon recognized Feather, the teacher who had taken care of him before the eastern colony was attacked. Lithe and Auburn were there too, and Moss, the young Arbora male that Russet had accused. A group of warriors sat behind Malachite and Celadon, mostly older females, including Rise. Onyx and her daughter queens and consorts and warriors were conspicuously absent. Moon took that to mean that this was only for the Arbora and the members of Malachite’s bloodline. Everyone was in groundling form, and even Celadon wore her Arbora form. Only Malachite kept her wings.