By the time she landed all the queens were alert, the consorts and warriors startled and a little wary. Tempest’s spines twitched in agitation.
Ash stopped in front of Jade, spines aggressively lifted. “I’m Ash.”
Jade regarded her steadily. “And why should I care?”
Ash bared her teeth. “I spoke to your consort in the greeting hall. I said I thought he was a pretty thing and was surprised that you left him unprotected among us. But then I found out you were desperate enough to take a solitary.”
Moon didn’t move, though he dearly wanted to jump right off the platform, whether he could shift or not. The greeting hall had seemed private compared to this, with the queens and consorts staring and the sound dying away above and below as the rest of the court gradually realized something awkward was happening.
With unstudied calm, Jade sipped tea and set the cup aside, her extended claws clicking against the pottery. “Your bitter envy of my fortunate choice of consort is your shame, not mine.”
Ash snarled. “Your consort offered to fight me. If you aren’t afraid—”
Jade shoved to her feet and shifted to her winged form in a blur of motion. Moon rolled away and landed in a crouch, braced to shift and leap. Jade halted barely a pace from Ash, spines flared. Ash jerked back in reflex, but all Jade did was say, “I accept your challenge.”
Ash growled, but it was unconvincing; she had given ground by flinching away. Trying to make up for it, she looked at Moon and said, “When I win, maybe I’ll take you.”
Moon bared his teeth. “If you win, I’ll eat your guts.”
Ash stared at him, incredulous. Jade said, with deceptive mildness, “That’s not an idle threat.” She flicked her spines. “Do you mean to fight me now or at some undetermined point in the future?”
Tempest’s deep-voiced snarl cut across Ash’s reply. “Settle this outside.”
For a long frozen moment, the two queens didn’t move. Jade stood like a statue, a coiled threat. Ash was breathing hard and, Moon realized suddenly, struggling to keep her spines flared. Maybe she hadn’t realized Jade was older. Or used to facing down Pearl, he thought.
Then Ash stepped back, spines quivering. She said, “Outside, then.”
Jade eyed her, then turned deliberately and stepped to the edge of the platform. Collecting Moon with a glance, she jumped off into the well.
Moon shifted and jumped after her. Three platforms down she dropped onto the balcony where Chime, Balm, and the others sat. Moon didn’t stop, spiraling down toward the bottom of the well. At least Ash had waited until they were finished eating.
Jade must have only spoken briefly to the warriors, because she landed just a moment after Moon. She started immediately for the archway that led out of the well. The tilt of her spines said she was furious, and he was starting to feel a burning resentment of his own. This is not my fault.
Moon followed her into a wide foyer, where several passages met. Jade stopped beside a fountain that cascaded down carved rocks into a flower-strewn pool. She faced him and said, flatly, “You offered to fight her.” The growl grew in her voice. “What were you thinking?”
He knew he should shift to groundling; it was dangerous to argue like this. But he cocked his head, deliberately provoking. “I was thinking I was offering to fight her.”
“Queens don’t fight consorts.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
Her eyes narrowed, conveying cold threat. “When I fight her, don’t interfere.”
Resentment turned into fury, and he flared his spines. “If she leaves a scratch on you, I’ll rip her apart.”
He could tell it was taking a good deal of her control not to just slap him in the head. “Moon—”
“You knew what I was when you brought me here.” He hissed in pure frustration. “I’m not like them. I never will be.”
Jade’s tail lashed, but his words seem to strike home. She regarded him steadily, and the growl had left her voice when she said, “You can pretend to be like them while we’re here.”
Stricken, Moon looked away. That was… not an unreasonable request. He just didn’t know why he couldn’t grant it. You provoked Ash, and you’ve walked into enough strange places to know better. But he had spent so many turns trying to fit in to whatever group he was with, trying to conform to expectations he barely understood. It was as if he had used up all his patience for it, and had none left for his own people. “I can’t pretend anymore.”
Jade shook her head, her tail still twitching. But she sounded resigned. “Ash is young.”
He faced her again. “So are you.”
Jade tilted her head in irony. “I’m bigger. I’m stronger. And I’ve fought in earnest. She hasn’t.”
A warrior landed on the floor of the well and shifted to groundling as she walked through the arch. It was Willow, who had welcomed them in the greeting hall. She stopped a few paces away and addressed Jade. “Tempest wanted me to speak to you.”
Jade’s mouth set in a grim line. “Go on.”
“This wasn’t planned.” Willow twitched, uncomfortable. “Ash is the youngest daughter queen in the court, and rash with it. She was goaded by her sisters and their warriors, who are just as foolish as she is.”
Jade’s spines twitched uneasily. This had to be a generous admission of fault on Tempest’s part, even if it was being made through her warrior. Apparently it required an admission in return, because Jade said, “My consort is accustomed to defending himself. He didn’t realize she meant to make a childish insult, not a real threat.”
Moon looked down, resisting the urge to dig at the floor with his claws. He had realized it; he just hadn’t cared.
Willow hesitated, then added, “I know Tempest would rather this challenge not take place.”
Jade inclined her head. “Tell her if Ash doesn’t appear, I won’t pursue her. If she does appear… I won’t kill her.”
Relief flickered in Willow’s expression. “I’ll tell Tempest. Thank you.”
They went through the colony’s greeting hall, outside to the open platform they had landed on when they had first arrived. Stone waited there in groundling form, his opaque expression somehow conveying a deep disgust with all of them, but especially Moon.
There was no one else on the platform, and only a few warriors in flight, circling near the outer barrier of thorns. Jade walked forward, crouched, and took to the air; hard flaps of her wings carried her out away from the colony’s platforms. She banked before the thorn barrier and began to circle. The patrolling warriors stayed well away from her.
Moon shifted to groundling, folded his arms, and tried not to tense his shoulders. Stone was silent in a way that seemed to speak volumes. Moon wanted to say something, like I didn’t mean for this to happen.Saying it to Stone would be useless; he should have said it to Jade. He had helped Ash do something terribly stupid. A real consort would have ignored her or deflected her attention and never let it get to this point.
Self-consciously he looked for Ash, trying to see if she was perched somewhere on the vines or branches, but she wasn’t here yet. Maybe she won’t come.
On a broad balcony built out onto a curving branch above and to one side of the greeting hall entrance, Tempest stood under the shadows of the vines.
After a moment, a subdued group with two queens and several warriors walked out of the greeting hall entrance and moved to the opposite side of the platform from Moon and Stone. The two queens must be unattached, because they were Ash’s age or younger, and they hadn’t been among those introduced by Tempest. The warriors were in groundling form, all young and pretty, wearing colorful clothes and an excess of jewelry. He wondered if these were the rash companions that Willow had mentioned. So far they were the only spectators. Keeping his voice low, he asked Stone, “Why aren’t the Arbora coming out?”
Stone said, with a tinge of irony, “They have more sense. The court won’t want to make more of this tha
n it has to.”
Moon heard a rustle overhead and looked up in time to see Ash shoot out of an opening high in the curve of the mountain-thorn. He twitched and managed not to shift, watching her arc toward Jade.
Jade waited until almost the last instant, then twisted in midair and fell out of Ash’s path. Ash banked smoothly back toward her and the two circled each other. They might have been talking but they were too far away for Moon to hear.
This went on long enough for Moon’s already tense nerves to tighten past bearing. He kept hoping Ash would change her mind, but the way she steadily gained height wasn’t a good sign. Jade had to see it, but she wasn’t trying to counter. Then Ash suddenly twisted to fall on Jade.
The two queens met in a furious flurry of wings and tails, plunging down toward the ground far below. Moon set his jaw, though his whole body shook with the instinct to leap into the air and join the fight.
The flurry stopped, with Jade on Ash’s back. Jade’s wings shot out and cupped to slow their descent. Ash flapped weakly and Jade released her, and watched as she glided down toward the lower branches of the colony.
Three warriors jumped off the platform to spiral down after her. The others stood there, not looking at each other, clearly uncomfortable and guilty. Jade flew leisurely toward the balcony where Tempest waited. It was empty now, the other queen having already vanished inside.
Stone just grunted, and said, “Come back in.”
There wasn’t anything else to do. Moon followed him.
They returned to their guest quarters. The warriors were there now, sitting near the pool. This time it was Song who jumped to her feet and demanded, “What happened?”
“Jade won,” Stone said succinctly, taking a seat on the furs.
“We knew that would happen. But what…” Song took in Moon’s expression, and subsided. “I don’t really need to know the details.”
Moon went to the far side of the chamber, where the wall curved around. There was an opening in the woven barrier, a small shelf that extended through the outer wall under an arbor of vines. It looked down onto a broad garden platform with fruit trees. Only a few Arbora worked on it now, climbing the trees at the far end to pick fruit. Moon sat down on the shelf, hoping no one came after him.
The breeze was cool with the approach of evening, thick with the scent of the white flowers on the sapling trees. He wondered what they would do if Frost grew up to be headstrong and overly aggressive, starting fights with every other young queen in reach. He concluded glumly that Indigo Cloud would probably be lucky to get to the point where that was the worst thing they had to worry about. After a time, he heard someone come up the steps from the walkway.
He heard Jade’s voice as she spoke to the others, too low to catch the words. Then she picked her way over toward the back of the chamber, toward Moon. She ducked under the arbor of vines and settled next to him. He slid a look at her, saw she was in her Arbora form, apparently unhurt.
She said, “I spoke with Ice and Tempest and Shadow. We came to the conclusion that Ash is hotheaded even for a queen, and she would probably have gotten in a fight sooner or later. They expressed relief that the fight was with a queen who had the self-control not to hurt her badly, and that the consort she chose to harass was not one who was so sheltered as to be terrified by her. You weren’t terrified by her, were you?”
Moon eyed her. He couldn’t see much resemblance to Pearl, but this was one of the times when he could tell that Jade was descended from Stone. “No.”
Jade flicked away a stray flower petal. “I didn’t think so.”
So that seemed to be the end of it. It had all been mostly Moon’s fault but he had avoided any of the consequences, by virtue of being a consort. Except that all of Emerald Twilight thought he was a crazy savage, but he was used to that. “What does our court think about me?” Jade’s brows lifted at the unexpected question. She didn’t answer immediately, thinking it over. “The teachers and hunters like you. They’ve spent more time with you, they know you better. And they know what they owe you after you went into the Dwei hive after Heart and the others. The soldiers don’t like you, but then…”
Moon had figured that. “They blame me for bringing the Fell.” Jade pressed her lips together. “They’ll get over it.” Her tone suggested that they had better. “In the meantime, Knell will keep them from starting any trouble.”
That was a surprise. “Why? He told Stone he didn’t think I should be with the court.”
Jade gave him a dry look. “That was before you started showing interest in Chime. Chime is his clutchmate, and since he changed, he hasn’t had any status among the Aeriat. So becoming the favorite of a consort wasn’t something anyone expected for him.”
Moon had realized Chime’s lot in the court had improved by association with him. But he didn’t think Chime had calculated it. He thought Chime had just been drawn to someone who was also different, who was a misfit. “That must make it hard for Knell.”
“Knell can handle it. When Chime changed, it was a shock, but it finally convinced everyone who still had their heads buried in the dirt that something was wrong. All the doubters finally admitted that we needed to move to another colony. If a few of the others had changed too, it would probably have made it easier on Chime. He wouldn’t have stood out quite so much. But that won’t happen now.”
“Now that the court is away from the old colony, maybe Chime will change back.” If that happened, Moon was certain Chime would miss flying, but Chime had also made it clear that he would rather be an Arbora than a warrior.
“Flower didn’t think so.” Jade frowned absently. “It was strange enough that it happened once. But we’ll have to wait and see. We’re away from the Fell influence, we have plenty of food at the colony, and more room than we can fill.”
Moon looked out over the terrace. “If we can stay there.” She nodded, resigned. “If we can stay.”
Outside the walls of thorn, the dark of evening settled over the forest. Jade had gone back in some time ago, but Moon stayed, still wanting to avoid conversation with the others until the thrilling excitement of Jade fighting another queen over him had worn off.
He was going to have to get better at dealing with the pressure of others’ personalities. He had lived in crowded places before, but he had always been an outsider. With the Raksura he was still an outsider, but everything he did and said mattered so much more. He watched two warriors fly past the outer edge of the platform, the reflected light from the colony glinting off their scales. You have to get better at this, he told himself.
When the night insects sang in chorus and a light rain began to patter the leaves, he went back inside.
Stone was the only one sitting up. He was beside the hearth basin, nursing a cup of tea. No one had gone up into the bower beds; they were all dozing on the floor. Jade was curled up on a fur, but not asleep. She patted the spot next to her and Moon picked his way through the prone if not sleeping bodies.
He lay down beside her and she tugged him back against her chest and nuzzled his neck. His clothes were damp and the fabric cold with the night air. Her body heat was a welcome warmth that sank right through him. You have to get better at this, he thought again. Because he couldn’t leave these people. Your people.
Chime sat up on one elbow and said softly, “Maybe we should send someone to see if she’s all right.”
Jade sighed, her breath warm in Moon’s hair. “That’s… not a bad suggestion. Stone, do you know where—”
Stone lifted his head, suddenly alert. “Here she comes.”
Moon sat up as Jade uncoiled from around him. He could hear it now, too: Flower, with two other Arbora, approaching along the walkway. The others stopped at the stairs up to the guest chamber, spoke quietly for a moment, then Flower came up the steps alone.
They were all on their feet by the time she reached the doorway. She looked terrible. There were dark smudges of exh
austion under her eyes, and her skin was so pale it looked nearly translucent. Vine was closest, and caught her hand to help her. He guided her to the nearest cushion. Flower sat down heavily, saying in irritation, “I’m fine, I’m fine.”
Jade sat in front of her as they all gathered around. “Tell us.”
“We saw the way to our stolen seed.” Flower rubbed her temple with the heel of her hand. “It’s good we came here. I couldn’t have done this alone, and the others at home are too young to be much help.” She took a roll of paper out of her robe and spread it on the fur. “It’s vague, but it should get us near enough for me to augur the rest of the way myself.”
Stone leaned over and studied it intently. Moon sat forward to see over his shoulder. It was a map, drawn in bold strokes, with scribbled writing in Raksuran, all in different hands and inks. Several of the Emerald Twilight mentors must have contributed. Stone said, “To the west, past the Reaches.” He tapped a section. “This is water?”
Flower nodded. “We saw a lake, or an inland sea. It’s at least a day of warrior’s flight over water, southwest.” She blinked, and swayed.
“Rest,” Jade told her. “We know enough now to make plans.” At Jade’s nod, Vine scooped Flower up despite her exhausted protest.
Chime and Song hurried to make a bed near the hearth basin, piling up furs and cushions. Vine set Flower down in it and she grumbled, “I just need to lie down for a bit.” She curled up in the cushions and was asleep immediately.
Jade took the map from Stone and turned it so she could read it. The others gathered around again, watching her. Song said, “What should we do?”
Floret nudged the paper. “Take it back to ask Pearl.”
“That’s a waste of time,” Jade spoke with quiet authority, looking around at them all. “We need to get there as soon as we can. We’ll leave at dawn.”
Vine exchanged an opaque look with Floret. He said, “Pearl isn’t going to like it.”
“She’s not going to like it whatever we do,” Moon said. He didn’t think he was exaggerating there. “But we have to go after the seed. We don’t know that the groundlings aren’t still traveling with it. This spell showed where it is now, not where it’s going to be five days from now if we go back to the tree so Pearl can tell us to go find it.”