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 would 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 to 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.
As Moon crouched down and felt for a good sleeping spot in the moss and dirt, Dart said, “So this is the consort Halcyon was willing to kill for? I’m not impressed.”
Gust hissed a laugh. “Maybe he learned some tricks living with groundlings.”
Moon found a soft, not too wet place to lie down, and settled into it. He thought about how tormenting this behavior would be for a sheltered consort like Ember, and said, “If you touch me while I’m asleep, I’ll kill you both. I’ll tell Tempest a bowelripper got you.” He leaned forward, and said with hard emphasis, “You’ll look like a bowelripper got you.”
Dart and Gust froze into frightened silence. Moon curled up, using his pack as a pillow, and went to sleep.
That was how it went for the next three days of travel. The nights were wet and uncomfortable in the mostly inadequate shelter they found, and none of them got much rest. After the first night with Dart and Gust, the warriors tended to treat Moon with wary respect. They kept their distance, Moon ignored them, and Tempest didn’t speak to him except about the bare necessities of travel. Moon preferred it this way, but it left him with far too much time to think.
One topic that took up a lot of his time was the possibility of being alone again. If his pessimism proved accurate and Jade didn’t come for him, he would have to leave the Reaches as soon as possible. Raksura who were alone were assumed to be solitaries exiled from their courts for some intolerable act. A solitary consort would be assumed to be a murderer, groundling-eater, or worse. He would be better off in a groundling city, somewhere like the Golden Islands.
For a while he thought about that, about traveling east to the Yellow Sea, seeing if Delin and Niran needed a Raksura on their exploring and trading trips. But it was a long way to travel alone, and if he got there only to find there was no permanent place for him…It was a depressing prospect.
And Flower, with almost her last breath, had asked him not to give up on the Raksura. It was a promise he had made without any idea of how hard it would be to keep.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, they stopped to hunt big grasseaters on one of the platforms. At least the others did; they had made it plain that Moon’s help was not welcome. So he sprawled napping on a branch and didn’t see what happened until the shouts of alarm woke him.
He jerked upright to see the herd of grasseaters, furry rumps rolling as they ran, vanish into the trees at the far end of the platform. Near this end, Dart struggled frantically, one leg caught by a dark green creature, toad-like but nearly the size of the big grasseaters. It had risen out of a concealed dirt burrow in the heavy moss. Prize, the youngest female warrior, was on the ground, dodging clawed swipes from the creature’s free hand, trying to strike at its face. She misjudged and the creature slammed her across the platform. Moon snarled a curse and leapt off the branch, snapped his wings out to propel himself down as fast as possible. He thought, This is what happens to idiot warriors who don’t know how to hunt safely.
Moon landed on the creature’s scaly back, all his claws extended. It roared in pain, stopped trying to drag Dart into its mouth, and dropped him to reach back for Moon. Moon jerked his wings up to shield his head, flared his spines and found the spot he was looking for, a soft vulnerable patch just under the lower edge of its skull. Ground predators who looked like this usually had one. It grabbed a handful of his spines just as he stabbed his claws through the softer patch of skin and cut through what he was fairly certain was an artery.
Its grip went loose and it shuddered under him, then slumped. Moon leapt backward off it, then warily circled around the body, watching for signs of life. When its eyes went dim, he turned to look for Dart and Prize.
Tempest and the others were just swooping in to land. Dart stood over Prize, who had shifted to groundling and huddled in the flattened grass, eyes closed and teeth gritted, her face twisted in pain. Moon hopped closer, realizing her right shoulder was dislocated. He hissed in sympathy; he knew more about wing join injuries than he wanted to. The shock of the impact must have sent her into groundling form, making the injury worse. It didn’t look like a break, but it looked bad enough.
“Are you hurt?” Tempest asked Dart.
He shook his head, clearly miserable. “Prize tried to help me and it got her. The consort—”
“I saw it,” Tempest interrupted. She gave Moon an opaque look. “You’re all right?”
Moon shook his spines out. “Yes.”
“She can’t go on,” Beacon said. She crouched hurriedly
to hold Prize’s shoulders as Prize retched in pain. Beacon looked up at Tempest worriedly. “She needs a mentor.”
Tempest nodded, her spines flicking. “Viridian Sea is close enough that we can reach it by nightfall. We’ll go there.”
Moon offered, “I’ll carry her.” He was about to add that if he and Tempest went on ahead, leaving the others to follow, they could probably get Prize there in half the time.
But Tempest said sharply, “No. We take care of our own.”
Moon bit back a hiss, insulted. “Fine. Next time I’ll let the predator eat him.”
Tempest ignored him, though the male warriors exchanged sulky glances.
Tempest carried Prize herself as they flew toward Viridian Sea, and Moon had time to realize why she was angry. Tempest hadn’t taken care of her own, and Moon had. If Moon had been a warrior, even one from a foreign court, it wouldn’t have been an issue. But he was a consort technically under Tempest’s protection, who clearly didn’t need that protection.
Jade had never seemed to mind, or at least never showed it. Maybe it was different because he had been Jade’s consort, so everything he did was somehow to her credit, since she had chosen him.
It was nice to have finally figured that out, now that it was too late.
The heavy rain started about midway through the flight, and they arrived at Viridian Sea well after nightfall, guided in by the colony’s lights. It wasn’t in a mountain-tree, but was built out of some knobby bulbous growth of wood nestled in the branches of a mountain-thorn. It was smaller and less thorny than the one Emerald Twilight inhabited, but still tricky to fly through in the dark.
By the time they reached the landing platform built out from the colony’s main entrance, the court was aware of them, and warriors and Arbora had come out to investigate. Fortunately, Viridian Sea seemed to be fairly reasonable, as far as Raksuran courts went. As soon as the warriors realized there was an injury, the reigning queen herself came down to rush them through the greeting process, so within moments they were ushered out of the rain and into the large wooden chamber of the colony’s greeting hall. Prize was helped away by mentors, accompanied by Beacon.