“And I should have known your whole bloodline would be crazy.” Stone stopped and glared down at Moon. “Did any other queen touch you?”
“Sort of.” At Stone’s expression, he explained, “Tempest hit me in the face. But I threw a kettle at her and made a joke about her dead sister, so I was asking for it.”
“That’s all right.” Stone resumed pacing. “But don’t tell Jade. We’ve got enough to worry about.”
“She’s really coming?”
“Of course she’s coming—” Stone stopped pacing again, frowning. “You didn’t think she was.”
Moon looked down at the hearth. His throat went tight. “We had to stop when one of the warriors was hurt, and we were three days late. Jade said she’d start the day after we left, and when she wasn’t here when we arrived…” He was still having trouble believing this was really happening. He had been trying to make himself accept the fact that he had been discarded again, that he would never see anyone from Indigo Cloud, and then Stone had walked in and the world had changed. Not very different from how the world had changed when Stone had first found him with the Cordans in the eastern jungle.
Stone sat on his heels so they were closer to eye level. “Why did you think she wasn’t coming?”
“I told you, she wasn’t here.” That didn’t really answer Stone’s question, but then Moon couldn’t answer it. Not in any way that made sense to anyone other than him. “And she had Ember.”
Stone looked honestly baffled. “Who?”
“The consort Emerald Twilight gave her to replace me!”
“Oh, the kid.” Stone dismissed Ember with a wave of his hand. “He’s your problem. I’ve raised enough kids, I’m not doing another one.”
Moon sat there a moment, too floored to respond. He shook his head impatiently, trying to get his scattered thoughts together. “You said there was an accident but no one was hurt. What happened? Was it another platform collapse?”
Stone’s sharp gaze didn’t waver, for long enough that Moon started to feel like prey and had to fight the urge to growl. Then Stone finally relented and said, “No, it was a hunting accident.”
Relief made Moon break out into a sweat, then he realized what Stone had said. “A hunting accident?”
“Two young hunters went exploring on one of the platforms a couple of trees away and walked right into a hibernating predator.” Stone absently scratched the back of his neck. “We used to call them ‘snatchers.’ They look like snakes, but with long arms. Not much scent, and don’t make a lot of noise when they move. This one wasn’t moving until the idiots woke it up. Fortunately the warrior patrol heard them and held it off until Jade got there.” He added, as if it was an unimportant detail, “Bone said it was a good forty paces long.”
“Forty paces? But what—” Moon had the feeling Stone was leaving something out. “Why did that keep her from leaving? Did she think there were more?”
“She killed it, but she broke her right arm and cut up her shoulder.”
Moon shoved to his feet. “You said no one was hurt!”
“I didn’t want to tell you in front of them.” Stone jerked his head toward the doorway. “I preferred your crazy bloodline thinking I had a queen on her way to back me up.”
It was Moon’s turn to pace, to fight the nervous urge to bust out of here and head back to Indigo Cloud immediately. “I should have been there.”
“That was actually my point,” Stone said, his voice dry.
Moon ignored that. “She can’t fly? For how long?”
“Getting the break knocked her out and she went into her Arbora form. Heart was afraid if she shifted before she healed, it would translate to wing damage. From the time we got back to the colony…” Stone looked thoughtful. “She should be almost healed up by now. If I can get your damn birthqueen to let us leave in the morning, we can probably meet her on the way, before she gets too far.”
Moon stopped, staring at one of the wall carvings without seeing it. Leave in the morning, go back to Indigo Cloud, go home. If someone had said that to him yesterday, if he had thought there was any real chance of it, he would have sprung at it like a starving predator at fresh meat.
And Jade hadn’t lied about coming after him. None of this changed the fact that Moon hadn’t produced a clutch yet, but maybe with Ember there now, Moon’s shortcoming in that area didn’t matter as much. Whatever it was, the smart thing to do was to get back to Indigo Cloud as soon as possible, and work on becoming so entrenched there that getting rid of him would be far more difficult.
But he couldn’t. He said, “I can’t go back. Not yet.”
Stone said, ominously, “What?”
Moon faced him. “There’s a Fell flight heading for a groundling city. A groundling city so unprepared they won’t even know to run away until it’s too late. And it’s only a day’s flight from the outskirts of the Reaches. We just can’t ignore it.” He couldn’t believe Stone didn’t see that.
Stone growled under his breath. “I know, I know. I just don’t want Indigo Cloud involved with it.”
So Stone did see it. “What, were you going to take me to Jade and then turn around and come back here?”
“I was considering it,” he admitted. “If one Fell flight succeeds here, the others will follow. We’ll have to deal with them sooner or later.”
He was right, and the thought made Moon’s insides cold. “So we should stay and help.”
Stone pushed to his feet and stepped close, and made his words an emphatic order. “I want you out of this, and I don’t want Jade anywhere near it.”
“Why? We’ve both killed rulers. And Jade—”
“You idiot. This flight is probably coming here because it wants to make crossbreed Raksura.” Stone hissed. “A few ruler-queens like Ranea would make it easier for the Fell to take on the Reaches again.”
Moon turned away, sudden tension making his back teeth ache. More reason to make sure this flight was destroyed utterly. He muttered, “Stop calling me an idiot.”
“Stop acting like one,” Stone said, but without much heat.
Moon leaned his shoulder against the wall, making himself think with his head and not his claws. “Maybe this flight is related to the one that came after Indigo Cloud.” The flight which had destroyed the groundling city of Saraseil, who had used their cross-breed mentor-dakti to track Moon across time, to predict that he would one day go to Indigo Cloud. Maybe one of the mentor-dakti escaped and predicted I’d come here. The thought didn’t help his still queasy stomach.
“Maybe.” Stone stepped to the hearth and took a seat on the fur mat. He grimaced as he settled into place, rubbing his lower back. “You can tell Malachite to ask one of the rulers when she’s ripping his guts out.”
Moon went to sit down on the furs, suddenly aware of how exhausted he was; he didn’t think he would be able to stay awake much longer. Stone looked weary too, and a little more gray than usual in the spell-light. Moon asked, “Why did it take you so long to get back to Indigo Cloud? Did the Arbora want to stop a lot?” It wasn’t fun being carried for long periods of time, and Blossom and the few other Arbora who had helped Niran sail the flying ships were adventurous types. Moon had figured they would have made Stone and the other warriors land frequently so they could sightsee.
“Not exactly. We had company on the way back.”
“Company?” Then Moon remembered who else was an adventurous type, who had been cheated out of his trip to see a Raksuran colony by a Fell attack. And who might find a trip to see the Reaches, the fabled homeland of the Raksura, irresistible. “Delin?”
“He gave the Arbora a ride back in another flying boat.” Stone let his breath out, sounding tired and annoyed.
Moon wanted to see Delin again, and had just assumed that would never happen. But then he had also assumed he would never see Stone again. He was suddenly too tired, too overwhelmed to think about it a moment more. He pulled another fur around and lay down on it, saying, “W
e’ll decide what to do in the morning.”
Stone made a noise that combined a snort of derision and a growl. But after a moment, he moved around and lay down next to Moon.
Chapter Nine
Moon had fallen asleep immediately, lulled by Stone’s reassuring presence. But deep into the night, he woke suddenly with the conviction that someone was in the passage outside the bower.
It might be one of the Arbora checking on them, but he remembered the sense that someone had been standing outside the guest chamber last night. He sat up on one elbow, and saw Stone lying on his back, eyes open.
Stone caught Moon’s gaze and pointed up and to the side. Moon nodded, remembering the layout of the hall. That faint sense of presence moved up through the passage to the deserted bowers, toward the area that had shown signs of recent occupation.
Moon eased away from Stone, motioning for him to stay where he was. Stone gave him a withering look in return. Ignoring that, Moon got to his feet and moved silently to the door of the bower.
The passage was empty, the white glow of the spell lights reflecting off the curves and angles in the carving, the old claw marks scarring the polished wood. Moon climbed quietly upward toward the other bowers. Faint movement sounded from one, and he stepped into the doorway. There was a figure beside the cold hearth, just leaning down to pick up the book that lay on a cushion.
Moon said, “Did you forget to take it with you?”
The figure whipped around so fast it sat down hard, the book in its lap. It looked like a young warrior or consort, at least at first sight. His hair was dark and his eyes were green, and he had sharp features and a lean, rangy build. He was wearing a dark blue shirt and pants with a darker sash around his waist. The material was clingy enough to reveal a certain knobbiness at his elbows, wrists, and knees, suggesting that he had only recently matured.
But his skin was pale, too pale, without even a hint of bronze or copper tint. When Raksura went to gray and then white with age, they lost the color in their hair as well as their skin. Only the groundling forms of Fell rulers had skin this pale when young.
So this was the crossbreed consort. Besides the skin color, Moon could see no trace of Fell.
He stared at Moon for a long moment, his tense body slowly relaxing as Moon made no move to attack. He cleared his throat and touched the book’s cover. “I was reading it when they said we had to move.” He hesitated. “You’re Moon. I’m Shade. We have the same father.”
“I know.” Their consort father would have been forced to mate with a Fell progenitor to produce Shade, but there didn’t seem to be any point in mentioning that. Moon stepped into the bower and paced along the wall. The hollowed-out niches held trinkets, mostly bits of jewelry, cups for a tea set, broken wooden pens, a couple of folded books. There was also a battered cloth doll, relic of Shade’s not so long ago fledglinghood. It all seemed so ordinary, not the place Moon would ever have imagined a half-Fell consort to live.
Atop a wicker chest was a sheet of paper, and Moon recognized the writing as Raksuran, though he couldn’t read any of it. But there were small scribbled drawings of plants, warriors in flight, and Arbora working in gardens. Drawing tools lay nearby, charcoal pieces and pens carved from reeds. He wondered if Shade had done the drawings himself. Moon had never been able to make a recognizable image on paper, even when he had tried to imitate groundlings’ work, and had never seen any of the Aeriat at Indigo Cloud do it. He had thought it was a skill reserved for Arbora. “Can you hear them?”
Shade didn’t need to ask who he meant. “No.” Still sitting on the fur, he had twisted around to watch Moon circle the room. “Is it true you were alone all this time?”
“Yes.” Moon stepped away from the drawings. “What are you going to do?”
“What? Oh, since no queen will take me, and I can’t leave the court?” Shade shrugged, long fingers fiddling with the book’s leather cover again. “I don’t want to leave; everyone I know is here.”
“You don’t want a queen?”
Shade’s young face was serious. “Even if there was one who wanted me, I shouldn’t breed.” It sounded as if he had given it a good deal of thought. “The clutch might be all right, like me and the others, but they might not.”
It was…not an unrealistic view of the situation. At least no one had lied to Shade about who and what he was, and what he was likely to expect. High in the wall there was an opening to the central well, and Moon stopped beneath it, listening. It must be in a fold of the trunk that faced away from the reservoir, so the rush of falling water was more distant, and the clicks and calls of the insects sleeping in the vines were audible. He wasn’t sure what he wanted from this conversation. Maybe nothing.
Then Shade said suddenly, “Feather said you look just like our father.”
Moon went still. For an instant he felt his connection to this court, to Malachite, and it tugged on him like a leash.
He turned to face Shade, who was lost in thought, turning the pages of the book. Shade said, “I never saw him, because he died, but…The other consorts who live here with me, they’re descended from Malachite’s sister queen who died, and they look a little like him too. So do our cross-clutchmates, in Onyx’s bloodline. But they’re soft, and you’ve got hard edges. It makes you look older and Feather said you look just like him. I think that’s why Malachite was afraid to see you.” Shade frowned thoughtfully, apparently oblivious to the effect this was having on Moon. “I guess that must have hurt you, but I don’t think she realized what it was going to be like, seeing the image of him again. Feather said Malachite’s been so filled with rage that she’s barely felt anything else in forty turns. You coming back means she has to let some of that go. That’s hard for her.”
Moon turned away. He didn’t want to believe it; he didn’t want to give Malachite that much credit. But Dart had said the queen started to enter the room, saw Moon, and left.
He heard a rustle as Shade moved uneasily, maybe finally sensing that this was a difficult subject. Shade said, “What was it like, traveling out in the world?”
Root had asked Moon that once, what felt like a lifetime ago. Chime had countered the question with “what is the wind like?” but Moon wanted to give Shade a better answer. But summing up the totality of the wind would have been easier. He said, “It was hard, but…it wasn’t all bad. I saw a lot of different places, and people.”
“But there weren’t any other Raksura?”
“I didn’t know where to look for them.” He turned back, and Shade’s baffled expression almost made him smile. “The Three Worlds is a big place.”
Shade seemed as if he was having trouble imagining it. “Did you live with a groundling court?”
“Sometimes. But when they realized what I was, I always had to leave.” Shade’s confusion deepened, and Moon explained gently, “In the east, where I was living, the groundlings are afraid of Raksura. They think we’re Fell.”
“But we—you don’t look like a Fell!”
“To them we all do.”
Shade’s brow furrowed as he turned that over. “I see. But…you must have been lonely.”
It was a surprise that Shade saw that so readily. He had always been surrounded by his court, protected by a powerful reigning queen who had fought her way through a Fell flight and killed a progenitor to retrieve the last of her dead consort’s offspring. But maybe he was aware of what could have happened to him.
Still considering it, Shade said, “The only place I’d like to see outside the court is Aventera. The warriors described it to me, and it sounds very strange. But I’m not sure I want to meet groundlings, if they’re going to be afraid of me.”
“Aventera.” Moon hadn’t heard the name before, but he could make a guess. “Is that the groundling city that Celadon went to?”
“Yes.” Shade yawned, and got to his feet, the book tucked under his arm. “I’d better go back now.” He hesitated, shy and uncertain and very like an ordinary young
Raksura. “Can we talk again?”
Moon hesitated, but he was surprised to realize what his answer was. “Yes.”
Shade nodded and disappeared down the passage.
Moon waited until Shade’s steps had faded, then he went down to his own bower. Stone hadn’t moved, and Moon lay down beside him. The fur still held the shape of his body, though he had been gone long enough for it to lose the warmth. Stone didn’t comment, and after a moment, Moon said, “Did you hear all that?”
“Yes.” He was silent for so long, Moon thought that was all he was going to say. Then Stone added, “Not sure I would have done it, in their place. It would have just made it that much worse, if they’d turned wrong when they got older.”
It was a strange thing that Opal Night had done, that Malachite had done, raising these changeling children instead of killing them. Moon wondered how many courts would have done it. He thought most Raksura would have considered it mercy to kill them. Moon might have thought it himself, if he hadn’t met Lithe and Shade.
Hard as it would have been to kill something that must have looked very like a baby Raksura, it would have been much, much worse to watch it turn from a child into a monster. But Opal Night had taken the risk. Maybe Malachite saw it as another path to victory over the Fell. Raising the crossbreeds as Raksura, to show that Raksuran blood was stronger. “So you think they were right?”
Stone rolled over, clearly putting an end to the conversation. “I think they were lucky.”
Moon woke at dawn, when Stone was stirring. Russet and two other Arbora must have been listening for them to move, because they brought a kettle and pot for tea immediately. Russet lingered as if she wanted to say something, but left when Stone glared narrowly at her.