He crashed through the flowers into purple-tinged darkness and landed on something hard that writhed and snarled in fury. Moon sunk his claws in and yelled for help. He thought he heard a hoarse echo that sounded like Chime, then shouts from the Arbora. Then a tentacle whipped down and wrapped around his waist, and Moon stopped paying attention to anything else.
It dragged him off the creature’s body, slammed him into the rotting moss, and started to squeeze. Stunned, Moon curled around it and sunk his teeth into the dense flesh. The creature must not have been expecting that much resistance because he felt its body jerk. The tentacle under him flailed and tried to slam him down again.
Moon bit through a vein filled with some of the worst-tasting blood he had ever encountered, then felt another tentacle slap down and grab his leg. He had an instant to think,
Oh, this is going to be bad
. Then he heard a chorus of snarls and wingbeats as the rest of the warriors arrived in an angry rush.
The tentacle flung Moon aside. He hit the ground hard and rolled, then staggered up to see tentacles flailing as the creature tried to flee. Warriors landed on the body, and several big Arbora leapt through the vines after it.
Moon spat out blood, decided the others could finish the creature off, and started to tear through the crushed vines, looking for the warrior. He found the crumpled body a short distance away. It was Sand, a young warrior of Jade’s faction. He was unconscious, shifted to his groundling form, but still breathing.
Chime crashed through the vines as Moon gently felt Sand’s ribs to see how bad the breaks were. His own chest hurt and his ribs ached, so he knew Sand had to be badly off.
“You’re alive! He’s alive!” Chime shouted, waving to the Arbora who climbed out of the tunnel in the platform above. “Moon got Sand, and they’re both alive!”
“Chime, Chime, take a breath,” Moon said, his voice coming out hoarse.
Sand’s eyelids fluttered and he groaned, then gasped, “What happened?”
“Nothing. We’ll tell you later.” Moon eased down into a sitting position. “Just lie still.” He asked Chime, “Were the Arbora all right?”
Chime nodded, stepping through the crushed vines to crouch next to Sand. “Three of them are hurt, but nobody’s dead.” He touched Sand’s forehead and frowned in concentration. Watching his face, Moon saw the moment when he remembered again that he wasn’t a mentor and couldn’t put Sand in a healing trance. Chime winced and drew his hand back, and Moon looked away.
After a moment, Chime said, “I hate hunting.”
* * *
Nobody had been eaten, so Moon was counting it as a pretty good day. The warriors transported the wounded, the Arbora, and their kills to the colony. Moon went back with the first group. He managed to slip away from the storm of exclamations, explanations, and recriminations that immediately erupted in the greeting hall and flew up the central well to the queens’ level.
No one was out in the queens’ hall, which was a relief. It was a big chamber, the far side looking out into the colony tree’s central well, with the open gallery of the consort level above it. There was a fountain against the inner wall, falling 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, finally meeting tip to tip. Her scales, set with polished sunstones, glinted faintly in the soft light of shells mounted on the walls that were spelled to glow. He heard muted conversation from the direction of Pearl’s bower and quickly took the passage that led into Jade’s.
At first, Jade hadn’t wanted to move up here, feeling that the bower near the teachers’ hall that she and Moon had shared when they first arrived was more convenient. But when visitors from other courts started to appear, it would look as if Indigo Cloud was far worse off than it actually was if the royal bowers were empty. These chambers held what Moon thought was some of the best carving in the colony and had their own hot bathing pool.
The heating stones in the metal bowl hearth radiated warmth, and Moon leaned down to put the kettle on. His ribs twinged, pain spreading up from his waist to his chest, and he winced. He shifted to groundling, then carefully pulled up his shirt to look at the damage.
He already had some bruises, black and purplish against the dark bronze of his groundling skin, but he didn’t think anything was broken. But climbing up into the bed, a big wooden half-shell suspended from the ceiling, might be out for tonight. He could make do with sleeping on the furs and cushions near the hearth.
Then Jade slammed in from the passage and hissed at him. “You could have gotten killed.”
Or maybe he wouldn’t be sleeping in this bower at all. “We don’t live in a safe place, Jade. We all might get killed.”
She didn’t like that answer. Her head tilted. “So maybe we should avoid throwing ourselves on top of predators. Alone. Without waiting for help.”
“There wasn’t time.” Moon grimaced and managed to pull his shirt off over his head. “You’ve told me—twice!—to go after Fell—”
“The first time, I didn’t expect you to actually attack a cloud-walker, and the second time, I told you to follow the kethel, not personally invade the Fell flight.”
Moon had been scouting, not invading, but he didn’t bother to mention that. “I don’t see your point.”
Jade’s first burst of anger was already fading to exasperation. “My point is that you are the first consort. My first consort. You can’t afford to risk yourself.”
“I’m not going to stand by and let someone get eaten.”
“I know. I know you’re not.” She pressed her hand to her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut. “But…you have other responsibilities.”
Other responsibilities, like fathering a clutch. Moon waited, his heart pounding, for her to bring that up.
Jade had decided three months ago, after the flying boats had left, that they should have a clutch, but nothing had happened yet. Moon was doing his part at every opportunity, so he had no idea what was wrong. And he found himself extremely reluctant to ask Jade if she had changed her mind.
He had also wondered if having a clutch was harder than he had supposed. He had seen groundlings have babies, but never another Raksura; he hadn’t even been sure if they had live births or eggs, and he hadn’t known that queens and Arbora females could control their fertility. Because of the problems at the old colony, all of the Arbora had stopped clutching long before Moon had gotten there, and the youngest babies had been nearly a turn old. But if there was something he was doing wrong, he was certain Jade would have pointed it out.
At one point another possible answer had occurred to him, but since Stone had already left with Niran and the others, there was no one to ask about it.
Jade looked at him and must have sensed his agitation. She shifted to her Arbora form, the closest equivalent that queens had to a groundling form. Her whole body softened to look like an Arbora’s, and her wings vanished. She had the same blue and silver-gray coloring but fewer spines, and more long frills in her mane. She stepped close, put her hand on the back of his neck and pressed her forehead to his. She said in a growl, “I understand that you had to help. Just don’t get yourself killed.”
Moon closed his eyes, breathing in her scent. “I realized where it was taking Sand, and there was no time to tell anyone else. I had to go.”
She stepped back. “No one died; I’m satisfied with that.” She eyed him. “I’m going to get a mentor to see to you.”
Moon sat down on the furs, trying not to yelp when his abused muscles contracted. He didn’t need a mentor, but he was too relieved that they weren’t going to talk about clutches or his inability to provide them to argue. “Is Pearl going to give you trouble about this?”
Heading for the passage, Jade made an eloquently derisive noise. “I can handle Pearl.”
Moon lay back on the furs, squinting at the ceiling overhead, considering his favorite carving. It depicted a whole court of Raksura, in different woods and set with polished gemstones. Queens in the center, larger than the others, and consorts next, with a darker wood used to represent their black scales, then clusters of male and female warriors, bodies twined or wings flared in flight. The outer edge was Arbora, wingless, stocky, and muscular where the Aeriat were slender. The artwork everywhere in the mountain-tree never showed Raksura in their soft-skinned groundling forms, something else Moon didn’t understand. Even though he had grown up alone, outside of a Raksuran court, he had known in his blood that both his forms were him, that he didn’t belong in one body or the other but both.
You’re still here,
he reminded himself. Considering his past record at trying to fit in to settlements, this was an achievement.
Chapter Two
T
wo days later, the queens called for a formal augury.
Moon was still getting used to the vagaries of Raksuran behavior, but even before the augury started he had already gotten into trouble with Chime by making a comment implying that it was just a way to shift blame for important decisions onto the mentors.
“No, this kind of augury is very accurate, and very important to the court,” Chime insisted, too loudly.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.” Moon couldn’t help glancing around to see if anyone else had heard.
They were in an anteroom on the edge of the cavernous greeting hall, which at the moment held almost every member of the court. Arbora and warriors gathered on the main floor and lined the two open stairways that criss-crossed up the far wall, below the balconies and the round doorways opening into the higher levels. Above the staircases, the huge well wound up in a big spiral through the tree.
Almost everyone was in their groundling forms, though several younger warriors kept their wings and clung to the walls or hung from the balconies by their foot-claws or tails. Only the children in the nurseries, and a few teachers who had stayed there to watch them, were missing. There was a low hum of conversation, some jostling among the warriors and younger Arbora, and an air of anticipation and impatience. But even with almost everyone present, there was still plenty of space in the greeting hall: a reminder of how small the Indigo Cloud court was now compared to its former glory.
Unappeased, Chime persisted, “So what’s wrong? Why do you think this is a bad idea?”
Moon hissed, annoyed. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea.” He just didn’t think it was a good way to solve this problem.
And he was worried about what else the augury might reveal.
“But then why—” Chime began, when Balm gave them both a prod from behind and said, “Come on, Jade’s waiting.”
Jade was waiting, sitting at the edge of the clear circle in the center of the hall, radiating impatience. Moon started toward her, and Chime and Balm followed.
The hall had been an impressive enough sight when they first arrived at the tree, but was even better now that the wood and inlay had been cleaned and polished, all the shells spelled to glow with soft light, and the moss scrubbed off the walls. The narrow column of water that streamed out of a high channel and fell to the pool in the floor was now clean and sweet.
Jade looked up at their approach, smiling briefly though the angle of her spines said she was somewhat annoyed. She said, “You look nervous.”
The warriors around her made way, and Moon took a seat on the floor behind her. He was nervous, though he didn’t want to talk about it. As a distraction, he said, “Chime is trying to make everyone think I don’t want the augury.”
Jade leaned back to give Chime a look as he and Balm took seats behind Moon. Chime said, “I am not. I was just asking—”
Balm poked him again. “Ask later.”
Heart waited in the center of the hall with Merit, the next most powerful mentor, both in their groundling forms. Heart was lovely, with the dark amber skin and bronze-colored hair common among the Indigo Cloud Arbora. Though the two were close in age, Merit had always looked and sounded younger, with wide-set eyes, warm brown skin and fluffy light-colored hair. Inexperience and a somewhat frivolous turn of mind had caused him to be passed over for the position of chief mentor. From what Moon could tell, he seemed more relieved by that than anything else. Heart looked nervous now, and kept rubbing her hands on her light-colored skirt, as if her palms were sweaty. There were many different ways to augur, and he wondered if it was the first time she had done one like this. Or at least done it in front of so large an audience.
Waiting at her feet was a large shallow bowl made of marbled green-gray stone. It might have some deep ceremonial significance now, but Moon had first seen it used by the Arbora to grind nuts into meal. It was surrounded by a dozen or so much smaller bowls of dark blue glazed pottery.
“Where’s Pearl?” Moon whispered to Jade.
Jade’s tail twitched in irritation. Her impatience with the whole process was ill-concealed, and Moon wasn’t sure of the reason. “She has to make an entrance. Here she comes now.”
Moon glanced up. Pearl, her wings spread, dropped down the central well.
Pearl wasn’t the oldest or largest queen Moon had ever seen, but she was still impressive. Her scales were brilliant gold, overlaid with a webbed pattern of deepest indigo blue. The frilled mane behind her head was like a golden sunburst, and there were more frills on the tips of her folded wings, on the triangle-shape at the end of her tail. Like Jade, she wore only jewelry.
She landed gracefully on the polished wooden floor and folded her wings. Her favorite warriors landed in a half-circle behind her, River, Drift, Coil, Floret, and Sage. Behind him, Moon heard a faint rude snort from Chime, and a rustle as Balm elbowed him in reproof.
Pearl sat down and nodded at Heart. Heart picked up a small bowl and started to stand.
Jade said, “This could be a waste of time without Stone here.”
Heart stopped, looked uncertainly from one queen to the other.
Pearl tilted her head in subtle threat. “Nevertheless, we’re doing it.”
Jade and Pearl had managed to work out a way to rule the court between them that was uneasy at best and violent at worst, but it worked, and that was the important thing. But one point they had been unable to resolve was whether to let the Arbora clutch this season or wait.