Moon found his temporary bower undisturbed, though Malachite had sent over some more clothes for him, which meant he was going to leave Opal Night with a lot more than he had arrived with. He was glad he had left the ivory disk that had belonged to his father behind in his pack. There had been too many chances to lose it on their adventures. He put it on now, looping the leather cord over his head.
Stone watched him do it but didn’t comment. As they settled down to sleep, he said, “It’ll be a relief to get home.”
Moon stretched out on the fur. “I hope nothing’s happened while we’ve been gone.”
Stone growled under his breath. “That’s what I said, too, coming back on that damn boat.”
“None of this was my fault,” Moon pointed out.
Stone made a noise eloquent of derision.
Moon woke sometime later, aware he hadn’t slept for very long. The air was filled with sound; the blended harmony of high and low notes, a chorus of voices. The Court of Opal Night was singing.
Moon slipped out of the furs, stepped around Stone, and went to the doorway.
The sound didn’t echo through the colony so much as fill all the available space like water poured into a bowl. He shouldn’t have been able to tell the source, but he could. It was coming from the colony’s central well.
He went down the corridor to the nearest opening, the one near the waterfall and the lake. He stopped in the doorway and leaned against the wall in the shadows.
There was movement all through the well, the light from windows gleaming off scales or skin. All of Opal Night was gathered here, sitting on the terraced platforms or along the stones lining the water, clinging to the walls. Singing.
It was the first time the song didn’t sound frighteningly alien, didn’t seem like something foreign was trying to invade Moon’s mind. It sounded warm and welcoming and right. He could distinguish individual voices in the chorus, in a way he never had before at Indigo Cloud. He could hear Celadon, and Onyx, Umber. There was Shade, not far above Moon’s head, sitting in the window of his bower, the other consorts around him. He could tell which voices were Arbora, and pick out Feather and Lithe. And Malachite’s voice was woven all through the others, like a pillar supporting the rest of the colony.
Moon leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, and thought,
All right, I get it now.
And then he joined in.
* * *
They spent nearly a month at Opal Night.
It was a busy time, since Malachite wanted Moon to meet all the other members of his line that he was closely related to, which amounted to something close to three hundred Aeriat and Arbora. The delay also gave Auburn time to fulfill Chime’s request for a search of the Opal Night mentors’ libraries for any past stories of Arbora who had transformed into warriors.
When Moon asked Chime about it one night, Chime said, “There was only one story about it happening to a mentor, and that was nearly a hundred turns ago as far as Auburn could tell.” Chime sighed.
“And?” Moon prompted. Chime’s depressed expression was beginning to worry him.
“It didn’t go into a lot of detail, but it said her healing skills and ability to make heat and light never came back.”
“Oh.” Moon hadn’t realized that Chime had still been holding onto that hope. “But did it say anything about hearing things?”
Chime turned his teacup around. “It said that she got ‘older skills’ and her auguries were different, but ‘often useful.’”
“It sounds like they didn’t want to give much detail.” That wasn’t encouraging.
“Exactly. I think ‘older skills’ mean things that our Ancestors could do.” Chime shrugged uneasily. “I’m not sure how I feel about that. I don’t think I like our Ancestors much anymore.”
“You’re still you,” Moon pointed out. “And your older skills keep helping us stay alive.”
“However I got them.” Chime waved those words away. “I mean, I know I can still be useful, and I’m glad about that. I just wish I had more control over it. Though at least now I know I’m not some weird aberration, that this has happened before.” Chime didn’t look entirely cheered by that thought, but he did seem less worried.
They finally left for Indigo Cloud, and had a thankfully uneventful trip through the suspended forest. Days ago, Jade had sent a message through Opal Night’s allied courts, telling Pearl that they would be returning as soon as negotiations for Moon were completed. They had received a message back that all was well at Indigo Cloud, but it was still a relief to approach the colony tree on the repaired flying boat and see the platforms were all intact, the Arbora moving through the gardens and the warriors circling the clearing.
A dozen warriors landed on the boat to greet them, and Moon saw a couple members of the Islander crew exchange grins. He knew how they felt; he didn’t think he would ever get over the thrill of seeing a large group of Raksura in flight at once, either.
One of the young female warriors who had landed on the deck came to Jade, shifted to groundling, and said, “Jade, I need to tell you something.”
Moon knew she was one of the warriors attached to Jade’s faction and that her name was Serene, but he hadn’t spoken to her much. She looked worried, and he immediately noticed that Sand and some of Jade’s other warriors, while they greeted Balm, Chime, and Floret and the others, were clearly keeping an eye on Serene.
Jade took Serene’s arm and led her away a short distance to the far side of the boat. She didn’t object when Moon followed.
Serene lowered her voice to a whisper, “Pearl took Ember.” She winced in anticipation of Jade’s reaction.
“What?” Moon said. He stared at Jade.
Jade didn’t even seem surprised. “That’s all right; I expected it,” she assured Serene. “Everything’s fine. Tell the others.”
Serene let out her breath in relief and smiled. “Oh, good. We’ve been so worried, and no one wanted to tell you. We drew lots for it and I lost.” She shifted to her winged form and bounced over to the other warriors.
Jade seemed genuinely unconcerned. She told Moon, “If I hadn’t wanted it to happen, I would have brought him with me.”
“But… He’s a kid.”
“If he was still a child, Emerald Twilight wouldn’t have sent him.” At his expression, she said, “He’s sweet, and biddable, and comes from a prestigious bloodline. He’s exactly what she likes. It’s been turns and turns since Rain died, and when you showed up was the first time she’d expressed interest in another consort.”
“Expressed interest? Is that what you call it?”
“This is a good thing,” Jade told him. “Now Pearl will pay more attention to the colony. And mind her own business, instead of mine.”
Moon thought that was optimistic. And he also thought he would reserve judgment until he talked to Ember.
* * *
He didn’t see Ember until later that night.
The first thing Moon did was visit the nurseries. It was a relief that this homecoming was a good deal less fraught than the last one. Frost had taken this absence much better, apparently solely due to Jade’s explanation that she had to fight a rival over him. Once the hysterical joy of the fledglings and Arbora children had settled down a little, Moon sat with Bitter and Thorn in his lap and told a rapt Frost and the others the story of how Jade had fought other queens and Fell rulers and a progenitor for him, until his mother had finally agreed to allow her to formally take Moon as her consort.
“There are fledglings at Opal Night?” Frost asked when the story was done. “Consorts?” Thorn nudged her, and she added, “And queens?”
“Lots of them.” Moon could already see where this was going. “And when it’s time, if you’re good, you might meet some of them.”
There was a gathering in the greeting hall and an ongoing celebration through the colony, for their safe return and also for the alliance with Opal Night. Blossom told Moon that there had already been a couple of trading visits from courts who had previously ignored their overtures, so word was spreading through the Reaches and Indigo Cloud’s status was rising rapidly.
For Moon the celebrations mostly involved a lot of food and telling the story of what had happened over and over again for everyone who had been too far away to hear details the first few times. Moon was hoarse from answering questions about Opal Night, and about the underwater city. He left a group of mentors and other Arbora endlessly speculating on the creature’s origins and how the city might have been constructed, and looked for Ember.
As far as he could tell, Jade and Pearl hadn’t discussed the situation, and he had to admit that Pearl seemed more at ease and to be enjoying the party in a relaxed way he hadn’t seen her demonstrate before. River was still present in her group of warriors, though Moon had noticed that he spent most of his time sitting next to Drift and trying not to appear depressed. Moon felt a little sympathetic, but only a little. He thought this would be better for River in the long run than continuing to take the place of a consort. But he bet River didn’t think so.
He found Ember on one of the bigger balconies above the greeting hall, watching the celebration with some of Pearl’s warriors. Vine was one of them, though River and Drift weren’t there. Moon ignored them, and asked Ember, “Can I talk to you?”
Vine immediately leapt off the balcony, and the other warriors scrambled to follow his lead.
Ember looked worried. “I don’t want to be first consort,” he said immediately. “I don’t want to challenge you.”
Moon hadn’t even known that was an option, but he wasn’t concerned. “Not about that.” He sat down on the smooth wood of the floor. Below in the gathering hall, warriors and Arbora were still sitting around in groups, finishing off the last of the food. Jade, Balm, Chime, and Stone sat with Delin and some of his crew near the waterfall. Delin was writing furiously in his book, and Jade was explaining something that required her to wave her arms a lot and had made Balm and Chime almost fall over laughing. Stone looked unimpressed, so Moon assumed it was something about past exploits of certain line-grandfathers.
He looked up to see Ember watching him warily. He seemed less nervous and underfed, though to Moon he still looked barely older than Thorn. “Are you all right? I mean, Pearl didn’t…” Ember was now staring at him as if he had no idea what Moon was talking about. That was probably a good sign. “. . . trick you into this? Into accepting her?”
“Because she’s older? Oh, no.” Ember shook his head. “Young queens always frightened me a little. But Pearl is strong and beautiful, like them, but she’s so calm, too. And patient with me.” He smiled at Moon. “I’m happy.”
Pearl? Calm and patient?
Moon thought, but managed to keep his expression neutral. Maybe it was just him that annoyed Pearl so much. “All right, then. That was what I wanted to ask.”
Moon started to get up and Ember said, “Wait. I wanted…” and halted in confusion. Moon sat down again, and Ember took a deep breath. “Even after being here for a while, I don’t feel like I know the court very well. While you were gone, everyone was very unsettled and upset, and then Jade was hurt, and the line-grandfather came back with the groundlings, and Jade left with him and the others and… I don’t think the line-grandfather likes me.”
“He doesn’t like anybody at first,” Moon said. He wasn’t sure what Ember was asking. “What do you want to know?”
“I guess I want to know…” Ember seemed to gather his courage. “What was it like when you first came here?”
Moon shook his head a little. In some ways it had been a lifetime, and in some ways he felt as if he had just arrived. And it was going to take some preliminary explanation about groundlings and what Moon’s life had been like before he knew he was a Raksura.
“It’s a long story,” he said, hoping Ember would change his mind. Instead, Ember wrapped his arms around his knees and settled back against the wall like a fledgling ready to be told a go-to-sleep story. It was hard to resist. And it occurred to Moon that for the first time in his life, he could tell the whole story.
“About forty turns ago there was a colony in the east, and a warrior named Swift, who had to change her name to Sorrow…”
* * *
Appendix I
The Court of Indigo Cloud
Aeriat
Queens
Pearl—Reigning Queen.
Jade—Sister Queen.
Amber—former Sister Queen of Pearl, now dead.
Azure—the queen who took Stone, now dead.
Frost—a fledgling queen of the court of Sky Copper, now adopted by Indigo Cloud.
Indigo—the Reigning Queen who originally led the court away from the Reaches to the east.
Solace—a Sister Queen in an earlier generation of the court, who was the first to visit the Golden Isles.
Consorts
Stone—line-grandfather.
Rain—Pearl’s last consort, now dead.
Moon—Jade’s consort.
Thorn and Bitter—fledgling consorts of Sky Copper, now adopted by Indigo Cloud.
Cloud—the consort Indigo stole from Emerald Twilight.
Sable—Solace’s consort.
Dust and Burn—young consorts given away by Pearl when Rain died. Dust became the second consort to the reigning queen of Wind Sun.
Warriors
River—leader of Pearl’s faction of warriors. A product of one of Amber’s royal clutches.
Drift—River’s clutchmate.
Branch—River and Drift’s clutchmate, killed in a Fell ambush.
Root—young warrior from an Arbora clutch; a member of Jade’s faction.
Song—young female warrior; a member of Jade’s faction.
Spring—fledgling female, one of only two survivors from Amber’s last clutch of warriors.
Snow—fledgling male, Spring’s clutchmate.
Balm—female warrior, and Jade’s clutchmate. Jade’s strongest supporter and leader of her faction.
Chime—former Arbora mentor, now a warrior; a member of Jade’s faction.
Vine and Coil—male warriors of Pearl’s faction, though they chafe under River’s rule.