Moon took a deep breath, and stepped out into the hall.
All eyes immediately went to him for one nerve-racking moment, then away. About halfway across the hall it occurred to him that no one was speaking, not even the pointed bordering-on-insult conversation of two courts testing one another. The Arbora radiated tension, all except Bone, who was as still as a rock.
Moon took a seat behind Jade, trying not to look awkward as he settled on the cushion. Pearl flicked her spines in acknowledgement, then started the introductions, naming Jade, Moon, and the four Arbora for the two foreign queens.
Fortunately, Moon wasn’t required to respond or acknowledge anyone during this part. He used the moment to try a casual glance over at the other consort, but the man was looking down, the hood obscuring his expression. All Moon could see was that he was fairly young, with light bronze skin.
Moon leaned down, tilting his head, trying for an angle that would give him a better look under the hood. Jade reached over and pinched his leg, and he sat up straight. It wasn’t Tempest’s consort, or at least not her main consort; Moon had met him briefly at Emerald Twilight, and he had been about Moon’s size. This consort must belong to Zephyr, which had to be a good sign.
Pearl finished her introductions, and Tempest said, with a trace of impatience, “Tempest, sister queen of Emerald Twilight, and Zephyr, sister queen of Sunset Water.”
Zephyr rippled her spines in acknowledgement, though she looked distinctly uncomfortable. Moon expected her to introduce the consort, but she didn’t.
Silence fell for a moment. Then Pearl said, “I think we all know what this is about.”
No one responded. As stiff as if even being here in the same room with them was an insult, Tempest said, “As I said last time, I’ve brought Zephyr, to prove that this is not some trick.” Her gaze on Jade, she said, “Did you tell him?”
Moon stared, a jolt of apprehension shooting through his body, as if he had heard the first reverberating grumble of a thunderstorm. This wouldn’t be about one of the Arbora, and there was only one other “him” here. He looked at Jade.
Jade showed Tempest the tips of her fangs. “No. I told you I wouldn’t.”
It was Bone who said, with quiet force, “The Arbora haven’t been told, so perhaps someone could explain.”
Her voice stiff with embarrassment, Heart said, “I was asked by both our queens not to speak of it.”
Bone reached over and patted her knee, showing that he didn’t blame her. “Well, apparently we’re speaking of it now.”
Pearl waved a lazy claw toward their visitors. “It’s their doing. Let them explain.”
Zephyr turned to Tempest, who was still locked in a staring contest with Jade. Resigned, Zephyr inclined her head to Bone, and said, “Your consort was from a court to the east, near the Gulf of Abascene, that was destroyed.”
“Yes.” Bone’s frown deepened. He glanced at Moon, whose heart had started to pound. “He was too young to remember anything of it.”
Zephyr conceded that with a nod. “When he was brought to Emerald Twilight a season ago, the reigning queen Ice believed that she might have recognized his bloodline.”
Moon made himself take a breath, careful not to let it out as a hiss. Bone, Knell, and Bell looked at him in growing consternation, but Heart had her eyes fixed on the floor.
Zephyr continued, “Ice said nothing of this at the time, because she wasn’t certain. It had been many, many turns since she visited the court in question. So she sent warriors to them with a message, asking if they had had a branch of their court go east during the turns of the Great Leaving, and if they had heard news from that branch in the past forty or so turns. They replied that they had, and that the portion of the court that had split off and gone to the east had been attacked and partially destroyed, and the survivors had returned to the home colony. They asked the reason for her curiosity.”
Tempest, as if unable to hold her peace a moment longer, snapped, “She was trying to do you a favor.”
Jade’s expression was stony. “And it’s turned out so well.”
Zephyr cleared her throat. “Ice sent another message, asking if among the lost there had been a consort fledgling called Moon. The message they sent in return—”
Jade’s voice was as tight as wire. “What do they want?”
Zephyr took a sharp breath. Still speaking to Bone, she said, “As Tempest told your queens on her last visit, Ice thought they would offer your court an alliance. At worst, she thought they would ignore the connection. Their response was…unexpected. Ice has been attempting to negotiate with them, to explain that the consort has been taken and there is no need to—”
Tempest said, flatly, “They want him back.”
Silence settled over the room, as if everyone had stopped breathing. Bone shook his head in grim disbelief. Bell looked as though he didn’t understand and didn’t want to, Knell’s face gave away nothing. Heart just looked miserable. Moon said, “Tell them to piss off.”
Everyone turned to stare at him in blank shock, as if the kettle had spoken. As if they just expected him to sit here silently and take this. He said, more pointedly, “Tell them to piss off.”
Pearl settled her spines. Jade reached for Moon’s wrist and he jerked his arm away in reflex. He was burning with fury. They—Jade—had lied to him, kept this from him.
Tempest asked Jade, “Have you clutched yet?”
Jade’s claws flexed, but she said, evenly enough, “No.”
Tempest sat back, hissing in a mix of regret and irritation.
“What?” Moon demanded. “Why does it matter if we’ve clutched or not?”
Her voice dry, Pearl said, “If you’d clutched, we could tell them to piss off.”
Zephyr stirred uneasily. Glancing from Jade to Pearl, she said, “I know what it looks like. But you’ve seen that Emerald Twilight has more consorts than they know what to do with. The idea never occurred to Ice or anyone else that a court would want one back, once he was claimed by a queen and comfortably settled.”
Moon said, “What do they want? In exchange for me.” He had a moment to realize that his voice sounded oddly normal, considering the turmoil going on in the rest of him.
Nobody answered. Pearl said, “It doesn’t work that way.” The trace of sympathy in her voice was almost the worst blow of the day. “We have no right to have you here.”
Her voice low and tight with tension, Jade told him, “We have to go there. I’ll have to formally ask them for you. Everything will be all right. They have an advantage over us, and they want to press it, that’s all. Don’t worry.”
That’s all. Don’t worry.
It was nothing; that was why she and Pearl and Heart had been lying to him about it since Tempest’s last visit. Moon looked at the other consort, huddled silently behind the queens. If he belonged to Zephyr…
They should have introduced him. They should have done that before now.
He said to Zephyr, “Who is he? Does he belong to you?”
Startled, Zephyr twitched her tail, but didn’t answer. She threw a pointed look at Tempest.
Moon rounded on Jade. “Why is he here?”
Her claws flexed again, and she said, “It’s not what you think.”
Moon snarled and shifted, took one bound to the edge of the well and flung himself off. He dropped all the way down to the greeting hall, snapping his wings out at the last moment to break his fall. He landed on the floor in a crouch, scattered startled warriors and Arbora, and shot through the narrow passage out through the knothole, so fast he scraped his scales on the turns.
Chapter Four
M
oon ended up in the mountain-tree’s canopy, higher up than anyone usually ventured, hanging upside down by his tail. The branches were narrower here, barely a few paces across, reaching up to tangle and weave themselves into a nearly impenetrable barrier. Nearly impenetrable. Earlier when the rain had stopped and the clouds opened up, Moon had climbed up through the entwined branches to fly above the forest.
He flew up past the clouds, into the bright sunlight, feeling the heat of it on his scales. He circled for a long time, listening to the distant high-pitched cries of the skylings that inhabited the upper air.
When the sun had moved toward evening, the clouds closed in again, and he dropped back to the tree canopy. He passed down through the branches into deep gloom, where drifts of mist formed, obscuring the lower platforms. He hung from a branch, listening to the birds and the treelings trill and chatter around him.
By nightfall it had started to rain heavily again, and Moon reluctantly decided he would have to go inside. The water drumming on the leaves and wood was not only uncomfortable, it would conceal any sound or scent of approaching predators. While being eaten would end all his problems, he wasn’t quite ready for so final a solution.
He started down, jumping from branch to branch. Closer to the trunk, he saw a circle of light, and realized it was the outside door in the consort’s level. It was never left open.
This gesture, for some reason, just ruined what little sense of calm and balance he had managed to attain. Hissing with irritation, he dropped down to the opening and landed on the little ledge below the door.
He took a cautious glance inside. The soft glow of the shells reflected warm red glints off the walls, and the room was empty. Moon climbed in and struggled to pull the heavy wooden door plug shut, then shot the bolts that held it in place. It was an awkward job to manage alone, and standing there, breathing hard from the effort, he felt exhaustion settle over him like a blanket. He had flown much further than he had today, on less food, but the intense emotion was draining. He shifted to groundling, forgetting that his scales were still wet. The water shifted with him, soaking his clothes and making them stick damply to his skin. That was about all he needed. He swore wearily and sneezed.
“Moon?” The tentative voice belonged to Rill. She stood in the doorway that led into the consorts’ bowers, watching him worriedly. “Why don’t you come in here? We’ve just made some tea.”
The last thing Moon wanted to do was talk, and it must have shown in his expression; Rill hastily withdrew.
Moon leaned on the wall and massaged the growing ache in his temple. He wanted to go to his own bower and sleep, but from the sound of movement and faint voices, he could tell they were between him and it.
Resigned, he traced his way through the maze of the empty consorts’ quarters, his feet leaving wet prints on the smooth wood. The breeze from the open doorway had found its way through here, and the air was almost as damp as it was outside.
He found them in a little sitting area that connected four of the larger bowers, one of them his. He stopped warily in the doorway, but the room held only Chime, Song, Root, Floret, and Vine, seated around the bowl of warming stones. Everyone was in groundling form, and everyone was staring at him, and it was hard to imagine a more uncomfortable moment. He saw Rill slip out through the opposite passage, probably going to tell Jade that he was back.
Moon was about to walk past them to his bower, when Chime smiled tentatively. “The foreign queens are still here, but they’re down in the guest quarters. So, you don’t have to see them.”
Moon didn’t have anything to say to that statement, which was bordering on the nonsensical.
As if avoiding the queens would help.
Song, braver than the others, patted the cushion next to her and said, “Moon, sit with us.”
That seemed to break the spell of awkward silence for the others. Chime moved the kettle back to the fire, and added, “Yes, come and sit. It must have been cold out there, when the rain started again.”
Vine put in, “They say the first rainy season is coming on now.”
Floret took that up hurriedly. “Not big storms though. Just a lot of rain like this, usually in the evening.”
It was suddenly tempting, and Moon felt his resolve weaken. After silently raging half the day, it would be something of a relief to sit here and listen to them talk about the weather and pretend nothing had happened.
He moved forward and took a seat on a woven grass mat, his clothes squelching unpleasantly. Chime hurriedly poured a cup of tea and set it in front of him.
As Moon picked it up, Chime cleared his throat. “We wanted to ask you to talk to the new consort.”
Moon stared at him, too incredulous to react. Chime, his eyes on the dregs in the bottom of the teapot, didn’t notice. He continued, “He begged Tempest not to leave him here. We heard him.”
Song rolled her shoulders uncomfortably. “Think about what it’s like to be packed off to a court where no one wants you.”
Moon pressed a hand to his temple, fighting the urge to laugh.
“He doesn’t have to think about it,” Root said suddenly, with a pointed glance around at the others. “Nobody wanted Moon here, remember?”
There was a moment of appalled silence. Then Floret hissed and aimed a slap at Root’s head. He rolled out of reach, bounced up to stand in the safety of the passage door, and hissed at them all. “You know it’s true!”
Root had been one of those who hadn’t wanted Moon here, though he had changed his mind at some point. His insistence on saying exactly what he thought, without restraint, had always been annoying. But for once Moon was glad to have someone acknowledging the obvious.
Exasperated, Floret started to stand, asking Root, “What’s wrong with you?”
Moon said, “Leave him alone.”
His voice came out in a hard rasp. Everyone went still for a moment, then Floret sank back onto the mat. Root ducked down the passage and made his escape.
The silence stretched, until Chime continued, stubbornly, “Someone has to talk to the new consort.”
“You talk to him.” Moon drained his cup and set it aside. At least he didn’t feel like laughing anymore.
Chime looked up at last, his brow furrowed. “I can’t, I shouldn’t. I’m your friend.”
Moon pushed to his feet. “You’re going to need a new friend,” he said, and walked past them, through the passage and the door of his bower.
Once inside he stopped. He hadn’t spent much time in this room, and now he never would. He went to the basket and pulled out the old clothes that Petal had found for him back on his first day in the court, a dark-colored shirt of fine soft material and pants of tougher fabric. They had been mended and stained a little, and he wore them for exploring trips and hunting. Everything he owned was a gift predicated on him being the consort of Indigo Cloud, but a gift from poor dead Petal he was still willing to accept.