“Because I need to get there in a hurry,” Stone said, every word pointed, “and I need you with me. Look, you either trust me or you don’t—”
“I don’t,” Moon said, frustrated.
“You’re such a cynical bastard. You’re going to fit right in at home.” Stone lifted his brows. “Well?”
“Why do you need me with you?”
“I don’t want you changing your mind along the way.” Stone shook his head, exasperated. “I haven’t given you a lot of reasons why coming to Indigo Cloud is a good thing for you. That’s because I’ve been gone for half a season, most of which I wasted talking while those worthless asses in Star Aster strung me along. I don’t know what I’m going to find when I get back. I don’t know what I’ll be up against. And I’m not going to make empty promises.”
Moon set his jaw to keep from growling. The sun was dying into the distance, only the bare rim still visible above the hills, and the glow on the black wound in the side of the mound was fading. “All right, I’ll go.”
For once, he could tell Stone was relieved. “Good.”
Moon looked away, uncomfortable. “But we need food and water first. The damn Fell aren’t any good to eat.” Stone lifted a brow. Moon added belatedly, “Not that I ever tried.”
Chapter Four
“We’re here.”
Moon opened bleary eyes to see Stone leaning over him. “Uh?” Stone patted his chest. “Still with me?”
“I think...” Moon was cold and sick and didn’t remember shifting to groundling. He lay on hard ground with sparse grass poking him everywhere. He winced. “Maybe.”
“I’ll get some water.” Stone retreated and Moon blinked up at a gray sky, heavy with rain clouds. Did he say we were there?
The past night and day of flying was mostly a painful blur. They had stayed at Sky Copper only long enough for Moon to hunt down one of the big grasseaters while Stone checked what was left of the colony for survivors. It was well after dark, and Moon sat at the edge of a small spring a little distance away when Stone came out again. He landed near Moon, shook the dirt off, and shifted to groundling.
“Nothing?” Moon asked, not expecting an answer. Over the scent of wet earth from the spring, Moon could still smell the stink of death radiating off Stone. He thought if there had been anybody alive in there, they would have come out by now.
“I had to dig down to the nurseries.” Stone wiped the gritty dirt off his forehead and crouched next to Moon, scooping up a double handful of water to drink. He shook the drops off his hands, looking away. “I found what was left of the Arbora clutches, but no royal Aeriat. I know they had at least one fledgling queen. They brought her out to show me the last time I was here.”
Moon felt a sick chill settle into his gut. “They took them alive.”
Stone let his breath out, weary and resigned. “I hope not.”
There wasn’t much else to say, and nothing they could do. Since the Fell would have eaten most of the dead, it was impossible to tell if any Raksura had escaped. Moon wondered if this was what had happened to the colony he had been born in, if Sorrow had been fleeing a disaster like this and had found herself with nowhere to go.
After they ate Moon’s kill and drank from the spring, they were as ready as they were going to get. Stone had told him, “If it gets too much for you, let me know.”
Trying to hide how little he wanted to do this, Moon had said mock-earnestly, “I’ll bite a hole in your chest.”
Being carried was at best uncomfortable; when he was already weary from being in his other form all day, it soon became an active torment. It helped somewhat that Moon didn’t have to expend any effort. Stone held him around the waist, tucked into his chest, so Moon didn’t even have to hook his claws into Stone’s scales to hold on, though for a while he did it anyway. About midway through the night, he finally had to shift to groundling to sleep, but he could only stand the wind so long before having to shift back. By morning he was miserable and exhausted and half-conscious. If Stone had ever stopped to rest, Moon had been unaware of it.
“Did you say we were—” Squinting, Moon rolled over and pushed himself up on his arms. “There.”
They were on a low bluff in a hilly jungle, looking out over a narrow river valley. Built across the shallow river was a huge structure, a gray stone step pyramid. It was big, bigger than the tower where they had spent the night back in the mountains. Heavy square pillars crossed the river banks, supporting the pyramid and the several levels of stone platforms at its feet. Tall trees covered the hills rising up around it, and greenery ate into the edges of the gray paving.
Some of the lower hills were terraced into gardens, with rambling rows of tall leafy plants. Unlike Sky Copper, it was occupied.
Figures moved across the platforms, standing and talking, or carrying baskets up from the gardens. Some looked like groundlings, some like Moon’s other form, but smaller, and without wings. Their scales were all different colors, warm browns and metallic blues and reds and greens, and somehow he hadn’t expected that at all. Then he saw one of the groundlings shift and fly up to an opening high in the face of the pyramid.
Moon couldn’t stop staring. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had thought he would never see this, that when they got here the place would be as dead as Sky Copper. And seeing that pitiful ruin hadn’t prepared him for this. There had to be a few hundred people in there. People like him. It was wonderful and terrifying.
And seeing it let him articulate the thought that had been plaguing him since Stone had asked him to come to a shifter settlement: If you can’t fit in here, it’s not them; it’s you.
Stone sat on his heels and handed him the waterskin. Moon took it, still overwhelmed. “Did you build this place?” he managed to ask.
Stone eyed the complex as if he thought it unsatisfactory at best. “No. Found it, a long time ago.”
It was so different from Sky Copper’s mound. “Is it a good place to live?”
Stone shrugged. “It’s all right.” He prodded Moon in the ribs. “Drink that.”
Reminded of the waterskin, Moon lifted it and drank. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until the lukewarm water hit his dry throat. He coughed, sputtered, and tried again, keeping it down this time. It cleared his head a little, and when he lowered the skin and wiped his mouth, he asked Stone, “What’s wrong?”
Stone rubbed his face wearily. “Fell. Somewhere inside.”
Moon stared at the building, the people moving with unhurried calm along the terraces. It didn’t seem possible. And if Stone could scent Fell up here, the Raksura down there couldn’t miss it. “Are you sure—” Stone gave him a withering look, so he said instead, “Then why does everybody look so normal?”
“I don’t know. The possibilities aren’t encouraging.” Stone took the waterskin and stuffed it back into his pack. “Come on.”
Before Moon could stand, Stone shifted, grabbed him around the waist, and they were in the air, flying toward the pyramid. Tucked into Stone’s chest, Moon missed his first entrance into Indigo Cloud. He felt Stone tilt his wings to land, and then they passed into cool shadow.
Stone released him, and Moon stumbled sideways before catching his balance. They had landed in a wide high-ceiling room, easily large enough for Stone’s other form. The slanted outer wall was open to the outside and vines had crept in, curling around the blocky, rectangular designs carved into the walls. Gray and blue paving stones lined the floor, and wide square doorways with heavy, carved lintels led further into the structure. People hurried in through those doorways, some in groundling form, some not. A few had wings folded behind their backs, but most didn’t. Arbora, Moon remembered. He and the few others with wings were Aeriat.