She stalked forward, radiating barely contained irritation, her gaze on Pearl. “The things he accepted from the Arbora are only what they would give in hospitality to any visitor.” Her voice hardened into a snarl. “Try your claws on me, why don’t you.”
Pearl moved away from her, her lip curling in contempt. “You’re a child. You have no responsibility in this court and you’ve made no attempt to assume any.”
Jade’s laugh held little amusement. “You say that as if it’s what you want.”
Stone broke the moment. “That isn’t what we came here to discuss. The Arbora want to go to a new colony. Our lines haven’t flourished here, and you know it as well as the rest of us do. All the consorts of my line are dead, Rain is dead, and your last clutch didn’t survive to—”
Pearl rounded on him, hissing. “I don’t need you to remind me of that!”
Evenly, unaffected by her anger, Stone said, “Then what do you need?”
After a moment she stepped away from him, shaking her head. “We have too many Arbora and too few Aeriat. We can’t leave this place, not now.” Her hands curled into fists. “I’ve waited too long. I take the blame for that.”
Flower stepped forward and suddenly had the attention of the entire room. It gave Moon some insight into just how much power the mentors actually held. Among all the larger Arbora and the tall warriors, Flower should have been a slight, insignificant figure, but every Raksura here turned to listen. She said, “It’s not too late. There are ways around the lack of Aeriat. We don’t all have to go at once. We can make the journey in stages.”
Pearl hesitated, though Moon couldn’t tell if she was giving the suggestion serious thought or not. Then she paced away. “It’s too dangerous. We would die in stages.”
His voice tight with irony, Stone said, “We’re dying here, and that started before you let the Fell in.”
Pearl turned toward him, her mane flaring in challenge. “What do you want from me?”
“You know what I want.” Stone let the words hang in a fraught silence. When Pearl looked away, he said, “I’ll settle for your word that you’ll agree to move the court if I can get the means to transport the Arbora safely.”
Pearl laughed, more annoyed than amused. “Your plan is ridiculous,” she said, sounding exasperated. “I think your mind has finally turned.”
Stone smiled, showing his teeth. It was somehow a far more threatening gesture than it should have been, and a ripple of unease went through the ranks of warriors. But he only said, “Then you have nothing to worry about.”
Pearl watched him a moment more, then she turned her gaze to Moon, contempt in every line of her body. “I want your solitary gone from this court.”
Moon glared narrowly back at her and tried to shift, tried it with everything he had. He felt the change gather in his body, felt it burn in his chest, but he couldn’t push past whatever power Pearl still held over him. But when he said, “Then make me leave,” it came out in the deeper rasp of his shifted voice.
Pearl’s face twisted into a snarl. “Get out of my sight!”
That he was willing to do. Moon snarled and turned for the door, barely noticing as the Arbora scattered out of his way. He strode down the passage to the landing, every step further away from Pearl’s presence a relief. The others came out behind him, and he pounded down the stairs until he felt the pressure in his chest ease and knew he could shift again.
He left the stairs at the next landing, and headed blindly down a corridor until he found an opening to the outside. He shifted and jumped out, meaning to glide down to the foot of the pyramid. His head still swam from the effort of trying to shift against Pearl’s restraint, his heart pounded with rage.
Distracted, he sensed something above him and snapped into a sideways roll. A dark green warrior shot past him, his stooping dive turning into an awkward tumble. Moon felt his lips pull back from his fangs in a silent snarl. They weren’t high enough in the air to play this game.
He turned back toward the pyramid and landed on a broad ledge. Hissing angrily, the warrior banked around and tried to angle in at him, his wings beating hard. Idiot, Moon thought.
Moon leapt up, caught the warrior’s ankle and yanked him out of the air. The hissing turned into an outraged yowl, cut off abruptly as Moon swung him against the upper ledge. The warrior snapped his wings in to protect them and tried to dig his claws into the stone to scrabble away. Moon pulled him down, caught him by the throat, and pinned him to the wall. The warrior bared his fangs; he could have sunk his claws into Moon’s wrists, or lifted a foot and tried to disembowel him. Moon should have torn his throat out.
Instead, he followed an instinct he didn’t know he had, and drew himself up, flared his spines out, and leaned in. The warrior’s eyes went narrow as he tried to avoid Moon’s gaze. Then his spines, crushed against the stone, began to wilt as the furious resistance leaked out of his body. Knowing his point was made, Moon said softly, “Don’t do that again.”
The warrior jerked his head in response. Moon released his throat and stepped back. He half-expected to be tackled off the ledge and for it all to start over again, but instead the warrior shifted to groundling. He was a lanky boy, turns younger than Moon, with a shock of red hair, dark copper skin, and a deeply embarrassed expression.
Several warriors circled the air above them, and Moon was sure two of them were River and Drift. No one else dove for him. Moon turned and leapt off the ledge again.
He glided down toward the teachers’ court. As he landed on the soft grass, he startled a flock of tiny flying lizards. They burst into alarmed retreat in a flurry of gold and violet wings.
Moon shifted back to groundling, and there he stopped, leaning one hand against the gritty, moss-covered stone of a pillar. He wanted to get out of this place. He wanted to fly in the cool air or float in the river, but he didn’t want anyone to think for one heartbeat that he had run away. At least there’s no question of fitting in anymore, he told himself bitterly. That bird had flown a long time ago.
Stone’s great dark form landed in the center of the court, crushing some flowering bushes and almost flattening a small tree. He set Flower on her feet and then shifted to groundling.
“That went well,” Flower said dryly, as they started toward Moon. She winced. “Moon, you’re still bleeding.”
“Let me see.” Stone reached for him. Moon jerked away with a half-voiced snarl. Stone cuffed him in the head so hard Moon stumbled into the pillar. “Stop that. And don’t shift,” Stone snapped.
Moon subsided, unwillingly, remembering that he really didn’t want to fight Stone. Flower hurried away, disappearing through the archway into the common room. Stone took Moon’s shoulder and turned him around, pushing his head down to look at the cuts.
“Ow,” Moon muttered.
“You shut up. Flower—”
“Here.” Flower was back, handing Stone a wet cloth that smelled of something earthy.
Stone pressed it to the back of Moon’s neck. Whatever was on it stung at first, then cooled the cuts. Stone said, quietly, “Pearl isn’t... It’s not supposed to be that way.”
Moon set his jaw. “You said she was sick, not...” So bitterly angry that she was blind to everything. “What’s wrong with her?”
“We don’t know.” Flower leaned on the pillar, looking up at him, a sad twist to her mouth. Other Arbora had reached the court, gathering in the common room and talking in soft, worried voices. “It could be disease, or just all the loss. Her last two queens’ clutches, the ones that should have given Jade consorts and sister queens, were stillborn. Then Rain died. He was the last of the consorts of her generation.”