Moon shook his head. “Go ask Flower. She knows.”
Chime stopped, and Moon kept walking, weaving away through the trees, looking for a quiet spot away from the blind.
At least Pearl wasn’t holding it in reserve to use against him anymore.
Chapter Sixteen
Moon spent the rest of the morning in a tree near the clearing in his shifted form, hanging upside down by his tail from a branch. The hunters kept watch on him, the way they kept watch on all the Aeriat on Jade’s orders, but no one came after him. That was probably for the best, because he was so bitterly angry he couldn’t think straight.
He knew the Fell hadn’t attacked Indigo Cloud because of him; it didn’t make sense. Even if the Fell had shamen that could predict where Moon would be, they had had plenty of time to come after him before this. The Fell had been moving all over the east for the past twenty turns, and so had Moon. And yes, it had been a mistake to go to the Fell in Saraseil, and no one knew that better than him. But if these Fell felt betrayed because Moon had killed the ruler Liheas there after all this time, then that was crazy.
Moon had never faced a ruler before, and he had been younger then and not as strong. He had one chance to escape, and it had been better to wait for Liheas to sleep, even if he had to pretend to believe the lies and let Liheas touch him. And he had no idea why he was trying to justify this to himself. Fell killed groundlings like cattle, tortured them for pleasure, and destroyed their homes; if the Fell didn’t want to be killed in return, that was just too damn bad.
Restless, Moon gripped the branch with his tail more tightly, his scales scraping through the bark. He had no idea if Jade still wanted him after this, if she hadn’t counted on having to tell the others about what he had done in Saraseil, or their reaction to it. If Pearl was telling the truth and Jade already had a clutch, she didn’t need him anymore.
That hurt more than anything.
He knew that Pearl had driven off consorts that had been born into the court because they had belonged to other queens, or because she hadn’t wanted to look at them after her own consort had died. He knew she wouldn’t hesitate to try to drive him off, if Jade did nothing to stop her. His only option would be to fight, to hurt or kill Raksura he had no real quarrel with, to stay in a place where no one wanted him.
That’s if we survive the attack tonight, he reminded himself. They still needed him for the battle at least.
After that... Jade had said that having seen what a Raksuran court was like, he wouldn’t be able to settle anywhere else. She was still wrong, he thought, his anger tinged with that familiar sense of resignation. I wasn’t able to settle anywhere else before this, either.
He tried to ignore the traitor voice that whispered, And if this Fell flight is following you, for whatever insane reason of its own? That meant no more groundling camps or cities, either.
When the shadows were lengthening toward afternoon, a hunter came to the base of the tree and said, diffidently, “Moon? They want you to come and look at the poison.”
What Moon wanted was to hang in this tree until it was time to go be killed by the Fell. But he dropped to the ground, shifted to his groundling form, and followed her back to the clearing.
The others were gathered there, a cautious distance from the pit. Moon tasted the air and knew why. This close to the liquid, the weedy odor had taken on an intensity that made his stomach want to turn.
He stopped at the edge of the group. The hunters and the Aeriat flicked looks at him, and some tried to unobtrusively sidle away. Chime stood over the pit with Flower, watching her stir the contents. He saw Moon and twitched uneasily, turning his attention back to the poison. Jade turned toward him, but Moon avoided her eyes. Pearl, standing at the opposite side of the pit, ignored him.
Moon didn’t see River, who was probably back at the blind, being catered to and sympathized with.
Flower looked up, her face flushed and hot. She saw him and held out one of the nut shells they were using as cups. “Moon, does this color look right? It’s changed from purplish to clear, like the sample in the flask.”
The group parted for him and he stepped forward, just close enough to see the contents of the cup. It had been night when Ilane had given him the poison, but he would have noticed a dark substance in the normally light green tisane. He nodded.
“Good. Now we have to test it.” Flower told the others, “If it needs another boil...”
“Yes, but we can’t test it on you,” Chime said in frustration. “We’ll need you when we enter the colony. Whoever we test it on might not recover in time.”
“Yes, I know, but I always test my simples on myself, and...” Flower took a few steps back and sat down heavily. “I think the fumes are getting to me.”
Chime flung his arms in the air, and Jade said, patiently, “Yes, Flower, that’s what we’ve all been trying to tell you.”
Balm said, “But we do need to test it. If we put it into the water and nothing happens, there won’t be a second chance.”
Behind Moon, someone cleared his throat.
“I’ll do it.”
Moon turned to see the youngest hunter, Strike, who had been the first to greet Jade last night. Strike said, “I want to fight in the battle, but I’m the smallest, so I’m the... most expendable?”
Bone scratched his head, and said reluctantly, “Not expendable, but... You are the smallest, and I’d thought to leave you behind anyway.”
Jade grimaced, watching the boy unhappily. Moon wanted to protest, to offer himself, though that made just as little sense as using Flower to test it. But the whole idea of deliberately putting an Arbora at risk, especially a young one, felt wrong down to his bones. He wished they could catch a dakti to test it on, but there was too great a chance that the other Fell might sense what was happening.
Jade said to Strike, “If you’re certain. If you’re not, tell us now.”
Strike twitched his spines, obviously uncomfortable with all the scrutiny, but he said, “I’m certain.”
Flower took the cup of poison and poured water into it from a skin. She handed the cup to Strike. “Better sit down.”
Strike took a seat on the mossy ground, careful not to spill the clear liquid. He looked down into it, biting his lip. “Should I shift to groundling?”
“Most of the Fell won’t be,” Bone said, crouching near the boy. “We might as well see what it does.”
Jade nodded. “Go ahead, Strike.”
The boy took a deep breath and downed the cup in one long gulp. Everyone watched uneasily.
Birds called in the trees, and somewhere on the far side of the stream a treeling squeaked. After a time, when nothing dramatic happened, some of the hunters started to relax, moving away a little to sit down in the dirt.
Chime began, “Maybe it’s not—”
Then Strike swayed a little, his eyelids drooping. “I’m really sleepy. Is that supposed to...” Suddenly he shifted to groundling and slumped over.
Bone caught him, easing him to the ground as Flower hurried over. She held a hand in front of Strike’s mouth, carefully pushed his eyelids up to look at his pupils, then put her head on his chest to listen to his heart. After a tense moment, she sat up, wiping the sweat off her forehead. “He seems well enough, just deeply asleep.”
Moon stepped closer. “Look at his arms.”
Bone turned Strike’s arm and pushed up the sleeve of his shirt. On the boy’s deep copper skin, lines were already appearing, very faint but growing darker, mimicking the scale pattern of his Raksuran form.
It had taken longer to work on Moon, but then he was bigger than Strike. He said, “That’s what it did to me. That’s how they knew.”