“This was the thing causing sickness in the colony?” Pearl demanded. “How?”
Flower looked up, her face flushed. “This Fell flight has been watching us through this creature.”
“That’s not possible,” River said, sounding offended by the possibility. He looked around at the others. “It can’t be... We’ve never heard of that before.”
“Just because we’ve never heard of it before doesn’t make it impossible,” Chime said. He wrapped his arms around himself, looking deeply worried. “And we’ve known—everyone knows—the rulers can share their memories. They can see through the dakti, maybe the kethel too.”
And speak through the dakti, Moon thought, remembering what he and Stone had seen at Sky Copper. Thinking of that, it suddenly seemed a lot less unlikely.
“But there was no Fell in the colony for a ruler to share memories with,” Bone said, his voice thoughtful rather than protesting. “You mean this thing just thought about the colony and saw us, heard us?”
“Not very well,” Flower admitted, “Or the Fell wouldn’t have needed to get inside Balm’s mind.” She winced. “It must have been like a mentor’s vision, just enough to give them the general idea of what we were doing.”
Jade shook her head, appalled. “And it made us sick, made clutches die.”
Flower let her breath out in an angry hiss. “The concentrated attention of a flight of Fell was directed on us. The Fell ruin everything they touch; that’s not just willful destruction. Their magic carries a taint, even if they don’t intend it. After turns of focusing on us, the taint... affected us.”
Unexpectedly, Pearl said, “It makes sense.” She didn’t even look surprised. “If there had been anything physical inside the colony, something the Fell had managed to put there, we would have found it by now.” She shook her head, the tips of her fangs showing. “We looked hard enough.”
Jade nodded reluctant agreement. She asked Flower, “Is this the creature that has a queen’s power over the court, that kept them from shifting to fight or escape?”
“It could be.” Flower turned to her. “If it can watch us from a distance, it could have other powers.” She shook her head, frustrated. “I have to find out what manner of creature this is, where it came from. If it’s a new kind of Fell.”
“That we can find out later.” Jade’s gaze turned cold. “For now, we know we have to kill this thing.”
Pearl said deliberately, “After we put the poison in the water and it’s had time to work, the Aeriat can fly to the top of the colony. If this creature is on the queens’ level, we can find it and kill it.”
Bone sounded dubious. “That’s if you can keep your wings long enough to reach the top of the colony.”
Jade shook her frills impatiently. “It’s our best chance. And if killing this thing means we can shift inside the colony again—”
“Then we’ll have that advantage,” Pearl said, her expression grim. “If not, so be it.”
Balm had listened to them all, stunned and sick. “Why did they choose me? Was it something I did?”
“Maybe it wasn’t only you,” Vine muttered uneasily. He was the one who had been sent to Wind Sun with Balm. The fact that he had spent that time alone with her, with no idea she was affected this way, must have been shocking to him. “They could have caught any warrior who ever left the colony alone. Flower will have to look into all of us.”
No one looked happy about that prospect. But Chime said, “Balm’s the only one who’s tried to leave since we found out about the poison. If there was anyone else, they could have easily gotten away in the confusion when Moon was stopping her.” He looked at Balm, wincing in sympathy. “And if the Fell were watching us, knew things about us, they may have picked her because they saw she was close to Jade.”
“I’ll still have to check all the warriors,” Flower said, sounding grim at the prospect. “But if the Fell did this to more than one or two, it might have come to light in a mentor’s augury. They may not have wanted to risk it.”
“But can you make it stop?” Balm asked Flower desperately. “Make the Fell let go of me?”
Flower shook her head reluctantly, and spread her hands. “I’ve never had to do that before.”
Balm turned to Moon. “Did the groundlings have a way to make this stop? To get the Fell taint out of their minds?”
“I don’t—” Fell usually killed the groundlings they took this way when they were of no further use. He had no idea what might happen to survivors—if any. But he didn’t want Balm, or the others, to get the idea that death was her only option. The only thing he could think of was to buy time until they could talk to someone who might know, like Stone or Delin. “I think it went away when the Fell who did it died.” Maybe that was even true.
Jade knelt in front of Balm, taking her hands. “In that case,” she said, her voice hard and fierce, “we’ll just have to kill every Fell we find, to make certain we get the right one.”
The others finished forming the plan, such as it was, and there was nothing to do but wait until sunset. Moon’s nerves still itched and he needed to be alone for a time. He slipped out of the blind, looking for some tree roots to hide under.
He heard someone come out after him, and Jade’s voice said, “Moon, wait.”
He kept moving until she added, annoyed, “Moon, don’t make me catch you.”
He stopped, feeling tension in a tight band across his shoulders. “I’m not leaving. I’ll be with you when you attack the Fell.”
Jade halted just behind him. “If you hadn’t caught Balm... There was no way she could reach the colony without us realizing what she’d done. The Fell would have known there was no use sending her back. They would have kept her.”
“I know.” Balm would have told them about the poison, and the Fell would have done to her whatever they were doing to the rest of the court. He thought of his only full day at the colony, when Balm had directed them toward the plain with the statues as a good place to hunt, and how they had caught a scent of Fell. He wondered now if she had gone there alone at some point in the past, for privacy or to explore, if that was where the Fell had caught her.
Growling with impatience, Jade took his arm and pulled him around to face her. “What is it? Pearl shouldn’t have told River about what you did in the groundling city, I know. But the others would have had to hear about it eventually.”
Moon hesitated. He didn’t want to ask because he didn’t want to hear the answer. Not knowing at least allowed some room for hope. But he made himself say, “Pearl said you had a clutch.”
“What?” Jade stared, then stepped back, her eyes narrowed. “Of course she did.” She folded her arms, tapping her claws. “She’s lying.”
Moon looked past her left shoulder. This was the other reason not to ask. Her denial didn’t help at all; Pearl’s lie was too insidious, there was no way to know the truth. “All right.”
Her whole body went stiff with anger. “You don’t trust me.”
There were a number of things he could have said, but what came out was, “I wish I did.”
Her spines ruffled and she hissed, turned away, and stamped back toward the blind.
Chapter Seventeen
At sunset, Moon, his wings tightly folded, crawled on his belly through the grass toward the river. He hoped the dakti were asleep. He was going to have enough to worry about with the major kethel.
Moon had volunteered for this part of the plan, and no one had argued about it. It only made sense; if he did it wrong, he had the best chance of being able to fly fast enough to get away from the kethel.
Bone, Chime, and most of the hunters waited in the forest, on a hill where they had a good view of this side of the colony. Jade, Flower, and some of the Aeriat were further down the bank, near the terraced fields and a second set of channels for the irrigation system. Pearl and the other Aeriat were on the far side of the colony, ready to come in from that direction.