Ranea paused to taste the air. Moon knew his scent must have changed. He had felt the sweat break out on his skin. She took her time, obviously relishing his fear, then continued easily, “He died soon after. She tried again, mating her first crossbreed progeny to her rulers, to captured Arbora. Eventually, this produced Erasus, then later, Demus, and I.” Her voice sharpened. “Janeas, come here, I know you’re watching.”
After a moment of silence, Janeas jumped out of the upper passage, glided over the pool, and landed near the shaft. Demus chirped at him, a greeting that Janeas ignored. Ranea stared at him, still with that fixed smile.
After a long moment, Janeas said, stiffly, “I have done everything you asked.” He didn’t look at the dead ruler sprawled near the platform.
The words lingered in the damp air. Then Ranea turned back to Moon, as if Janeas hadn’t spoken.
“When you came to Liheas in the groundling city,” she said, “he wanted to bring you to me. He thought you were perfect. A consort who knew nothing of the Raksura, who could be molded as we wished, who could be taught to do our bidding. But it was all a trick, and you killed him.”
She probably expected him to argue with her, something that would be about as pointless as arguing with the dead ruler. Moon just said, “I was lucky.”
“Do you want to know why we chose Indigo Cloud?” She moved closer, within arm’s reach. “We came for you.”
Don’t fall for this trick again, he told himself. He said, “That’s a lie. I traveled across the east, if you knew where I was you could have caught me anytime.”
“I wasn’t ready to clutch yet,” Ranea said it as if it was self-evident. “Erasus’ augury said you would eventually be at Indigo Cloud, that then the time would be right.”
Clutch? Moon flicked a look at the doorway to the other chamber. “I don’t understand.”
She followed his gaze. “That was—is—my progenitor. My mother. She’s old now, and dying.” She took in his expression, and this time her smile was real, a ruler’s smile, a Fell’s smile, cold and predatory and satisfied. “Did you think I was only a Fell-born warrior? I’m a progenitor. A Fell-born queen.”
Moon couldn’t answer, his throat locked with sick horror. You should have jumped out the window when you had the chance.
She stepped closer, a hand under his chin lifting his head. “All I have to do is breed more queens like myself, more dakti like Demus, and nothing can stop us. We can take control of every other Fell flight we touch, have all the prey we want. We can rule the Three Worlds, earth, air, and water.” Her hand moved down, resting against his throat, almost absently, part caress and part menace, like a butcher petting a herdbeast to calm it. She said, “It’s known that the Fell and the Aeriat came from the same source. The only difference is that the Aeriat joined with another race of shifters called Arbora.” She cocked her head. “You didn’t know they were two different races? Arbora build, they shape, they craft. They make images, art. All the Aeriat do is fight and eat. Two related races that combined to make something better. Why shouldn’t this happen again?”
Panic abruptly overcame numb shock, and Moon knew he had to make her kill him. He couldn’t let her take him, birth another clutch of half-Raksuran monsters to attack other courts, to destroy even more groundling cities, to move across the Three Worlds like a plague. They wouldn’t stop. They didn’t know how. All they knew was breeding and eating, and they would do it until they killed every living creature intheir reach. “Because you’re Fell. You’re abominations, and you destroy everything you touch.” A shadow flickered in her eyes, and he knew the strike was true. “In Saraseil, Liheas touched me, and it ruined everything. It just took turns and turns for me to know it.”
She hit him, an open-handed slap that knocked him off his feet. Half-stunned, he tried to roll away from her, but she grabbed him by the hair. Moon clawed at her arm, kicked, trying to wrench away even if he lost most of his scalp, but she pulled him up onto his knees.
A dakti careened in, bounced off the ceiling, and landed near Janeas. It spat out words in the Fell language, hissing and clicking madly.
Ranea dropped Moon and turned to the dakti. Moon scrambled away, watching her warily. He saw Janeas move away as she stepped past him, as if the ruler wasn’t eager to get within arm’s reach of her either. Ranea grabbed the messenger dakti by the head, lifting it off the ground and shaking it, giving it a sharp order. It repeated the words, gasping this time, probably from the pressure of her hand on its skull. She dropped the dakti and strode to the nearest window.
Moon staggered to his feet and followed her at a careful distance. He wasn’t sure what he was going to see, but he was hoping for an unexpectedly large number of Raksura. He caught the edge of the window and looked down.
The two kethel who had been lying on the hive floor were gone. No, not gone. He squinted, peering down. They were in groundling form, two big muscular bodies, sprawled unconscious near the shaft down into the ruin. Other smaller bodies were scattered around them. Dakti, the dakti that ate the kethel’s scraps, Moon thought in relief. The Dwei had really done it! They had given the poison to five of their number, then sent them to be eaten by the kethel.
He looked up to see Ranea staring at him, her eyes brilliant with rage. She said, “You did this.”
“No. I was here.” In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have smiled when he said it.
He saw her hand lift and tried to duck away, but the blow caught his shoulder, knocking him sprawling. Tasting blood from a bitten lip, he rolled over to see her standing over him. You got your wish. She’s going to kill you.
Behind him, Janeas said, “He must have brought some of that groundling filth here.”
Ranea turned the furious glare on Janeas. “When you found him you should have searched him, searched the Dwei.”
“I didn’t find him; that was Venras,” Janeas said, sounding bitterly pleased. “Demus saw through his eyes. Demus should have told him to search. You’ve put him above us all. Such things should be his decision.”
She stood there a moment, fists clenched, shivering with rage, as if unable to decide who she wanted to kill more, Moon or Janeas. Then leaned down to grab Moon’s arm and dragged him upright. She tossed him at Janeas.
“Watch him.”
She stepped away from them and shifted. Dark mist swirled around her for a heartbeat, forming into a shape that was something out of a nightmare. Her scales were the matte black of Fell, without the colors or undersheen of Raksura, and the texture was coarse. Her wings had the leathery hide of the dakti, and her head was crowned with both an armored crest and Raksuran spines. And she was big, half again as tall as Moon’s shifted form.
She stepped forward and leapt out through the window, her wings snapping out as she dropped from view. The messenger dakti struggled up and jumped after her. Janeas stared after them, gripping Moon’s arm until the bones ground together.
Think of something, Moon told himself. Ranea had killed a ruler for no reason, for trying to salvage their sick plan and bring her at least some of the Arbora she wanted. Janeas had to see that his own chances of survival rested on her whim. Moon said, “You can’t think this is a good idea.”
Janeas said nothing, but he didn’t hit Moon, either.
Moon persisted,“All the Fell at Indigo Cloud are dead.You don’t have enough here to fight us off, and the Aeriat know not to get near that thing now.”