“Yes, finally!” Chime waved his hands, excited. “We can’t wait to see it.”
He ducked out of the room and Moon sunk further down into the cushions, muttering, “Good for you.”
Flower sat next to him, propping her chin on her hand. “Moon, you are going to fly again.”
He hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She put her hand on his forehead. “Now rest.”
It didn’t matter if Flower’s “rest” had something in it other than just the word. Staying awake was too much of an effort. It was easy to just relax into sleep.
Moon woke sometime later to find a dark-haired little boy in groundling form leaning over him, staring with grave intensity. After a puzzled moment, Moon recognized Thorn, the older Sky Copper consort.
From nearby, Stone said, “See? He didn’t go away.” Thorn patted Moon on the nose. “Gently. Remember what I said.”
Moon turned his head carefully. Stone sat on the floor a few paces away. He looked much better than the last time Moon had seen him. The bruises were gone. The edge of the claw-wound above the open collar of his shirt had lost its red, raw look and turned to scar tissue.
“We didn’t believe you,” Frost informed Stone, with the air of conceding a highly contested point. The fledgling queen leaned against Stone’s side, and the smaller consort, Bitter, sat in his lap. The boys both wore clothes that were too big for them, and Frost wore a string of bright blue and gold beads. “The others all went away.”
“I know you didn’t believe me.” Stone lifted Bitter out of his lap and told Moon, “They wanted to be with you, but we were afraid they would keep you awake or jostle you. The teachers have been taking care of them with the other clutches.”
Bitter crawled onto the pallet next to Moon and curled up against him. Moon automatically folded his good arm around him. He noticed someone had taken his admittedly filthy clothes away and replaced them with a soft, heavy robe, and the strap around his broken arm had been changed. He hadn’t had anyone take care of him since Sorrow had died, and it felt... odd. He wasn’t used to depending on anybody else, for anything.
“Bitter says we’re your clutch now,” Thorn said to Moon. “Even if you don’t have a queen.” Against Moon’s side, Bitter nodded confirmation.
Still half-asleep, Moon blinked at that one. He wasn’t sure the court was going to go for that idea. “Uh...”
“You found us,” Frost said, as if that settled the argument.
Moon decided to leave it be for now. He asked Stone, “Did they see what happened at their colony?”
“Yes.” Stone ruffled Thorn’s hair. “Bell said they come out with it at odd moments.” He added, “And we’re not calling that boy ‘Bitter.’”
“It’s his name,” Moon said, feeling on safer ground with this one. He told Bitter, “Your name is whatever you want it to be.”
Frost said, “His real name is Bitter Starshell. It’s a flower that only comes out at night.”
“We can call him Star,” Stone said, as if that settled it.
“I’m not going to argue with you.” Moon tried to make it a threat. There were more things he wanted to ask, but maybe not in front of the fledglings. Besides, it was still an effort to stay awake.
Stone took them away when Moon started to drift again. Moon spent most of the next two days unconscious, lulled by the gentle movement of the flying boat. Flower said it was the remnants of the healing sleep, but Moon couldn’t stay awake long enough to get more information. Every time he asked someone a question, he fell asleep before he could hear the answer.
But then he woke one night, to cool, damp air that smelled of fresh water and green plants, and he felt more awake than he had since Ranea tried to snap his wing off. It didn’t hurt to breathe, and his bones felt less mobile, more attached to each other; that had to be an improvement.
The glowing moss stuffed into the ship’s candle holder showed him a pile of cushions and blankets on the other side of the room, with at least three sleeping people. Squinting, he made out Flower, Chime, and Heart.
The opportunity for escape was too tempting to pass up. Moon disentangled his robe from the blankets, rolled onto his good arm, and levered himself up. Standing, with one hand on the wall to steady himself, he still felt delicate, and his joints ached.
He made it across the floor without waking anyone, and out the open door. A narrow hall led into the small maze below decks. Other doors opened off of it, and he could hear a lot of people breathing deeply in sleep, and further away, low voices. Above his head, the hatch to the deck was open, giving a view of a star-filled night sky and letting in the cool air. The stairway was steep but narrow enough to let him brace himself against the wall as he climbed. He made it up onto the deck with only a minimum of awkward, painful bumping.
The ship sailed serenely through the night, the nearly-full moon high in the sky. The fan-sail was closed, and the breeze was light, heavily laden with the scent of fresh water. There were sleeping bodies on deck, too, most in groundling form, all wrapped in blankets. Baskets and bundles were tied off to every available spot. Far up in the bow, under the lamp, an Arbora was on watch. Looking up at the watch post at the top of the mast, Moon could see a couple of Aeriat stationed there too. The other ship was a little ahead of them, just off their port bow. Moon picked his way to the starboard rail, and leaned on it to look down.
They were passing over a vast lake, perhaps fifty paces above it, the water gleaming silver in the moonlight. Trees with delicate, feathery leaves grew up out of the lake, some nearly tall enough to brush the bottom of the hull. The water was clear enough to see brightly-colored fish flickering through it.
Moon lifted his head, the breeze tugging at his hair and his robe. He could see the distant shore, heavily forested, featureless in the dark, except for the occasional spreading shade tree taller than the rest.
He heard a quiet step behind him and glanced back. It was Niran, making his way across the deck. He leaned against the rail next to Moon. Keeping his voice low, he said, “You are feeling better, then? They said you were gravely injured.”
“I was. We heal fast.” Moon looked out over the lake again. He had heard enough from the others to know they had some specific destination in mind, that they were headed to an old colony somewhere that Stone knew of. “Where are we?”
The question sounded a little desperate to his ears, but Niran didn’t seem to notice. “We’re going southwest. That’s all I can say.” He shook his head. “My family has never come this far inland before, and our maps are blank, except for my track of our progress.”
Moon tried to remember what Stone had said. Eleven days of fast flight, just to get out of the river valleys? “So we don’t know if there are cities out here.”
Niran shrugged. “Presumably there are. Somewhere.”
Moon sank against the railing, wincing as his arm and shoulder throbbed. He had no idea what his status with the court was, if they were angry because he had brought the Fell down on them, or willing to forgive him because he had found Frost and her brothers, or what Pearl’s attitude would be. He vaguely remembered asking Pearl to kill him, and her declining, but he wasn’t sure if anything had changed. He was fairly certain Jade didn’t want him dead, but there was a big difference between that and wanting him as her consort.
Niran cleared his throat. “Once we reach our destination, Stone has said that a winged group will accompany me back, so I may return with both ships at once.” He paused, watching Moon thoughtfully. “My family owes you a debt, and I know my grandfather would be pleased to see you again.”