Malachite turned to stare down at Jade and whatever temporary amity there had been between them snapped like a cord. It was as if Jade stood out here not with another Raksuran queen, but with a predator, pitiless and filled with silent rage.
Jade didn’t change her expression, didn’t give in to the temptation to snarl or hiss, refused to let her spines flare. You asked for this, she told herself.
A Fell flight had destroyed the eastern branch of Opal Night, killed much of the court, and taken away prisoners for forced breeding. Malachite had destroyed the flight to retrieve them, but not in time to save her consort. She had managed to save Shade and Lithe and the other half-Fell babies. Jade could imagine the thought that she might have missed one, that a fledgling might have been taken away to another Fell flight, would haunt her.
Stone had said that for Malachite that turns-old disaster had happened yesterday, was still happening, would always be happening. Jade should have remembered that. She said, “Moon said the half-Fell queen was young, almost still a fledgling herself. She couldn’t be from your consort’s bloodline.”
Malachite gave no sign that Jade could read, not one spine dip or tail twitch. But suddenly the deadly stillness was gone, and it was like the person poured back into the predator’s shell. Malachite said, “Moon may have been mistaken. He hasn’t had much chance to observe fledgling queens as they mature.”
Jade kept her spines neutral, glad Balm hadn’t been here to see that. She would have heard about it for the rest of her life.
From the camp, two figures leapt into the air, a ruler and a dakti. No, not a ruler, Jade thought grimly as the two shapes circled down. A queen.
The Fellborn queen and a dakti landed a dozen paces away, at the edge of the rock. The queen had the Fell crest and the Raksuran spines, but her scales were matte black, like a ruler or a Raksuran consort. Looking closely, Jade saw she had the contrasting color pattern of a queen, but it was in a lighter shade of black, barely visible.
Jade slid a glance at Malachite. She couldn’t see a bloodline resemblance between the Fellborn queen and any of the surviving issue of Dusk, Malachite’s consort. Malachite dipped one spine in a negative, actually making the gesture broad enough for Jade to read. Jade felt all the relief that Malachite wouldn’t show. That’s one less thing to worry about.
There was nothing different about the dakti, at least as far as Jade could see or scent. Dakti were half the size of an adult warrior, with armored plates on their backs and shoulders in place of scales. Their jaws were oddly long with the double row of fangs exposed. This one crouched at the Fellborn queen’s feet, watching them warily. No, it is different, Jade thought. She had never seen a dakti with that much intelligent awareness in its eyes.
“You found us,” the queen said. She spoke Raksuran. Her gaze went from Jade to Malachite and back. “We thought we were hiding.”
Malachite said nothing. Jade set her jaw. She suspected she was going to have to be the one to do all the talking, probably right up until Malachite abruptly decided to change the plan, whatever it was. Jade said, “You followed us here from the sel-Selatra.”
The Fellborn queen dropped her gaze and dragged her foot claws across the rock. The dakti studied them with doubt and suspicion. The queen said, “We were going the same way.”
Jade tilted her head, resisting the urge to show her fangs. “Do you mean to attack us?”
The queen looked up at her, spines flicking. “No.” Then she shifted. Her form flowed into a figure who could have been mistaken for a Raksuran warrior. But her skin was bone white, like the groundling form of a Fell ruler, like Shade, and her dark hair was long and straight. But unlike Shade, there were patches of dark scales on her cheeks, down her neck and shoulders. She still had her frills, but they were heavier than Jade’s, with a texture more like hair. It was like a queen’s Arbora form blended with a ruler’s groundling form. She wore a loose dark tunic, patched and stained around the hem. She said, “Is this what you look like when you change?”
“No,” Jade said.
“Will you show me?”
Jade’s spines wanted to lift and she forced them back into a neutral angle. “No.”
The queen’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
Moon had been right, it was oddly like talking to a fledgling. A frighteningly strong fledgling with dakti and kethel at her call. Jade drew breath to answer, but Malachite said, “Did they name you?”
The Fell queen flinched, staring at Malachite. The dakti edged closer to her knee and its wings fluttered nervously.
Jade stared at Malachite, frowning. The Fell queen acted as if she had forgotten Malachite was there, or somehow never seen her. Jade knew Malachite could make herself so unobtrusive she seemed to disappear. This was the first time it had occurred to her that Malachite might actually be able to effectively disappear, by somehow using the same ability that allowed a queen to connect with her court and to keep any Aeriat and Arbora from shifting. No, that’s not it. The Fellborn queen saw her, I saw her look at Malachite. But had Malachite been able to make the Fellborn queen forget she was there?
Watching Malachite with suspicion now, the Fell queen didn’t answer.
She said, “I’m Malachite of Opal Night. That is Jade of Indigo Cloud. What are you called?”
Jade had a twinge at the idea of Fell knowing her name and her court’s name. Hearing your name spoken by Fell was never a good thing, though concealing it from them was nearly impossible.
The silence held for so long Jade didn’t think the Fellborn queen would answer. Then she said, “Consolation. The . . . The flight doesn’t have a name. Yet.”
Jade’s chest went tight. She threw another glance at Malachite, unable to help herself. Apparently unmoved, Malachite said, “Who gave you that name?”
“The consort. Our consort.” Consolation hesitated. “Is it a good name?”
He loved her, Jade thought, and suppressed a hiss. “Consolation” wasn’t a name for hatred or irony or even wry regret. Jade wanted to ask what the consort’s name was, if he had said what court he came from, but she reminded herself that it was in the past, that he was as dead as the progenitor who had stolen him, and there was nothing they could do about it now. If she thought about what life had been like for him in a Fell flight for who knew how many turns, she wouldn’t be able to keep her temper and somebody was going to die. She couldn’t imagine what Malachite was feeling under her impenetrable expression.
Malachite said, “Yes, it’s a good name. The progenitor let him raise you.”
Consolation drew her foot claws over the rock again. “She had to. The others didn’t know how to take care of me.” She tilted her head to study Malachite. “A mistake. She made mistakes.”
“You killed her,” Malachite said, still even and expressionless. “What about the rulers?”
“I didn’t kill the older ones.” She looked down at the dakti. It grimaced at her. She looked up again and said, “Someone else did that.”
The dakti and kethel, Jade thought. The progenitor had made mistakes all right.
Consolation looked from Jade to Malachite, eyes narrow. “You’re a queen too?” she said.
Startled, Jade realized that she must have been the first Raksuran queen that Consolation had ever seen, that night outside the foundation builder city. That she and Malachite were different enough that it might be confusing to unaccustomed eyes. Malachite said, “Yes.”