“Not necessarily.” Stone shrugged and winced. “It might be just that one kethel.”
“So it’s competing with the other Fell to see who gets us?”
“Maybe.” Stone squinted at the empty sky again. “We need to get going.”
“No. I’m going to hunt, we’re going to eat, then we’ll find a place to sleep until dark.” At the far side of the pool below the waterfall, large silvery fish wove through the reeds and water flowers, and there were cracks and crevices in the rock that could make a good hiding place if he could find one wide enough.
He expected Stone to argue, but Stone gave him a sideways look and a slight smile. “And then we’ll get going.”
Moon snarled in frustration again, mostly at himself this time, shifted, and jumped into the water.
He managed to get enough fish for both of them before the school fled the pool, then helped Stone up to a crevice in the cliff that was big enough to lie down in. Stone slept, but Moon sat up just inside the cover of the overhanging rock, dozing off and on and watching the sky.
Before the sun set he spotted a lone kethel, crossing back and forth across the clouds, searching for them.
Malachite and the others left at sunset. Chime watched with horrified fascination as the Fellborn queen’s three kethel built the sac from the secretions of pouches in their winged forms. It was far smaller than the huge sac Chime had seen before, maybe thirty paces across at most. Two kethel lifted it between them and most of the dakti and the rulers climbed inside. Malachite, her warriors, the Fellborn queen, and a few dakti rode the two kethel, with the third flying alongside. The idea was to switch out periodically with the riders inside the sac and rest, with the third kethel spelling one of the two others, so that the flight could be in continuous motion.
“Good luck,” Chime had said to Rise, Malachite’s lead warrior.
He had thought he was doing a good job of hiding how appalled he was, but she had smiled ruefully. “Believe it or not, this is not the oddest thing I’ve done with Malachite.”
Malachite had chosen five Opal Night warriors to remain behind, and Chime stood with them in the stern, watching worriedly as the flight vanished into the clouds. Saffron was one of them, and Chime found himself exchanging a horrified expression with her. He didn’t particularly like Saffron, and they didn’t agree on a lot, but they were as one on this point. The Fell sac they had been trapped in together had been a terrible experience, and Chime couldn’t imagine climbing into one voluntarily.
And he would have never thought he would miss Malachite, but with her and so many warriors gone, the wind-ship felt far more vulnerable.
Chime turned and realized he stood next to Root. The news about the threat to Indigo Cloud and the Reaches had struck everyone so hard, and preparations for Malachite and the others to leave had been so urgent, Chime hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him yet.
There was something about the way Root stood there, his spines drooping a little, that made Chime think that River’s concern wasn’t misplaced. Not that Chime expected Root to be happy, but . . . “Are you all right?”
Root didn’t react, his gaze on the shapes fading into the dusk. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t sound fine. He didn’t sound like himself at all. “That’s good, because nobody else is,” Chime said, hoping to provoke a reaction.
It did. Root turned to face him, his expression grim and unfamiliar. “We shouldn’t have left Song’s body behind.”
It was as abrupt as a sudden slap. The memory of Song’s face, twisted and slack with death, was too vivid still and Chime winced, controlling a snarl. He swallowed his temper and made his voice calm. “We had to, Root.”
The Kishan had left their dead behind, too. They had buried them all on a small island in the archipelago off the coast of Kish, barely more than a sandbar. The Kish were afraid the dead would bring disease in the warm weather, and Chime couldn’t blame them. Indigo Cloud had left its dead before, when the court had had to flee the eastern colony and they had burned the remains of all those killed in the Fell attack. It was never easy, it was never right. But there was no choice.
“We brought Flower back with us,” Root said, stubborn and angry.
“It isn’t a far comparison,” Chime said. Root knew that as well as he did. They had had a queen’s urn to carry her in, and they had been on the freshwater sea, with a boat to take them near the shores of the Reaches, and not so many days of flight from home. Without Flower they wouldn’t have had that home; burying her in the tree had been a symbolic act.
Root looked away, his throat working. Then he shifted and leapt to the cabin roof, so fast Chime stumbled backward. Saffron caught his arm to steady him. “What was that about?” she asked.
“He’s hurt, and he has to take it out on someone,” Chime told her. That was all he wanted to say in front of the Opal Night warriors. He just hoped Root could control himself.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was morning when Bramble and Delin were taken down the corridor and up to the common room.
Through the large glass-shielded windows, Bramble could see the blue morning sky. Vendoin, Bemadin, and Lavinat sat on a bench, while several other Hians stood in attendance. Bramble hadn’t seen or heard anything of Lavinat since that first meeting in this room, and had almost forgotten her. But her presence here again seemed to show that she was important, though what her place was on this boat or in Vendoin’s plans, Bramble had no idea.
A young Hian male knelt by a low table, using a ladle to combine the contents of various jars into a set of three cups, then he stood and carried the tray to Vendoin, kneeling to offer it to her. There was something about it that Bramble found unnerving and alien. She flicked a quick look at Delin, and saw his expression was closed and neutral, almost as enigmatic as Stone at his best.
Vendoin must have seen Bramble staring, because she asked in Altanic, “Your males do not serve your females this way?”
“Not that way,” Bramble said. She wasn’t sure why it made the back of her neck itch, as if the spines she didn’t have in this form wanted to twitch in discomfort. Consorts made tea for their own queens and each other, informally. Except for Moon, who would do it for anybody unless you stopped him, and Stone, who as a line-grandfather did as he wanted. During formal meetings with other courts, Arbora generally tried to make the tea, since it was important to get it exactly right. But this was different somehow. It didn’t help that Vendoin was critically watching her discomfort.
With an edge to his voice, Delin said, “I don’t mean to interrupt your entertainment, but perhaps you could tell us what you want of us.”
Vendoin motioned them forward, indicating a stool near the table. There was only one stool, and Delin glanced at Bramble. She nodded at him to take it and he sat down with a sigh. Bramble stood behind him and realized she had a better view through the windows from this angle and could see that the flying boat was coming to a stop above a settlement.
It lay in a wide valley with a shallow river winding through that sparkled in the morning sunlight. Steep, rounded, forested hills stuck up out of the otherwise flat terrain, placed at random on either side of the bends of the river and sprinkled across the valley. The groundlings had mostly built their dwellings atop or in the sides of the hills, which were carved with pathways and stairs. Bridges joined the hills, and the ground around them was covered with colorful tents, apparently a market or trading area to receive the traffic from the docks along the river and the two elevated stone trade roads that curved in from the surrounding forest.