It gave him something to think about on the long flight at least. The terrain below was starting to flatten out, the hills softening into long rises and shallow valleys, with clusters of tall fringe trees and other foliage so thick along the occasional meandering streams that it nearly concealed the sparkle of moving water from view. The wind was only a little cooler, but it carried the faint distant scent of the sea.
It was the next morning, at first lightening of the sky, when Stone suddenly slipped off the wind and fell sideways toward the ground. Moon almost fouled a wing in surprise, thinking Stone had passed out. But as he came around, he saw Stone control the fall with one economical flap and come in for a neat landing near a big stand of trees.
Moon dove down to light beside him as Stone shifted to groundling. “What is it?” he demanded. Once on the ground, he realized the stand of trees, their purple-gray trunks entwined like huge vines, seemed to be independently mobile and watching them with little round dark spots that were probably eyes. Moon tasted the air, but picked up no traces of predator musk. Still, this was not a place that Stone would have normally chosen to stop at. “Are you all right?”
Stone jerked his head toward the south, as the kethel dropped into the tall grass about forty paces away and shifted to its groundling form. “I spotted a flying boat ahead. Didn’t want them to see us. If they’ve got those distance-glasses, they might be able to pick us up, even this far away.”
Moon hissed, startled. After all this searching, they might finally have found their goal. “Could you tell if it was the Hians?”
The kethel approached, throwing a wary glance toward the tree-creature. It looked like it was farming fungi and other crops on its own branches. Moon still kept one eye on it, just in case it decided to object to their proximity.
Stone snorted in exasperation. “Not yet. We’re going to have to hang way back, and try to catch up after dark.”
“I told you the truth,” the kethel said pointedly.
Stone eyed it. “So you did. Let’s see what you can do to earn your next story.”
Bramble didn’t remember much of what happened next. She came back to herself lying on the padded bench in Delin’s room, tucked into blankets, with Delin sitting on a stool beside her. She said, “Merit?”
“He is well,” Delin said. “The hull protected him, and he was not affected as you were.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, and remembered she had asked him that before. Several times before. She opened her eyes and shoved herself upright. Delin almost fell off his stool, startled. He said, “You are better?”
“Yes.” Bramble ran a hand through her hair. Her scalp itched with sweat, and she could tell from the way her shirt stuck unpleasantly to her skin that she had been lying here inert for some time, at least a day. Maybe more than two days. She remembered the Fell. “Did Aldoan figure out how to make the artifact kill the Fell? Did it kill all the Fell? Do the Fell have the artifact? I can tell we’re stopped, are we where we were going, did you find out?”
Delin buried his face in his hands. “Oh, Bramble, I feared you were lost to us.”
Bramble stared at him, and it dawned on her how exhausted he looked. She remembered again that he wasn’t just a funny-looking Arbora who couldn’t shift. He was a groundling who wouldn’t get stronger as he got older. She pulled him half onto the bench in an awkward hug. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“As if it was your fault.” He pulled away, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “Aldoan is dead. The Fell were all killed, or fled. Vendoin went down with some others in their levitation packs and retrieved the artifact, and Aldoan’s body, but she did not bring back with her the scholar she said they had stopped there to meet. They do not know why the artifact worked; they found it still in Aldoan’s hands, and no marks of injury on her body. We traveled for three days at speed and we stopped here late this afternoon. They asked me to help them make the artifact work, and said if I did not, they would injure you and Merit. I said I would help them.”
“Right.” Bramble took it all in. Aldoan, who had always seemed so uncomfortable with the role of captor, had somehow made the artifact work, and died for it. “Are we near the foundation builder place where the rest of the weapon is supposed to be?”
“We must be, but no one has come to take me there.” Delin lifted his hands. “I am glad of the respite, for time to think of some way out of this.”
Bramble rolled her shoulders, shifted to make certain she could, then shifted back to her soft-skinned form. “We need to go back to the original plan.”
Delin nodded. “Which one was that?”
“The one I didn’t tell you about.” She took a sharp breath. The one that probably wasn’t survivable, at least for her. “The one where you distract the healer, while I get into her room and find a poison.”
The Court of Indigo Cloud
“You promised them what?” Pearl said to Malachite. “Have you lost your mind?”
Ember controlled a wince. He saw Celadon, seated across the hearth, confine her reaction to a blink. Crouched on the fur beside him, Heart let out a near-silent breath that might have been a repressed hiss. Bell twitched and Knell went still. Bone’s sigh was more annoyed than anything else.
Malachite didn’t move a spine. She said, “I value your plain-speaking.”
“Are you trying to be funny?” Pearl said.
They were in Pearl’s bower, with only the two reigning queens, Celadon, and the Arbora present. Floret and Vine were casually loitering outside the bower’s doorway, making sure no one else came near enough to overhear. Ember had been a little horrified at the idea of having a private meeting with such a prominent queen in Pearl’s bower; he was glad the Arbora had already come through this morning and taken the blankets to air, and rearranged the cushions and the kettle, pot, and tea cups for maximum effect. But having heard what Malachite had wanted to tell Pearl, Ember was glad of the privacy and the precautions. The other news that Malachite had brought had been horrifying enough: Song dead, and Bramble and Merit taken captive by groundlings.
Pearl continued, “You’ve promised these half-Fell a home in the Reaches. How am I supposed to convince the other queens to allow this?”
“I haven’t promised it yet, but I will,” Malachite said. She was as still as the statue above the queens’ hall, but Ember wasn’t reassured by that. Her stillness felt unpredictable, like a predator that could change its mind and strike at any moment. The fact that Pearl was utterly indifferent to the effect was not reassuring. Malachite added, “And you’ve handled the other queens well so far.”
Pearl tilted her head, clearly suspecting irony. “Gathering together to fight off a Fell attack is one thing. They would have to be idiots not to agree to act.”
Celadon leaned forward. “We need the help of the Fellborn queen. If we can find out which progenitor is leading the others, it could save many lives—”
“You don’t need to explain your mad plan to me.” Pearl’s spines almost rattled in frustration. She said to Malachite, “You realize I am ill-suited to this role that you’ve foisted on me. The other queens dislike me almost as much as I dislike them.”