Moon sat on one of the cushion-stuffed chairs while Stone bandaged the parts of him that were still bleeding. Jade, Kalam, and Rorra were up in the front of the craft with Ceilinel, and right now Rorra was the one doing the talking. Jade had shifted to her Arbora form, since it looked less threatening and the lack of wings made it hard to identify her as a Raksura, or willfully mistake her for Fell. She kept glancing back at Moon, and he thought there was more to it than just normal concern for him.
He asked Stone, “What’s wrong? Is somebody dead?” Jade had said everyone had made it out, but not what had happened to them afterward.
“You were dead,” Stone said with a grimace. He poked through the bag of healing supplies and pulled out another clean cloth.
“Right, but I’m not anymore.” Moon lowered his voice, even though he was speaking Raksuran. “What about our kethel?”
“That’s how we knew where to look for you. I found him in the ruin, and he’d seen the Kish take you away. He was gone the next morning. I’m guessing he headed to the Reaches to find the Fell queen.”
That was a relief. At least Moon hadn’t gotten him killed. “Do we know what’s happening in the Reaches? Have the mentors gotten any visions?”
“Not before we left the wind-ship.” Stone sat back on his heels, eyeing Moon critically. It was reassuring, because what might be going on in the Reaches was clearly a less fraught topic.
They were passing over a narrow valley or gorge filled with trees, lights glinting here and there under the canopies indicating houses and pathways. The sound of water flowing over rocks and the scent of a clean river rose up from it. The valley bisected this section of the city, domes and other structures rising up to either side. Moon asked, “If the wind-ship went to Kedmar, how did you get here?” The Kish protections against Fell would make traveling across it equally dangerous for Raksura. It was why Moon had never ventured much past the borders and outer trade routes.
“Flew at night, hid during the day, circled around any settlements.” Stone squinted into the distance. “We got here four nights ago, maybe. It feels like longer.”
Making their way through a strange, enormous, crowded groundling city, with Stone in his groundling form and Jade in her Arbora form, where even Rorra and Kalam must have been off balance. Moon didn’t have to imagine how unnerving that had been. “Where are the others?” He hoped they were hiding somewhere outside the city; it would give them less scope for finding trouble.
“Jade sent Balm and three warriors to the Reaches, to tell the queens what happened. The rest are with the wind-ship. Niran and Diar are trying to get help from the Jandera in Kedmar.” Stone looked at Jade, a line between his brows. “Chime wanted to come, but Jade wouldn’t let him. They all wanted to come.”
That made sense, but Moon wasn’t sure why Jade hadn’t brought Chime. His erratic ability to sense groundling magic might have come in handy, and he was good around groundlings. “I was mostly unconscious until yesterday. You caught my scent?”
“Finally.” Stone rubbed his eyes and yawned. “I picked it up in the morning, and followed it until I was sure which dome it was coming from, then sent Kalam to our meeting place to get Jade and Rorra.”
“I wish the wind-ship was here. Having Delin would help with this speakers assembly.” Moon was still worried about having to tell their story to a bunch of disbelieving groundlings.
Stone made a noncommittal noise. “Whatever happens, we’re leaving.”
Moon had been expecting something impressive, but the bridge curved toward a dome that dwarfed all the others they had seen. It was at least as big as the Indigo Cloud colony tree’s canopy, though not nearly so tall. There were so many lights around it might as well have been daylight, illuminating the giant carvings of dozens of different species, climbing over, or maybe building, the walls of a city. Two openings big enough to guide flying boats through pierced the dome, with bridges and walkways leading to doors lower down. Even one of the water bridges for boats led to it, ending in a large pool on stilts with docks. Moon craned his neck to look down and saw multiple roads ended at the dome, that there was a plaza surrounded by smaller structures and trees down there.
Their craft rolled along its bridge directly into one of the big openings. Moon stood as it slowed and slid to a stop. Stone put a hand on his arm to steady him.
Inside the dome, several small Kishan flying boats were moored around the upper part of the chamber, where a walkway allowed access to their boarding ramps. Lights on tall poles shaped like flowers lit the big expanse of the mosaic tile floor. Small spiral stairways led up to the walkways around the dome’s walls, and larger stairwells in the floor led downwards.
A number of groundlings waited near the moss wagon’s track, including Gathin. Moon spotted a group of Hians standing under a lamp, but something about them suggested they were uncomfortable and embattled. They didn’t have fire weapons, though some of the Kishan near them did.
Moon and Stone followed the others out of the wagon. Gathin hurried immediately to Ceilinel, asking, “Are you injured? When we heard—”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Come, you need to hear this.” Ceilinel drew her away a little.
Moon leaned against Stone’s shoulder and yawned. The intense relief at being with the others again left him wrung out, like he couldn’t feel anything else except exhaustion. He kept an eye on Jade, who stood a little distance away, flexing her foot claws. He said, “I just want to get out of here.”
Stone put an arm around him. “I just want to eat. You’d think with all these people, they’d sell food here.”
Gathin turned to look back at them a few times in a way that made Moon want to ripple the spines he wasn’t wearing. He wasn’t the only one who noticed. Keeping her voice low, Rorra said to Kalam, “We should insist on seeing the speakers for Jandera. We need someone to contact the others if we have to remain here and answer to the conclave.”
Kalam said, “I can’t believe it’ll come to that,” but he seemed uneasy, watching the Hians like he expected an attack.
Moon started to make plans. He didn’t think he could fly yet, but he could hold onto Stone’s collar flange, leaving Stone and Jade free to carry Rorra and Kalam.
Rorra turned and said softly to Stone, “Do you think we should try to leave?”
His gaze on the groundlings, Stone answered, “It might be a good idea.”
Rorra nodded. “Do you want to ask Jade?”
Stone shrugged. Rorra gave him an exasperated punch in the shoulder. Before Moon could ask what that was about, Ceilinel turned and came toward them, trailed by an obviously reluctant Gathin. As she approached, Jade’s spines flicked once and she said, “Well?”
Ceilinel didn’t flinch under Jade’s steady regard. She said, “I’ve been informed of the reason the conclave wanted to summon your consort here. They have had a report of a movement of Fell along the eastern border of Kish.”
It wasn’t what Moon had expected to hear. Maybe the half-Fell queen had been wrong, and the Fell hadn’t headed toward the Reaches, but toward Kish instead. But that didn’t make any sense. It was the Raksura they blamed for the death of the flight that had followed Callumkal’s expedition to the sel-Selatra. Stone muttered, “Huh.” Rorra and Kalam exchanged a startled look, and Rorra reached into her jacket to pull out a folded fabric map.