The other warriors avoided Moon’s gaze, but River gave him a look of pure contempt. Pretending to ignore him, Moon folded his arms, so the sleeve of his shirt tugged up, revealing the gold bracelet. River looked away, seething.
Pearl said, “Then come with me.” And as if she couldn’t bear to leave the encounter on a mostly neutral note, jerked her head toward Moon and added, “Leave that.” She started up the stairs and her obedient warriors trailed behind.
Jade hissed at her retreating back, then turned to Moon. “Go on,” he told her, before she could speak. During the Fell attack, Pearl had had no choice about including Jade in governing the court, or what had been left of the court. If she was continuing that now, without Stone or Flower or anyone else to cajole her, it had to be a good thing.
Jade hesitated, lashing her tail. “I suppose I’d better.” She caught his shirt, pulled him close, and rubbed her cheek against his. “I’ll tell you what we talk about.”
Jade stepped back, jumped up to catch the wall of the stairwell, and Moon went to look for something to do. Pearl’s attitude didn’t bite as much as it might have. A real consort would probably have been bitterly offended at the slight.
Of course, it probably wasn’t good that he didn’t think of himself as a real consort.
He followed the sounds of activity to the passage outside and the platform where the flying boats were anchored. The door stood open, and he shifted to make the jump from it down to the wet grass. The sunlight falling through the canopy was bright and tinged with green, and the air was fresh from the rain, heavy with the intriguing scents of the damp forest. A few Arbora were unloading the last supplies from the Indala’s hold, while others tramped around in the mud of the platform, digging and looking for roots among the trailing vines. Niran, Blossom, and Chime stood on the Valendera’s deck, talking and looking up at the mast. Both boats seemed to have come through the storm with no serious damage, which must have been a relief to Niran.
Moon saw Flower standing knee-deep in the muddy grass, the only Arbora out here in groundling form, and went over to her. “They’re having a meeting in the greeting hall.”
She nodded absently. “I know. I’ve already had my say with Pearl. I think we should all live in the teachers’ levels for now. It’ll do everyone good to be all jumbled together.”
At the old colony, the Aeriat had lived slightly apart from the Arbora, and the hunters and soldiers had had separate bowers from the teachers and the small group of mentors. And the tree’s living quarters seemed to be designed for that same system. Moon flexed his claws and prodded thoughtfully at a root buried in the grass. “That’s not normal, is it?”
“No, but in thriving courts, living by caste doesn’t seem to create problems.” Leaning down to pull up the root, Flower added, “At the old colony, it just caused more trouble. We’d all been moving apart, separating into factions, losing our sense of each other.”
Moon had seen some of that, when one of the hunters had told him he should be sleeping in the upper levels with the Aeriat instead of down in the teachers’ bowers. Since by that point Moon had been ordered out of the court by both Arbora and Aeriat, he hadn’t seen much difference between them. And he had liked Petal, who had been the leader of the teachers before Bell. She had been one of the small group who had made Moon feel welcome in the court. As Flower paused and crouched to examine the leaves of a vine, Moon said, “Everybody was jumbled together on the boats.”
“Being jumbled together in comfort may be more productive.” Flower looked up at him, but from her expression her thoughts were on something else. “We’ll have to see what happens. It’s been turns and turns since this court was out from under Fell influence.”
The same could be said for Moon, though he hadn’t realized it until lately. It still wasn’t something he wanted to think about too closely.
Chime glided down from the Valendera’s deck and landed beside them. He said, “Everything came through the storm fine. I don’t think we’ll have to do much work before we send the boats back.”
The plan was to loan Niran a crew of Arbora and Aeriat to help him sail the ships back to the Golden Isles, then the Aeriat could fly the Arbora back to the colony. It would be a long flight, but it was the only way to get the ships back. “Who’s going with him?” Moon asked.
“We haven’t gotten to that part yet.” Chime scratched his head frills. “Blossom knows the most about how to steer the boats, and Bead knows the second most, but they’ll need more Aeriat.” He looked down, the tip of his tail twitching uneasily. “I’m thinking of going myself.”
“You are?” Taken aback, Moon stared at him. “Why?” Chime had never spent a night away from the old colony before the trip to the Golden Isles, and he hadn’t given the impression that he particularly liked to travel.
Chime shrugged. “I thought I’d do something useful.”
Flower eyed him thoughtfully, and he seemed determined to avoid her gaze. Moon reminded himself Chime wouldn’t be leaving permanently.
Strike, one of the younger hunters, bounded out of the doorway and landed in the mud with a loud squelch. He hurried over, saying, “Flower, Knell has some things he wants to show you, down in the lower levels.”
Moon and Chime hadn’t seen anything below this level, so they followed Flower back inside and down the stairwell. Strike led the way off the stairs into a wide high-ceilinged foyer, but Chime stopped to stare at the carving along the curving wall. “What happened here?”
Moon paused to look, as Flower and Strike continued down the passage. The carving covered most of the wall, a detailed depiction of a seascape, with tall rocky islands rising above ocean waves. But it was covered with holes, as if someone had struck at it with a knife or a chisel. Moon touched one of the gouges and felt rough tool marks and splinters. “Somebody pried out whatever was in here.” There must have been inlaid stones, like the carvings in the Aeriat levels.
“What a waste.” Chime brushed chips away from a section, distressed. “They broke through all the writing here.”
Bead wandered in through another doorway, and saw them examining the carving. She said, “I noticed that too. Whoever carved it must have wanted to take the inlay with her when the court left. I’m going to fix it when I have a chance. Spice has some nice chips of amethyst that I could polish up and fit in there.”
Moon touched an undamaged corner that depicted two warriors crouched on a branch, overlooking the scene. “They never show anybody in groundling form.” He had noticed that particularly in the upper levels yesterday.
“Not often,” Bead admitted, absently brushing more splinters out of the chiseled lines. “It’s traditional that queens and consorts are only depicted in their winged forms. You can show warriors in groundling form, but they get all spine-ruffled about it. Arbora sometimes show each other in groundling form, but it’s not common.”
Chime was still occupied by the broken carving. He picked at one of the gaps with a claw. “It’s like they bashed it out with a rock.”
“They must have been in a hurry.” Bead seemed to have too much on her mind to give the mystery much attention. “Oh, we found a forge down here, a big one, all lined with metal and stone. Pottery ovens, too. We should be able to get it all going again as soon as we unpack our tools.”
Chime turned away from the carving, distracted. “Are there more workrooms?”
Bead pointed toward a passage. “Huge ones, down that way.”
As they headed in that direction, Moon asked Chime, “How are you going to find metal in this forest?”
“There are rock outcrops scattered all over the forest floor, some of them with veins of ore. The old records have maps to the ones on our territory. And we can trade with other courts. Once we find the other courts.” Chime’s brow furrowed. “If they want to trade with us.”