He knew Jade wanted him now, but his position in Indigo Cloud had been far more secure when he was the only available consort in flying distance. He knew queens could take more than one consort, and have warrior and Arbora lovers, but that wouldn’t affect his place in the court. And he had thought that as long as he was with Jade, he could handle it. He hadn’t counted on the members of the court who weren’t happy with an ex-feral solitary as first consort having the opportunity to pressure Jade to replace him.
Moon turned and went back to the passage, taking it through to the greeting hall, snarling under his breath. Now he had yet another reason to be uneasy about this trip.
Chapter Five
They left at dawn the next morning, flying under the canopy through the suspended forest. Traveling as fast as they could, Moon and Jade could have made the trip in three days rather than five. Stone could fly much faster than that, even carrying Flower, but all three kept to the warriors’ pace. Everyone agreed that showing up at a strange court, especially one that had no reason to be friendly, without the warriors necessary for the formal greeting would waste more time than it would save. It would give Emerald Twilight’s queens an excuse to delay speaking to them, or to refuse to see them at all. Moon had already gotten the idea that Raksuran courts saw no inherent reason to be nice to each other; this was just more proof that alliances between courts, let alone friendly relationships, had to be carefully managed.
The warriors they brought were Chime, Balm, Vine, Floret, and Song. Chime had spent little time outside the colony compared to the others, but after flying to the Golden Isles and chasing kethel across desert plains to a Dwei Hive, he wasn’t much daunted by a trip to visit another court. Vine and Floret were Pearl’s choices. Vine had visited other courts before, and he was easier to deal with than many of the warriors she might have picked. Moon didn’t know Floret well. In groundling form, she had the copper skin and red-brown hair that was common in Indigo Cloud to both Aeriat and Arbora, and she seemed to get along with the others. Song was young, but Jade trusted her and she had visited Sky Copper when it was Indigo Cloud’s closest ally. Moon had always thought her groundling form looked enough like Balm’s for the two to be related; they both had warm, dark skin and curling, honey-colored hair.
Moon wasn’t sure how Jade’s talk with Balm had gone, but Balm had shown up in the greeting hall before dawn, ready to leave. She was tense and quiet whenever they landed to rest, but at least Chime and Song were treating her as they always had, as if nothing had ever happened. Hopefully that would help her feel more at ease.
Just before dawn, when they were nearly ready to leave, Moon had gone down to the nurseries to see Bitter, Thorn, and Frost. Most of the younger kids were still asleep or just stirring, so Bark had shooed them into one of the smaller rooms off the main area so they could talk without disturbing the others. Moon had told them he was going to be away for a while, and why. Considering how unconcerned they had been about the possibility of leaving the colony tree, he thought they would take it well. He was wrong.
Thorn huddled in a bristling unhappy heap, refusing to shift to groundling, and Bitter just stared at Moon with big hopeless eyes. Frost threw an actual fit, flared her wings, and snarled that he had no right to go and railed against Jade for taking him.
“Frost, stop.” Moon had seen groundlings spank their young before and had no idea how that would work with a Raksuran fledgling queen. But he was ready to give it a try.
That must have shown in his expression, because Frost stopped in mid-word, eyed him a moment, and settled into a sulk. She said, “We don’t want you to go. Who’ll take care of us?”
“Bell and Bark and the other Arbora.” Moon hadn’t been taking care of them anyway, not the way the teachers were, with all the real work of feeding, bathing, and making them behave. On the boat, while his back and shoulder healed, he hadn’t been able to do much of anything except watch them play.
“They can’t fight like you can,” Thorn said, his voice deeper and raspy in his other form.
“Pearl will be here.” Pearl might be moody and pessimistic, but she could rip a Fell ruler apart like a straw doll and wouldn’t hesitate when it came to physically defending the court.
Bitter leaned over to Thorn and whispered inaudibly. Thorn translated, “Bitter says we want you.”
That one went right to the heart and Moon winced. He wasn’t even sure why they felt that way about him. He had barely gotten them out of the Dwei hive before Ranea had caught him. It had been Jade and Pearl who had saved them all. But he had been the first Raksura they had seen since the destruction of Sky Copper, the death of everyone they knew, the end of their world. “I have to go. But when I come back, I’ll teach you all how to hunt.”
Bitter blinked. Thorn’s spines flicked and the two exchanged a look. Frost’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. She said, “Bitter can’t fly yet. He’s too small.”
Sorrow had started teaching Moon to hunt when he was barely big enough to leap from branch to branch, a precaution that had allowed him to survive after she was killed. “He can still learn.”
Frost had considered that, consulted with the two consorts, then finally agreed, grudgingly. “All right. But don’t be away long.”
Moon managed not to let her maneuver him into any promises as to how soon he would be back.
The scenery made the journey pass quickly. The variety of grasseaters and predators living on the platforms of the mountain-trees seemed endless; Moon saw tree frogs nearly as big as he was, mottled gray-green to blend into the bark, clinging to the broad branches and thoughtfully watching the Raksura fly past. And the trees themselves often took on fantastic shapes. They passed one that was covered with giant gray nodules, each as big around as the Valendera, and another that was hung with curtains of moss, thousands of paces long, draped like fabric. They had no difficulty finding the way; Raksura always knew which direction was south, an ability which Chime had described as a natural pull toward the heart point of the Three Worlds.
Moon’s bad shoulder was sore after the first full day of flying, but the discomfort lessened every day, and he could feel the muscles stretching and getting strong again. He thought he was healing faster flying than he would have just sitting around the colony.
They stopped to rest and sleep on the platforms or the wide branches of the mountain-trees. As Moon had noticed when they crossed the grass plains together, Stone’s presence seemed to drive off predators, even when he was in his groundling form, and he had the same effect here.
They slept one night in a hollowed out space on a branch, and Moon woke to hear the dry rustle of something big slithering away. He sat up, out of the warm pile of the others, to see the dark outlines of Song keeping watch at the top of the hollow and Stone sitting next to her. Song crouched down a little, but hadn’t hissed an alarm. Stone must have heard Moon move, because he shook his head slightly, telling him it was all right.
From where he was huddled behind Moon, Chime whispered nervously, “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Moon whispered back, and lay down again.
They had eaten heavily before they left the colony, but long days of flying made them hungry, so they stopped briefly to hunt as they went along. On the fourth day, Moon sat out the hunt with Stone, Jade, and Flower, watching from an upper branch as the warriors stalked a big wooly grasseater on one of the platforms below. Stone had said they were close enough to Emerald Twilight that scouts might be watching. It brought home the fact that Jade might not care much about Moon’s unconsortlike behavior, but another court would.