“It’s Moon, of the Indigo Cloud Court.” Karsis and Esom stared at him, Karsis in astonished realization and Esom in growing horror. “That’s the colony tree you stole the seed from.”
Rift twitched, and hissed. “You’re lying. It was empty. It was a dead court.”
“It’s not empty now,” Moon said. “You led him to the seed, you know what that means.”
Ardan watched them with a narrow, speculative gaze. He said, “Rift, calm yourself. I thought you would be pleased, to have another member of your race here.”
Moon snorted. Ardan obviously didn’t know as much about Raksura as he thought.
Rift grimaced in disgust at Ardan. He shifted, his groundling body vanishing in a dark mist, resolving into a warrior with dark green scales. He flared out his spines, and snarled in Raksuran, “You’re lying. That colony tree was abandoned. I don’t know what you want here, but if you want to live, go away. Now.”
Moon barred his teeth. He thinks he’s looking at another warrior. In groundling form, it was hard to tell young consorts from male warriors. Until it was too late. Moon said, “Come and get me.”
Rift sprang toward him. Moon shifted, flared his spines out, and lunged forward. They grappled, tumbled across the room, slammed down onto a bench, bounced off a pillar supporting the chimney. Moon was bigger, stronger, and much more angry. He barely felt the smaller warrior’s claws.
Around them, groundlings shouted and fled. Rift’s growls went up in pitch as he realized he was overmatched. Wrenching free, Rift tried to bolt. Moon caught him again and flung him toward the knot of guards in the opposite doorway. They scattered as the warrior slammed through them. Claws scraping the floor, Rift scrambled away down the corridor. Moon jumped over two fallen guards, bounced off the ceiling, and pelted after him. Moon was peripherally aware of running, shouting, confusion, but the only thing he could see was Rift.
Rift slammed through an archway into another small sitting room just as Moon caught him. He grabbed Rift’s spines and yanked him around. Rift clawed for Moon’s eyes but Moon slammed him down to the floor. Kneeling on the warrior’s chest, he seized him by the throat. Then Rift croaked, “Don’t. Please.”
Moon, just about to tighten his grip and rip Rift’s throat out, growled in pure frustration. He was breathing hard, his skin stinging from scratches on his hands, arms, and chest that had penetrated his scales. Rift’s eyes pleaded, and Moon couldn’t kill him. “Where’s the seed?”
He gasped, “I don’t know. He took it away, out of the tower— Watch out!”
Moon twisted in time to see a guard in the doorway, lifting his little crossbow. Moon snapped out his right wing in a sharp punch. He struck the man in the chest with the tip and flung him backward.
Taking advantage of the moment of distraction, Rift said quickly, “I’ll show you the way out, through the bottom of the tower. The barrier stops at the ground.”
Shouts and crashing echoed from up the corridor. Ardan shouted, “Where are they?”
“You swear it’s not here,” Moon hissed.
“I swear.” Rift’s eyes burned with sincerity. “He took it away somewhere.”
There wasn’t much of a choice. Moon let Rift go and rolled to his feet. More guards rushed the door, and Moon slammed through them, knocking them sprawling. Rift jumped over his head, clung to the ceiling, then leapt down the hall. Moon tore after him and rounded the corner just as a chorus of crossbow bolts clattered against the stone wall.
He caught up with Rift in the foyer as three of the bulbous guardcreatures barreled in through the stairwell doorway. Rift threw himself at the first, hands and feet ripping at its face. The other two tried to crowd past. Moon jumped and landed on top of the first one’s head. He slashed at the clawed hands that reached for him and dove forward, over their heads and out the doorway. Out in the stairwell, he whipped around and ripped open the back of the one still trapped in the door. All three creatures roared. Ardan’s groundling guards, stuck in the foyer with their path blocked, shouted. Then Rift tore his way out over the creatures’ heads.
Rift bounded down the stairs, Moon right behind him. But Rift turned off at the next landing and slammed through a door. Moon hesitated. It led into a foyer and hall not much different from the one they had just escaped. Rift stopped to whisper, “This way—we can’t go down the main stairs. He’ll order his men to shoot us.”
Moon’s nerves were as tight as wire at the idea of trusting Rift, but he heard the guard-creatures clumping down the stairs, and there was no time to argue. He ducked through the door, dragged it closed behind him, and ran after Rift.
They passed more doors, a confusing maze of empty rooms, then Rift took a smaller door into a plain room that held only a big iron stove. It was almost as tall as Moon, but cold and dusty with disuse.
Rift climbed up to stand atop it, and explained, “This makes heat for the bathing rooms above. They only use it when it gets cold.”
A copper-sheathed chimney led up from it, and for a moment Moon thought Rift meant them to escape through that. It looked far too small and it was going the wrong direction. But there was a grate in the wall behind it, and Rift pried it open with his claws. It opened into a much larger shaft that led down through the wall of the tower. A cool breeze flowed from it, carrying the faint odors of outside air. “This is for ventilation,” Rift said as he climbed inside. “Ardan doesn’t know I’ve been down here.”
“Then why didn’t you escape before?” Moon followed him reluctantly. There were so many things he didn’t like about this that he couldn’t settle on which was the worst.
Rift hung from chinks in the wall, let Moon get through and then, one-handed, he tugged the grate back into place. “I didn’t have anywhere to go.”
Moon helped him pull the grate closed, which left the shaft with only the small amount of dappled vapor-light that shone through the bars. “What court are you from?”
Rift eyed him uncertainly as he clung to the grate. “I don’t have a court. I was traveling alone.”
Moon’s spines snapped up, his first impulse a renewed fury. He’s lying, he’s lying to make me think— Except Rift couldn’t know anything about Moon’s past.
Rift shrunk back against the wall at Moon’s reaction. Moon made himself lean back, settle his spines. He started to climb down and after a moment, Rift hurried to catch up. Moon asked, “How did you get here?”
Rift hesitated, as if afraid to provoke another angry reaction. It was already too dark to read his expression. He answered, “I came here a couple of turns ago, not by choice. I was traveling along the eastern shore and got caught in a storm. I got blown out to sea and couldn’t fly against the wind. I was exhausted, about to fall out of the sky, and I saw a trading ship. I landed on it. They locked me in the hold, chained me up, and brought me here to sell me to Ardan.” He took a sharp breath. “I know I should have let myself drown, but I wanted to live.”
Moon had wanted to give up more times than he could remember, and he was ten turns older than Rift, at least. He muttered, “You shouldn’t have let yourself drown.” He heard Rift miss a handhold and scrabble to recover. Moon added, “You’re lucky Ardan didn’t stuff you and stick you in his exhibit.”
“He had other plans,” Rift said, still sounding wary.
Moon clamped his claws into the stone and waited until Rift drew even with him. Going by sound and instinct, he grabbed Rift’s shoulder and felt the young warrior’s spines flatten into instant submission. He said, “You went to the Reaches with him. You led him to the Indigo Cloud tree. You could have escaped any time while the groundlings were traveling through the forest.”