Moon’s scales were dry enough now, and he shifted to groundling and stretched, trying to ease his sore shoulder. Chime looked up, still flushed with excitement, and told him, “Jade’s staying in here tonight, and Pearl is near the stairs on the level below with some more warriors. That way if anything tries to get in, it’ll run into one of us first. One of them. You know what I mean.”
“Good.” Even if nothing else had taken up residence in the tree, there was always the chance their presence would attract predators.
Flower carried a basket over to the heating basin and dumped out a load of small, flat river rocks. She sat beside the basin and held out her hands. After a moment, heat started to rise. She sat back with a sigh and tucked her skirts under her feet. “That’s better.”
Rill nodded, pulling out more blankets to hand to Song and Root. “It’ll get the damp out of the air.” She glanced around and pointed to one of the baskets. “Moon, those are some things from Jade’s bower, and we put yours in there too.”
As far as Moon knew, he didn’t have any things except the clothes he was wearing. Everything he had owned had been left behind in the Cordans’ camp. He went to open the basket.
On top were heavy quilted blankets and bed cushions, in shades of dark blues and sea greens, with patterns picked out in gold. He lifted those out and set them aside, figuring that was what they would be sleeping on tonight. Next there were a few rolled leather wraps. Peeking inside one, he saw it held jewelry, silver strands wound with polished green stones and deep-water pearls. Jade had used all the jewelry she had been wearing on their trip to the east to pay for supplies and to give to Selis in return for helping them. Apparently there was plenty more where that came from. He was beginning to realize that the Raksura didn’t measure wealth in gems or even the sturdy, colorful fabrics the Arbora made. He wasn’t sure what they did measure wealth in. “That’s a lot of jewelry.”
Flower sounded wry. “It’s nothing to what Stone’s collected over the years.”
“I only hope we found it all.” Rill, unpacking a copper-chased kettle, made a helpless gesture. “He had it hidden all over the colony. After everything that happened—”
“Don’t worry about it, not tonight.” Chime took the kettle away from her and set it on the warming stones.
Looking for more bedding, Moon pushed the leather rolls aside. The fur blanket beneath, the long soft hair dyed to the purple haze of twilight, looked familiar. He pulled it out to find it was bundled around a belt with a sheathed knife, the dark soft leather tooled with red in a serpentine pattern, with round buckles of red gold. These were the consort’s gifts Jade had left at the bower he had been using in the teachers’ hall at the old colony. The knife’s hilt was carved horn, the blade was a tooth, sharp as glass but as strong as fine metal. He hadn’t accepted them at the time, having no idea what he would be getting into and mostly certain that he hadn’t wanted to get into anything. Now… Now it’s different, he reminded himself. And he still really wanted that knife.
He left it and the belt on top of Jade’s jewelry and added the blanket to their nest of bedding. Suddenly self-conscious, he looked around to make sure no one was watching him, especially Stone. Then he realized he hadn’t seen him since they arrived. “Where’s Stone?”
Flower, carefully unwrapping a cake of pressed tea, said, “He went up to look around the queens’ level. That was a while ago,” she added, frowning.
Chime dropped a last cushion onto a pile of bedding and glanced up, worried. “You think something’s wrong?”
“No, not wrong, just…” Flower hesitated. “This place was his home, a long time ago.”
She was right; this had to be strange for Stone. Moon put the lid back on the basket and said, “I’ll find him.”
He took the stairs up to the greeting hall, where the soldiers had spread their bedding out around a hearth basin near the fountain. Merit was still with them, looking small next to the bigger Arbora. Merit waved, but the soldiers just stared at Moon with wary curiosity.
He shifted and jumped to climb straight up the wall, finding plenty of handholds built into the carving, rough from where generations of Raksura had hooked their claws. He followed the spiral well up and up, climbing past open balconies and galleries.
Somewhere far below, he heard a voice raised in song that echoed up through the passages of the tree. Moon winced. Please, not tonight. He hoped they were too weary for a full chorus.
The court had sung once aboard the flying boats, one night when they had been passing over a grass plain. It had been a dirge for the dead members of the court, and for the colony ruined by the Fell. The mingled voices had been so low and deep, so heavy with pain and loss, the deck of the Valendera had trembled like a sounding board.
Moon had slipped away from Jade’s side, retreating to the deck cabin. The door was partly open, and he ducked his head inside. Light came from glowing moss stuffed into the glass candlelamps, and Niran sat on the bed, which folded out from one of the benches along the wall. He said, “You might as well come in. Everyone else does.”
Knowing Niran, Moon took that for the invitation it was. He stepped in and sat cross-legged on the deck. For a normal voyage, Niran would have quarters below deck, but all those rooms were stuffed with supplies and Arbora. The waist-high wooden pillar in the center of the cabin held the fragment of flying island that kept the boat aloft, and let it travel the streams of force that crossed the Three Worlds. There were also a couple of clay water jars, and baskets of supplies, one with a pottery bowl and cup stacked atop it. Niran had a few bundles of paper next to him on the blankets, and a wooden writing tablet in his lap. He said, dryly, “I’m keeping a record of our travels, for my grandfather. He would never forgive me if I didn’t.”
Moon settled his back against the wall to support his sore shoulder. “It’ll help him get over missing this trip.”
“Hopefully.” Niran nodded toward the door. “You don’t participate in the… concert?”
Moon hesitated, debating several different excuses, then settled for, “I don’t know how.” Not counting the court’s stupid rules and customs, everything else about being Raksuran he had either learned from Sorrow or figured out for himself. The singing was alien, and it made him deeply uneasy. In its own way, it was as disturbing as the queen’s connection to every member of her court, the connection that let her keep you from shifting, or draw you in and make you feel like you were sharing a heart. It was too much like the Fell’s power to influence and cloud the minds of groundlings. Jade hadn’t shown any evidence of that ability yet, but that might be because she wasn’t the reigning queen. Moon wasn’t looking forward to the time when she did.
Niran lifted his brows and made a note. “I forget sometimes that you have only recently joined them.”
Moon had wondered if anybody else would ever forget it. And you’re worse than all of them, he told himself now. He hadn’t even tried to sing, just run off to hide with the only available groundling.
Climbing the wall of the mountain-tree, he pushed the uncomfortable thoughts away. They were all here now, and it was time for new beginnings.
The greeting hall was far below him when the ceiling finally curved up to form a wide circular gallery. He climbed up onto it and found it opened into another hall.
A few wall-shells glowed, enough to chase away some of the shadows. More round doorways led off into other chambers, and there was a dry fountain against the wall, the basin below it empty and stained with moss at the bottom. The carving above it made him hiss in appreciation.