Moon thought they were overestimating his abilities, especially if one of the large platforms collapsed. But it was good to be asked. “I’ll stay,” he said.
Chapter Three
The Arbora worked for the rest of the afternoon, mostly to get the berries picked and the essential planting done. But they also checked over the blocked drainage and irrigation channels for signs of leaks or weakening supports. Working from below, Jade and Balm and the other warriors found several spots that needed attention, enough to know they would have to carefully check every platform on the tree.
Everyone came in at dusk, and after the berry harvest had been stored away, Moon and most of the court ended up sitting in the greeting hall talking over the situation, worrying, and forming and discarding various plans of action. Everyone knew the platform gardens were too important to their survival to lose. The hunting here was good but they still needed the root crops and ground fruit to augment their food supply. They had traded some of the cloth and raw materials brought from the former colony to Emerald Twilight for dried tea and native root seedlings, but they couldn’t trade for all the food they needed. Especially after Tempest’s aborted visit, when their relations with Emerald Twilight might be even more uncertain than they had been before.
“It might be the fact that the seed was missing for a while,” Merit said, when appealed to for his opinion as a mentor. “The damage inside the tree healed, but if it killed some roots and branches in the platforms...”
Chime snorted in disagreement. “We would have noticed before now.” He tended to give the younger male mentors a lot of attitude, and the others speculated that it might be pure jealousy of their powers. Moon was fairly certain it was pure jealousy of their powers.
Bone shook his head. He looked weary and worried, as if his age was wearing on him. “It’s possible, but it might just be the rot from the blocked channels. The water’s had to go somewhere, and it’s been draining right through some of those platforms.”
Jade said, “We can figure out how it happened later. What we need to do is decide how to repair the damaged branches and roots.” Pearl had already left with most of her coterie, but Jade had been listening thoughtfully, chin propped on her hand, letting the others give voice to their fears and worries. Though Moon could tell she was tired and ready to get away from them all for a while.
As the others all started to offer different ideas for the repair, Moon got up, threaded his way through them, and sat on his heels next to Jade. He leaned against her side, his groundling body against the warmth of her scales, and nuzzled her shoulder. Jade took his wrist and immediately pushed to her feet, tugging him along with her. Chime and Balm glanced up, both with inquiring looks. Moon shook his head slightly, telling them to stay behind. If Jade had wanted more company, she would have signaled for them to follow.
Once they had climbed up the inner well and were safely inside Jade’s bower, she groaned, a comment on the whole long day. “We should have checked the platforms as soon as we got here. I should have thought of that.”
“The tree looked solid,” Moon pointed out. He shifted to his groundling form, going to the bowl hearth to put the kettle on the warming stones. “And it had been like this for turns with no problems.” Which did lend weight to Merit’s theory that the rot had been caused by the seed’s removal.
“Yes, but…” Jade rubbed her forehead, then shook her spines out, as if shaking off pointless recriminations. She started to take off her jewelry, armbands, pectorals, and belt, dropping it into a glittering pile on the fur mat. “Pearl said the royal clutch saw Plum and the others fall. Were they upset?”
“Not really.” Moon had taken a few moments during the afternoon to check on them. “I think they liked seeing me and the warriors catch them.”
Jade snorted. “They would.” The bathing pool was full and the warming stones in it had kept the water hot and steaming. She stepped in and sank down completely under the surface. Moon stripped off his shirt and pants and stepped in after her.
The water had been heating all day and would have been painfully hot for most soft-skinned groundlings, but Raksura loved heat, even in their most vulnerable form. Moon settled into it, leaning back against the smooth stone side of the basin, feeling the knots in his back relax.
Jade surfaced and shifted to her other form, the disturbance from the change making the water bubble up away from her. She leaned back, her frills floating around her.
Moon rested his head against the rim and breathed in the steam. “What did you and Pearl decide about letting the Arbora start clutching again?”
“We were going to let them start after the first root harvest came in, the red tubers, and talk to them to make sure they all didn’t clutch at once. But now, I don’t know if we should go ahead with it.” She added wearily, “But we still need warriors. I just hope they produce some this time.”
“Maybe we’ll have a clutch of warriors,” Moon said, to see how she would respond.
“Maybe.” She sounded matter-of-fact, which didn’t exactly help. She pushed through the water, steam swirling around her, and leaned on the rim next to him. “Any luck with Bitter?”
Moon ran his fingers through her frills as they floated on the surface, and tried not to notice how quickly she had changed the subject. “Not yet.”
“You should talk to Stone about it when he gets back.”
Moon had been trying to avoid that, mostly because he wanted to solve this problem himself. And he was afraid Stone’s methods might be more direct. “He’ll want to throw Bitter off a branch and force him to fly.”
Jade laughed. “No, he won’t.”
“If I wouldn’t fly, he’d throw me off a branch.”
“Yes, but that’s you.” Jade sunk down in the water, eyes closed, her nose just above the steaming surface.
Moon asked, “Do you want to sleep?”
She sat up with a splash, water streaming down her scales. “Not yet.”
Moon smiled up at her, and suddenly found that all the worries were easy to put aside, at least for now. “What do you want to do?”
Jade took his wrist and pulled him up out of the water with her. “Guess.”
When Moon woke the next morning in the hanging bed in Jade’s bower, she was already awake, sitting up, and staring down at him.
He stretched, yawning. The air tasted of a fresh cool dawn, the sweet green scent of the tree, and Jade. Looking up at her, still bleary with sleep, he realized her expression was pensive and not a little worried. “What’s wrong?”
She blinked, as if she had been so lost in thought she hadn’t noticed he was awake. “Nothing.” She leaned against the curving side of the bed, shaking her frills back. She was in Arbora form, softened by sleep, not wearing her jewelry and seeming vulnerable without that armor. “I couldn’t sleep.”
The bowers were quiet, except for the water trickling down from the channel above the pool. Before he could change his mind, he asked, “Do you still want a clutch?”
“Yes.” The answer came with gratifying emphasis, though Jade still looked as if she was thinking of something else. Then she focused on him, her gaze suddenly sharp. “Why do you ask? Because we might have to put off letting the Arbora clutch again?”
“Right, that.” Moon rolled over to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and hiding his face against the warm scales of her stomach. Jade hadn’t changed her mind, so the problem was in him somewhere. He needed to talk to someone, find out what the chances were, if it might be something temporary. But whoever he spoke to might tell Jade, or worse, Pearl. “I thought you might want us to wait, too.”