Outside the door with its carvings of fledglings and baby Arbora at play, he stopped and shifted to groundling. It was hard to make himself step through into the room beyond.
Inside was a big low-ceilinged chamber, well-lit, with a maze of smaller rooms opening off the main area, and several shallow fountain pools, each filled just enough to wash and play but not drown in. Most of the younger fledglings and Arbora were still asleep, curled up in nests of furs and blankets on the floor.
Bark crossed the main area, carrying a basket, still mussed with sleep herself. She saw Moon and stopped, staring. “Oh, Moon. I—”
“I need to see the royal clutch.”
She hesitated, but didn’t ask why. The word must have spread last night. “They’re asleep, but—” She bit her lip. “Yes, you’d better.”
She led him to a small room off the main area. The three royal fledglings slept in a pile of blankets, surrounded by baskets, rag toys, and some carved wooden grasseater figures. Bark crouched beside the nest to gently wake the occupants. She separated out two warrior fledglings and an Arbora toddler, gathered them up despite sleepy protests and carried them away.
As she left, Frost, Thorn, and Bitter were sitting up, blinking and yawning. Thorn and Bitter were in their groundling forms, dressed in soft old hand-me-down shirts, and Frost was in her smaller Arbora form, her spines and frills looking oddly abbreviated. They didn’t seem surprised to see Moon despite the early hour, and Bitter immediately tried to climb into his lap and go to sleep again. Moon sat him back down between Frost and Thorn. “I came to tell you that I have to go away for a little while.”
Frost immediately went from soft and drowsy to wide awake and mutinous. “You can’t leave. Who’s going to teach Bitter to fly?”
“I don’t have a choice.” Moon took a deep breath, and forced the sharpness out of his tone. “When Stone comes back, he can teach Bitter.”
There was a short startled silence. Reluctantly, Frost settled her ruffled spines. “Did someone steal the seed again?”
“No, nothing like that.” Everyone else seemed to have forgotten that incident. Or instead of remembering Moon’s place in it as the consort who helped find and retrieve the precious seed, he had somehow morphed into the consort who had just gone along for the flight. “You’ll be fine here.”
He thought he was doing fairly well at keeping his emotions off his face, but Frost exchanged an uneasy look with Bitter. Some communication seemed to pass between them, and Frost turned back to Moon. She said, “If you’ll stay, Bitter will fly.”
Bitter nodded gravely, with the attitude of someone making a terrible sacrifice for the greater good.
Moon rubbed his eyes. Oh fine, Bitter’s been faking it all this time just for attention. You would think, as the smallest royal fledgling, Bitter had more attention than he could handle. But after what Bitter had been through, maybe no amount was enough. And Moon had thought raising fledglings was one of the few Raksuran things he might be good at. “So Bitter has been able to fly all this time.”
Thorn shrugged uneasily and pulled Bitter into his lap. “Yes, but he’s not good at it. The last time he tried, the Fell caught him. We went back to get him, and they caught us too.”
So that explained it. Bitter buried his face against Thorn’s arm. Moon had to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment before he could say, “I appreciate the offer, but I told you, I don’t have a choice.”
Thorn watched Moon carefully, his brow furrowed with increasing concern. He said, “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing. I have to visit another court for a while. I’ll—” Moon meant to say I’ll be back soon but the easy lie froze in his throat. He had been lying all his life, but for some reason the knack had deserted him just when he needed it the most. He finished, “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
Frost shook her head, in denial and protest. “But—”
“That’s all, I have to leave now.” He had to leave before he made a bigger mess of this than he already had. Before he could get up, Bitter lunged into his lap for a hug. So he held each of them for a moment, then made himself get up and leave the nursery.
He took the interior stairs up through the tree, avoiding the populated sections. When he reached the consorts’ level, Chime and Balm were gone from the common area. He wasn’t sure if that was a relief or not.
In his bower, Moon rummaged through the basket for things he would need if the new court took one look at him and threw him out immediately. He found a battered leather travel pack and put in a knife, some flints, spare clothes, the sash Rill had made him, a rolled-up waterskin and a thick blanket. He had arrived at Indigo Cloud with nothing, but he thought fighting the Fell and helping to recover the seed was worth at least this much.
Getting to his feet, he looked around the room. After a moment of arguing with himself, he picked up a tiny rag doll Thorn had made for him. It was just a twist of black cloth with a dried leathery palm leaf for wings, but he put it carefully in the bottom of the pack.
He left his gold consort’s bracelet on the edge of the hearth basin.
Chapter Five
By the time Moon took the interior stairs down to the greeting hall, Tempest and Zephyr had joined their warriors. Jade was there as well, with Balm, Chime, and Heart. A number of Arbora watched from the balconies in the levels above, and warriors hung from every vantage point.
Despite that, it was very quiet in the hall.
As Moon walked toward the queens, Zephyr was saying, “No, I won’t be going to Opal Night. I’m returning to my court.”
Jade tilted her head and fixed her gaze on Tempest. “You’ve kept that to yourself.”
Tempest bristled. “You didn’t ask.”
Jade’s spines rose. “You let me assume you wouldn’t be taking this long journey alone with your warriors. And my consort.”
“You think I’ll take advantage?” Tempest laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
It wasn’t until then that Moon understood what they were talking about. He stopped and folded his arms, growling under his breath. At that moment, if he never saw a Raksuran queen again, it would be too soon.
In the quiet, the growl was perfectly audible. The conversation stopped abruptly and the whole group turned to stare at him.
With a wry tilt to her head, Zephyr said, “Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be a concern.”
Jade dismissed Tempest with a flick of her spines, and crossed the hall to stand in front of Moon. He didn’t think she would notice, but it was the first thing she saw. She lifted his bare wrist and rubbed her thumb over the pulse point. She met his eyes, her expression glum, and said, “If you accept another queen before I get there, I’ll kill you both.”
He freed his wrist. He refused to feel like he was the one rejecting her. “It’s a deal.”
Jade let out a huff of breath, bitterly amused. “That was good. I think you just managed to insult your entire race and culture in one sentence.” She added deliberately, “I’ll leave for Opal Night tomorrow at dawn.”
Moon wanted to believe that so much it made his whole body hurt. But everything in his life up to this point said that this was the end, that he would never see her or any of the others again. Trying to struggle out from under the weight of the past was like drowning. After a strangled moment, he managed to choke out, “I’ll be waiting.”
Jade reached for him impulsively and Moon stepped back. He couldn’t look at her anymore, he couldn’t touch her. He had to be able to walk out of here, and not be dragged out screaming, trying to get his teeth into Tempest’s throat. Jade hesitated, then dropped her hand. “Do you want to say…I mean, talk to anyone?”