Moon didn’t understand what he meant, but she did. She said, stiffly, “He was given the opportunity to bring his belongings. We didn’t—”
“This is all I had to bring,” Moon interrupted. “I came there with nothing. Everything I had were gifts because I was the consort. I’m not their consort anymore.” Sanity was returning like a wash of freezing water. It occurred to him that he had been doing that thing again, pretending not to feel, or pretending the feelings were about something else. Except that he seemed to have lost the knack for it, and instead of remaining safely buried it had all exploded out. He didn’t want to be dead, and he hadn’t wanted Tempest to kill him. But in that moment he had been willing to do anything to stop feeling, to change what was happening, fleeing the colony and becoming a solitary, fighting to the death with a queen, anything. He added, “It wasn’t Tempest’s fault. I made her fight me.”
“No, I—” Tempest began, then stopped, her spines flicking in agitation. Moon realized he had given her an out, that if he took responsibility for the fight, then Opal Night couldn’t blame Emerald Twilight.
The consort hissed, grabbed Moon’s wrist and pulled him out of the room. Out in the passage, several Arbora and warriors waited, listening intently, frozen in consternation. As the consort appeared, they hurriedly cleared a path, some of them climbing right up the walls. The only one Moon recognized was Russet. As they passed her, the consort snapped, “Send for Lithe.”
The consort took the first turn up a ramp that wound deeper into the tree. Moon had assumed he was being thrown out of the court, but this wasn’t the way to the colony’s main entrance. He planted his feet and wrenched his wrist out of the consort’s grip, scales rasping against his groundling skin. The consort turned back, spines lifting. Moon said, “Where are we going?”
The consort lashed his tail impatiently. “To the consorts’ bowers.” He tilted his head. “Did you want to stay with them?”
“No.”
“Then come on.”
The consort took more turns, finally passing through a doorway onto a bridge that crossed one small curve of the central well. It was almost under the spray of the waterfall, and a cool damp updraft ruffled Moon’s hair. The bridge went under a heavy arbor of vines and through the inner wall of the tree, back into a passage heavily carved with figures of Aeriat and Arbora.
The passage ended in a big round room, all carved wood, with a beaten metal hearth bowl in the center. There were low benches here too, curved ones, covered with gray furs and cushions in dark fabrics. The consort pushed Moon down on the nearest. “Sit there.”
Moon sat. His head was starting to clear; the brisk walk and the cool mist from the waterfall had helped.
The consort paced away, spines flicking and his tail lashing impatiently, then he shifted to groundling. He was bigger than Moon in this form too, with a heavier build than Aeriat usually had. His skin was a lighter gold-bronze, and he had red-brown hair. His face was more square and blunt than Moon’s, or any other consort he had seen before. He was still handsome, but he looked like he was built for fighting rather than breeding. He was dressed in dark brown and leather, a shirt that left his arms bare to show off chased gold armbands. His expression was serious, not angry. Moon asked, “So you aren’t throwing me out of the colony?”
“What?” The consort glanced at him as if that was the craziest thing he had heard yet. “Of course not.”
A young Arbora in groundling form rushed in, stumbled to a halt as she saw them. She had dark copper skin and dark hair cut into a fluffy halo around her face, and a slim strong build under the faded blue shirt and pants she wore. She had a satchel slung over one shoulder and from the dirt smudges, looked like she had been called in from gardening.
Brow furrowed with concern, she looked from Moon to the consort. “Yes?”
“Take care of him,” the consort said, and walked out.
Moon stared after him. He called out, “If I ask nicely, can I be thrown out of the colony?”
The Arbora stepped closer, peering at Moon. “Russet said the foreign queen hit you in the face, but I didn’t believe her. I see I was wrong.”
The side of Moon’s face was still numb but he could feel the skin tightening with incipient swelling. “Who are you? Who was he?”
“Oh, I’m Lithe, a mentor. He was Umber, the consort of Onyx, the sister queen.” Lithe slipped the satchel off her shoulder and knelt. She sorted through it and dumped out some cloth packets of herbs. Her sleeves were rolled up, revealing muscular forearms and an array of bracelets, beads, and bright metal and polished stones. Ducking her head so her hair shielded her face, she added, “Ah…it was also suggested that I ask you if you had been…mistreated?”
“Not lately.” Looking past her, Moon saw they had an audience. Other Arbora gathered in the doorway from the passage, and more in a smaller doorway across the room. They were all dressed for outdoor work and carried a strong scent of loam. Realizing Moon was watching them, they retreated with some confusion, but from the rustling and whispers coming from the passage, they hadn’t gone far.
Lithe looked up at him and smiled uncertainly, clearly not sure how to take his answer. “That’s…good.” She got up to reach for a kettle. “How long were you with Indigo Cloud? Emerald Twilight told us a story about you being alone—”
“I was alone, until six months ago when Indigo Cloud’s line-grandfather found me,” Moon said. He had a question of his own. “Why did Opal Night abandon me, a female warrior, and four baby Arbora to die in the forests of the Abascene peninsula?”
“What?” Lithe almost dropped the kettle. There was a chorus of shocked gasps from the passage.
After a long moment, Lithe said, “What happened to the others?”
“They were eaten by Tath,” Moon said, not bothering to soften it, not saying “they died” or “they were killed” or any of the other words that were easier to hear but less true.
Silence stretched. Lithe set the kettle on the warming stones and looked down at it, biting her lip. “I don’t know what happened. I was born after the attack.” She cleared her throat. “Who were they? The Arbora, the warrior?”
“Leaf, Light, Bliss, and Fern. The warrior was called Sorrow.”
The Arbora just outside the room whispered to each other. Nobody seemed to have an answer. This was about what Moon had expected. And he didn’t see much point in staying here any longer. He pushed to his feet. “I’m leaving.” He could at least retrace the route between here and Indigo Cloud, looking for signs of Jade and the others.
Lithe glanced up, startled. “You can’t leave! The daughter queen wants to see you. She’s your clutchmate.”
“Clutchmate?” Moon repeated. For a moment the word didn’t make sense. “They said…Rise said I was the only survivor of the queen’s last clutch.”
“The only consort,” Lithe explained. “It was a mixed royal clutch, three consorts and two queens. One of the queens survived.” She hesitated. “Her name is Celadon. Your birthqueen is called Malachite.”
Moon shook his head, telling himself it didn’t change anything.
Lithe took that for confusion, and explained, “Malachite is the reigning queen. Onyx is the sister queen, but she’s descended from the bloodline that remained here when the court split up and half of it went to the east, generations ago.” Lithe handed Moon a cloth pad filled with herbs. Automatically he pressed it against his eye and felt the swelling start to ease immediately. Mentors augmented their healing simples with magic; the more powerful the mentor, the quicker the healing. Lithe must be very strong. “When the eastern branch of the court returned, forty turns or so ago, Malachite led them back here.” Lithe hesitated. “The consort who fathered you was killed by the Fell. They attacked the eastern colony and destroyed it.”