Moon took a deep breath, the scent of the sweet herbs tingling in his throat. “I knew it was the Fell.”
“Do you remember it?” Lithe asked, taking a seat on the fur mat near the hearth. The other Arbora had crept back into the doorways.
“No.” Sometimes Moon had thought there might be a buried memory, but he wasn’t sure if it was really there or just a construction of his imagination, made up of images of other places he had seen the Fell destroy. “I just…thought it was likely.”
“Before Indigo Cloud, you were really alone all that time? You were living as a solitary?”
“Yes.” Moon looked up, baring his teeth. “I didn’t know what a solitary was, I hadn’t seen another Raksura since the others were killed, I didn’t even know we were called Raksura—”
Lithe waved her hands. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it! We just—We weren’t sure how much of what Emerald Twilight told us was true. They said the queen of Indigo Cloud took you without knowing your bloodline because there were no other consorts in the court, and none from other courts who would consent.”
Moon wished yet again that Emerald Twilight had kept its mouth shut. “The sister queen,” he corrected. “The Arbora didn’t want to move the court back to the Reaches without a consort. Then the colony was attacked by Fell, and…then it didn’t matter.”
Lithe was watching him with a troubled expression. “Indigo Cloud took advantage of you.”
“Yes, but—” Moon had always seen it as the other way around, that he had been the one with the potential to take advantage of Indigo Cloud. He had always been aware of that and had tried not to, especially after realizing just how badly he wanted to stay. And it was none of Opal Night’s business. Did they really think they had taken him away from Indigo Cloud for his own good? It was tempting to believe it. But Emerald Twilight didn’t think so. And Zephyr hadn’t understood the reasoning behind it either, and she was from a court uninvolved in the situation and presumably with nothing to lose by expressing an honest opinion. “I wanted to stay.” Moon tossed the herb packet into the pile near Lithe’s satchel. “When Opal Night asked for me, you gave them an excuse to get rid of me.”
There were surprised murmurs from the Arbora in the doorway. Lithe seemed baffled. “But if all they needed was an excuse to get rid of you, why did you want to stay?”
Because it was my place! I never had a place before. It didn’t matter how I got it, it was mine. Moon didn’t want to say that to these people. “Why did Malachite bring me here? What does she want from me?”
“You belong here,” Lithe said it like it was obvious. “When you talk to Malachite—”
“She had a chance to talk to me last night.”
Flustered, Lithe actually glanced at their Arbora audience for support, but they all precipitously retreated into the passage. So everyone knew that Malachite had seen him and changed her mind. He thought Lithe would say something about it, but she just said, “I’m sorry. I’ll take you up to a bower to rest.”
Moon wasn’t tired, but he knew sitting here wasn’t going to get him any answers. Not the kind of answers he wanted, anyway.
The consort’s bowers were above this central room, reached by twisty, narrow stairs that curved up through the tree’s inner walls. As Lithe led him upward, Moon said, “Where are the other consorts?”
“Most of them live in the other set of bowers, for Onyx’s bloodline. These are for the consorts of your bloodline.”
These rooms all felt empty. “So where are they?”
Lithe was a bad liar. She could have said that they were out flying or playing with the fledglings. Instead she said, “Ah…With Celadon.” Forestalling his next question, she added, “She’ll have to tell you herself.”
She turned and took the last few steps up into a bower that had been hastily prepared; a young male Arbora was still there, dumping a bucket of heating stones into the metal hearth. The room was round, the walls carved with flowers and trees, stretching up to a domed roof set with polished blue stones. A curved bed big enough for several people hung about ten paces up one wall, and across from it a wall section was carved out, forming a small balcony with an opening that from the angle must look out on the central well.
“Do you need anything?” Lithe asked him.
I need to not be here, Moon thought. He dropped his pack on the floor. “Like what?”
Lithe hesitated. “Food…clothes?”
“No.” If she wasn’t going to answer his questions, what he mostly wanted was for her to leave.
As if that thought was evident, Lithe’s brow furrowed and she said, “It’ll be all right. You’ll see. We’re glad to have you here.”
Moon didn’t try to look as if he felt anything other than skeptical and bitter. Lithe gave in and left with the other Arbora.
Chapter Seven
Moon waited until the sound of their steps had faded, then explored the bower. Toward the back was a doorway that led to a private bathing room, with a curved hot pool that could be filled from a channel in the wall. With no sign of a previous occupant, the rooms felt as if they had been unused for a long time. He went out to the passage and listened for a moment. He could still hear the faint sounds of conversation and movement from the Arbora, but they all seemed to be down in the consorts’ hall.
Moving quietly, he made a quick survey of the other bowers off these upper passages. He had been given one of the larger rooms, but none of the others were shabby. At first they all seemed unused, with no scent of recent occupation. The hearths were bare, the bedding and furs rolled up and stacked against the walls.
Until he got to the far end of the warren.
There, he found a group of large bowers which all showed signs of occupation. The hearths had warming stones recently renewed by a mentor, and furs, cushions, and baskets of belongings still lay on the floor. In one, a book had been left behind, its tooled leather cover loosely wrapped around the scroll of paper, lying forgotten on a cushion. The occupants had been gone just long enough for the scent to start to fade. Moon put his face down in the bedding, but all he could get was traces of Raksura. They had been gone at least a day.
Or a night. They left last night, because that’s when Rise invited you to leave the guest rooms. The court had meant for him to stay here in these bowers, but hadn’t wanted the other consorts of his bloodline nearby. Because they didn’t trust him? Because they didn’t want the other consorts contaminated by association? Because the other consorts were afraid of the crazy solitary?
The one thing Moon did manage to determine was that there was no other passage exit. To leave this area, he had to go out through the consorts’ hall, where the Arbora were still gathered.
He returned to his bower, and shifted to jump up to the balcony in the wall.
It was furnished as a seating area, with thick woven mats padding the wood and pillows to lean on. The opening looked out at the side of the waterfall, protected from the spray by a heavy trellis of vines, the green leaves veined with purple. The updraft filled the room with fresh cool air, scented of water and damp earth; it would be a good place to sleep. If Moon ever managed to sleep again.
Moon pulled in his disemboweling claws and sat on his heels, looking out on the view. The vines and the angle to the waterfall hid most of the central well; he could see some of the garden terraces and the edge of the reservoir below. The Arbora who had been fishing there had moved on.