Still in her winged form, Onyx was bigger and therefore older than Pearl, and if she stood up would probably be more than a head taller than Moon. Her scales were a dark copper with a red web, and her jewelry, armbands, wristbands, a belt and broad pectoral, was gold with polished red stones. All the consorts were in their groundling forms, with Umber beside Onyx, and the others lounging on the furs behind them. A few had been among the consorts who had fled from Moon in the central well, so Moon wasn’t expecting any support from that quarter. The other queens were seated further away, and two of the daughter queens sat with their consort brothers. They looked young enough that they probably hadn’t been out of the nurseries very long.
At Onyx’s gesture, Rise led Moon to a fur in front of the group, several paces away from Onyx, with a clear separation between him and the other consorts. Rise hesitated, as if hoping to stay, but Onyx tilted her head and stared her down. Rise made a faint exhalation that might be an under-the-breath hiss, and left.
Moon sat down. Umber hadn’t looked at him, and the consorts and lesser queens just cast him covert glances and quickly looked away. Onyx stared at him but said nothing. Right, that’s how it’s going to be, Moon thought, unsurprised. He let out his breath in a resigned sigh.
The chamber was fairly quiet, just a low murmur of talk from the Arbora and warriors seated outside the royal glade. A young male warrior who seemed reluctant to get too close set a plate in front of Moon, with cut pieces of yellow and red fruit and a round of dark brown flatbread. Others were eating already, so Moon took a piece of fruit. He had reached the point where he wasn’t hungry anymore, which wasn’t a good sign. He forced himself to eat, hoping by the time the meat arrived his stomach would be more cooperative. He had managed to get two pieces of fruit and a piece of bread down, when Onyx said, “So this is Malachite’s lost offspring.”
“That’s what they tell me,” Moon said, and took another bite of fruit. He realized a moment later, as the other consorts stared, that he hadn’t been expected to answer. Well, it was too late now, and it wasn’t as if anything he said or did here was going to change their opinion of him.
Onyx didn’t register surprise, but he could sense her interest sharpen. “And you lived feral in the forest for forty turns.”
“No.” Moon deliberately chewed and swallowed the fruit, though it went down like a piece of rock. “I lived feral in a lot of places for forty turns.”
He could tell the consorts and other queens were listening avidly, though most affected attitudes of boredom with varying degrees of success. Onyx said, “With groundlings.”
“Sometimes.” He licked the juice off his fingers, and added, “When they’d have me.”
Onyx’s spines trembled. Moon suspected his self-possession was annoying to her. She wanted him off-balance and diffident, she wanted him to attempt to ingratiate himself; she wanted something from him that she wasn’t getting. Then she asked, “In their beds?” Her smooth voice held a combination of idle curiosity and contempt.
The consorts who were pretending not to listen slid sideways looks at him. The closest warriors and Arbora had gone silent.
Moon felt a wave of heat pass over him. No one at Indigo Cloud had ever asked that question, not Jade, not Chime. Not even Stone, though he had to know the answer already, since he knew Moon had been living with a groundling woman. Moon had thought it didn’t matter to the Raksura. Another thing you got wrong. He said, “That’s none of your concern.”
Onyx tilted her head, and there was a long fraught pause. “Your manners leave something to be desired.”
That was like a Tath calling a Ghobin ugly. Managing to sound as if he was really curious, Moon said, “Isn’t that usually considered the fault of the birthcourt? Mine abandoned me and four Arbora children to die in the forest, so maybe they aren’t the best example.”
The silence spread through the big room. Onyx sat up, spines flicking. Her voice hardened as she said, “And your former queen at Indigo Cloud provided no instruction?”
Of course Onyx knew exactly where to strike back. “She didn’t have much time for it. There was a Fell attack to fight off.”
Onyx went still, and there was an uncomfortable stir among the consorts and sister queens. Moon had been hoping to work his way back to another reference to abandoning children, since that had worked so well the first time, but it seemed he had touched a different nerve. Were they that tense about a reference to the Fell attack that had happened more than forty turns ago, at an eastern daughter colony where Onyx and these other young queens and consorts hadn’t even been present? That couldn’t be it.
Probing the sensitive spot, Moon said, “She could have abandoned the court to the Fell, but she didn’t.” There was an indrawn breath, a deeper silence from the listeners surrounding them. “That’s not a choice every queen would make—”
Onyx leapt to her feet and crossed the few paces between them in one bound, spines flared, furious. Moon fell back, half sprawled on the fur and scrabbled backward. His panicked attempt to shift was squelched as firmly as if he had been born a groundling. He snarled up at Onyx; if he was going to die or get a beating in front of half the court he wanted to at least go out fighting. Then Onyx froze.
Something had perceptibly changed in the room’s atmosphere. Onyx twitched and hissed, then whipped around to face another queen who stood only a few paces away.
She was the same size and build as Onyx, but where Onyx was copper and red, she was a green so dark it was almost black. For a moment Moon thought the contrasting web pattern across her scales was a light gray, then realized it was scar tissue, spidering across her scales and obscuring the colors. She wore no jewelry except for silver and crystal sheaths on her claws. She was too old, too big for a sister queen. This had to be Malachite.
She said, “You go too far.” Her voice was calm, colorless. Her spines didn’t even tremble, but every Raksura in the chamber seemed to shrink.
Moon thought she was talking to him. But Onyx stepped back and made an obvious effort to drop her spines. She said, “Perhaps I did. Your offspring is as provoking as you are.”
Deliberately, Malachite looked around the chamber. She might have been taking note of who was there, or trying to decide if she wanted to tear Onyx apart now or wait until later. Moon tried to shift, hoping Onyx had forgotten about him. If she had, Malachite hadn’t; he might as well have tried to turn himself into a grasseater or a major kethel.
Then Malachite reached down, grabbed Moon’s arm, and effortlessly pulled him to his feet. He choked back a frightened yelp; he would have screamed for help but no one here would lift a claw for him and that would just be insult piled on top of injury.
She let go of his arm and Moon wrenched away and made it exactly one pace before she caught him around the waist. Then she leapt upward.
Smothered against her shoulder, Moon couldn’t see where they were going. He felt fern tree fronds brush his back as she jumped up through the tree canopy. A jolt as she caught hold of some projection on the ceiling above it, then a sideways twist and dimmer light, the sense of a smaller space, as she went through an opening into a passage. Moon went limp, the only thing he could do, hoping if she dropped him he would have a chance to bolt.
She took two more turns, moving up, then down a fairly straight passage that led into a larger space. Moon’s inborn sense of direction told him where they were going. Back toward the consorts’ bowers, but higher up. Then she stopped abruptly.
She let him go and Moon, still limp, collapsed. As he hit the floor, he contracted his body, rolled away from her and came to his feet in one motion.