“Maybe.” Stone stepped to the hearth and took a seat on the fur mat. He grimaced as he settled into place, rubbing his lower back. “You can tell Malachite to ask one of the rulers when she’s ripping his guts out.”
Moon went to sit down on the furs, suddenly aware of how exhausted he was; he didn’t think he would be able to stay awake much longer. Stone looked weary too, and a little more gray than usual in the spell-light. Moon asked, “Why did it take you so long to get back to Indigo Cloud? Did the Arbora want to stop a lot?” It wasn’t fun being carried for long periods of time, and Blossom and the few other Arbora who had helped Niran sail the flying ships were adventurous types. Moon had figured they would have made Stone and the other warriors land frequently so they could sightsee.
“Not exactly. We had company on the way back.”
“Company?” Then Moon remembered who else was an adventurous type, who had been cheated out of his trip to see a Raksuran colony by a Fell attack. And who might find a trip to see the Reaches, the fabled homeland of the Raksura, irresistible. “Delin?”
“He gave the Arbora a ride back in another flying boat.” Stone let his breath out, sounding tired and annoyed.
Moon wanted to see Delin again, and had just assumed that would never happen. But then he had also assumed he would never see Stone again. He was suddenly too tired, too overwhelmed to think about it a moment more. He pulled another fur around and lay down on it, saying, “We’ll decide what to do in the morning.”
Stone made a noise that combined a snort of derision and a growl. But after a moment, he moved around and lay down next to Moon.
Chapter Nine
Moon had fallen asleep immediately, lulled by Stone’s reassuring presence. But deep into the night, he woke suddenly with the conviction that someone was in the passage outside the bower.
It might be one of the Arbora checking on them, but he remembered the sense that someone had been standing outside the guest chamber last night. He sat up on one elbow, and saw Stone lying on his back, eyes open.
Stone caught Moon’s gaze and pointed up and to the side. Moon nodded, remembering the layout of the hall. That faint sense of presence moved up through the passage to the deserted bowers, toward the area that had shown signs of recent occupation.
Moon eased away from Stone, motioning for him to stay where he was. Stone gave him a withering look in return. Ignoring that, Moon got to his feet and moved silently to the door of the bower.
The passage was empty, the white glow of the spell lights reflecting off the curves and angles in the carving, the old claw marks scarring the polished wood. Moon climbed quietly upward toward the other bowers. Faint movement sounded from one, and he stepped into the doorway. There was a figure beside the cold hearth, just leaning down to pick up the book that lay on a cushion.
Moon said, “Did you forget to take it with you?”
The figure whipped around so fast it sat down hard, the book in its lap. It looked like a young warrior or consort, at least at first sight. His hair was dark and his eyes were green, and he had sharp features and a lean, rangy build. He was wearing a dark blue shirt and pants with a darker sash around his waist. The material was clingy enough to reveal a certain knobbiness at his elbows, wrists, and knees, suggesting that he had only recently matured.
But his skin was pale, too pale, without even a hint of bronze or copper tint. When Raksura went to gray and then white with age, they lost the color in their hair as well as their skin. Only the groundling forms of Fell rulers had skin this pale when young.
So this was the crossbreed consort. Besides the skin color, Moon could see no trace of Fell.
He stared at Moon for a long moment, his tense body slowly relaxing as Moon made no move to attack. He cleared his throat and touched the book’s cover. “I was reading it when they said we had to move.” He hesitated. “You’re Moon. I’m Shade. We have the same father.”
“I know.” Their consort father would have been forced to mate with a Fell progenitor to produce Shade, but there didn’t seem to be any point in mentioning that. Moon stepped into the bower and paced along the wall. The hollowed-out niches held trinkets, mostly bits of jewelry, cups for a tea set, broken wooden pens, a couple of folded books. There was also a battered cloth doll, relic of Shade’s not so long ago fledglinghood. It all seemed so ordinary, not the place Moon would ever have imagined a half-Fell consort to live.
Atop a wicker chest was a sheet of paper, and Moon recognized the writing as Raksuran, though he couldn’t read any of it. But there were small scribbled drawings of plants, warriors in flight, and Arbora working in gardens. Drawing tools lay nearby, charcoal pieces and pens carved from reeds. He wondered if Shade had done the drawings himself. Moon had never been able to make a recognizable image on paper, even when he had tried to imitate groundlings’ work, and had never seen any of the Aeriat at Indigo Cloud do it. He had thought it was a skill reserved for Arbora. “Can you hear them?”
Shade didn’t need to ask who he meant. “No.” Still sitting on the fur, he had twisted around to watch Moon circle the room. “Is it true you were alone all this time?”
“Yes.” Moon stepped away from the drawings. “What are you going to do?”
“What? Oh, since no queen will take me, and I can’t leave the court?” Shade shrugged, long fingers fiddling with the book’s leather cover again. “I don’t want to leave; everyone I know is here.”
“You don’t want a queen?”
Shade’s young face was serious. “Even if there was one who wanted me, I shouldn’t breed.” It sounded as if he had given it a good deal of thought. “The clutch might be all right, like me and the others, but they might not.”
It was…not an unrealistic view of the situation. At least no one had lied to Shade about who and what he was, and what he was likely to expect. High in the wall there was an opening to the central well, and Moon stopped beneath it, listening. It must be in a fold of the trunk that faced away from the reservoir, so the rush of falling water was more distant, and the clicks and calls of the insects sleeping in the vines were audible. He wasn’t sure what he wanted from this conversation. Maybe nothing.
Then Shade said suddenly, “Feather said you look just like our father.”
Moon went still. For an instant he felt his connection to this court, to Malachite, and it tugged on him like a leash.
He turned to face Shade, who was lost in thought, turning the pages of the book. Shade said, “I never saw him, because he died, but…The other consorts who live here with me, they’re descended from Malachite’s sister queen who died, and they look a little like him too. So do our cross-clutchmates, in Onyx’s bloodline. But they’re soft, and you’ve got hard edges. It makes you look older and Feather said you look just like him. I think that’s why Malachite was afraid to see you.” Shade frowned thoughtfully, apparently oblivious to the effect this was having on Moon. “I guess that must have hurt you, but I don’t think she realized what it was going to be like, seeing the image of him again. Feather said Malachite’s been so filled with rage that she’s barely felt anything else in forty turns. You coming back means she has to let some of that go. That’s hard for her.”
Moon turned away. He didn’t want to believe it; he didn’t want to give Malachite that much credit. But Dart had said the queen started to enter the room, saw Moon, and left.
He heard a rustle as Shade moved uneasily, maybe finally sensing that this was a difficult subject. Shade said, “What was it like, traveling out in the world?”