Jade’s mouth quirked. “We’ll see.”
There was one thing more Moon needed to ask. “At Indigo Cloud, I saw Merry and Gold making a bracelet or something. It had little Aeriat figures. They acted… twitchy, like I wasn’t supposed to know about it.”
“Well, you weren’t. A consort is supposed to get a gift when his first clutch is conceived.”
“Oh.” Apparently Stone had been right all along: Moon was an idiot.
Jade added, “It takes a long time to make something like that, so I told them to go ahead.” She shrugged her spines in resignation. “I was hoping it would give me luck.”
He leaned against her and rubbed his cheek on her shoulder. “I don’t think we need luck. I think we just need… some time to relax.”
She glanced back to make sure Malachite was out of sight, then put an arm around his waist and pulled him against her side. “That would be wonderful.”
It took several days to reach Opal Night, though fortunately they were uneventful. As soon as they were certain the Fell weren’t following them, Stone went hunting with Floret and Saffron. They stopped the boat at a small lake at the edge of the foothills to butcher the carcasses and to change and refill the water stores and flush out the latrine, but ended up using the chance to bathe and rinse the blankets and their clothing as well.
It lost them most of the morning, but it was better for everyone, especially those still in healing sleep, to get rid of as much of the Fell stench as possible. Moon felt better about being able to hand Delin back a flying boat that though battered, didn’t stink and was reasonably clean. Malachite and Lithe were able to coax Shade to eat a little meat later that day, so maybe the lack of stench had helped him, too.
Moon was sitting with Shade on the railing near the bow, watching the ground go by, when Shade said, “I told Malachite what happened. The part about what the Fell made me do.”
Below, the fern-thorn forests of the lake country were gradually giving way to the high grasses of the plains. Moon said, “What did she say?”
“That it wasn’t my fault. That I did what I had to do to keep us alive.” Shade’s shoulders were still slumped. “She also said what you said, that I shouldn’t tell anybody else about it.”
Moon thought that over, about lies and protective concealment, and how it might fester for someone like Shade, as opposed to someone more used to it, like him. At the moment, Shade thought he was the only one who had had to do something repugnant to survive. Moon said, “I don’t think you should tell anyone. Unless you need to, to help them.” And he told Shade about how he had met the Fell in Saraseil, about how he had killed Liheas, the real story that he had told only to Jade, and not the abbreviated version he had told to others.
The wounded continued to heal under Lithe’s care, and two of Ivory’s warriors woke from the healing sleep and were able to move around a little. Root woke a day later, still too injured to sit up and having difficulty speaking, but able to indicate to Floret and Chime that he wanted a blow-by-blow account of everything he had missed.
When they crossed the plain between Aventera and the Reaches, Stone caught sight of a bladder-boat, but it didn’t try to approach. Everyone else ignored it, but Celadon and Moon leaned on the railing, speculating on what the Aventerans were doing now and secretly hoping the bladder-boat would come this way in a threatening manner so they could start a fight with it. After a time, Celadon said, “Thank you for trying to save Dare. I saw part of what happened. We had ended up in some sort of small passage, and there were slits in the outer wall we could see through, but they were too narrow to climb out of.”
Moon thought not being able to get outside at that moment had probably saved all their lives. And he didn’t want to talk about poor Dare. “How did you get out?”
“We went down through the city, trying to find a way out that was so far below the bladder-boats that they wouldn’t be able to shoot us. The Aventerans trapped us at one point but Delin got one of their weapons and started shooting it at them. After that, they backed off and we made it out through an opening down near the statue’s feet. The sac had already left by then, so I sent the warriors and Delin to tell the queens and I started after it. Malachite and the others caught up to me that night.” She rippled her spines, as if shaking off the angry memories. “Hopefully this will be the end of the Fell trying to make crossbreeds.”
“Hopefully,” Moon said.
She eyed him. “You don’t think so?”
“How many flights did this thing talk to? Some of them must have ignored it, but… there’s no telling how far the idea spread through the flights in the east.”
Celadon sighed. “Pessimism is one of your more annoying qualities.”
Moon wasn’t going to argue that. He added, “But at least that thing is dead and we don’t have to worry about it getting out and going on a rampage.”
“At least,” Celadon said pointedly. “I wish our ancestors had killed it when they had the chance.”
So did Moon. “They wanted to torture it more than they wanted to kill it.”
She shrugged her spines. “Sometimes it’s easy to remember that they were the Fell’s ancestors, too.”
Warrior scouts met them a day’s flight out from Opal Night, and some rode the rest of the way in on the flying boat, while others flew ahead to give the good news to the colony.
It was late afternoon when the boat glided over the ridge and into the shadow of the standing half of the split mountain-tree. The wind was a little high and gray clouds threatened rain in the distance, but Opal Night was more active than Moon had ever seen it before. The Arbora were out on the landing platform, climbing up the branches of the fallen half of the mountain-tree. There were so many warriors in the air, the boat could barely navigate through them.
As the boat drew closer, Moon spotted Delin, surrounded by the other members of his crew. They stood on the landing platform with some of the older Arbora, all waving wildly. Moon shifted to his winged form, leapt the railing, and glided down to land beside them.
Delin threw his arms wide in greeting. “You live! I am so pleased!”
Wanting to get this over with quickly, Moon said, “I’m glad you’re alive too. There’s a hole in the bottom of your boat.”
Chime landed behind him, and added, “And we used all your lamp oil. And all the fire packets for your shooting weapon got burned up.”
Delin smiled. “This will be a story worth hearing.”
That night, Jade and the warriors were offered one of Opal Night’s better guest bowers, next to the rooms where Delin and the Islanders had been staying.
Root was doing much better, but Song still spent most of her time asleep. They made pallets of furs and blankets for them on the floor, and Moon carried Song in himself. The wound across her throat was already white with scar tissue, though her skin was so bruised her chest and throat looked more green-black than dark bronze. She blinked and woke, startled, and clutched at his chest. An instant later she recognized him and relaxed, tucking her face into the crook of his arm. It made Moon’s heart flutter, and reminded him of how much he missed Frost, Thorn, Bitter and the other children.
Once everyone was settled, Jade told him, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Where are you going?” he asked, startled.
“You are going back to your bower,” Jade told him. “I don’t know if this is another one of Malachite’s tests for me, but if it is, I have no intention of failing it.” She bit him lightly on the neck. “Now go.”