The Cloud Roads

Chapter Two

Moon didn’t so much wake up as drift slowly toward consciousness. It seemed like a dream, one of those in which he thought he was awake, trying to move his sluggish still-sleeping body, until he finally succeeded in making some jerky motion and startling himself conscious. Except he didn’t succeed.

He finally woke enough to realize he lay on his stomach, face half-buried in a thick, felted blanket that smelled like the herbs Selis used to wash everything. His throat was dry and his body ached in ways it never had before, little arcs of pain running up his spine and out through the nerves in his arms and legs. In panicked reflex he tried to shift, realizing his mistake an instant later. If he was ill now, he would be ill in his other form. And he could see daylight on the tent wall; someone might be just outside.

But nothing happened. He was still in groundling form.

Nothing. I can’t— He tried again. Still nothing. His heart started to pound in panic. He was sick, or it was a magical trap, some lingering taint from whatever had killed the inhabitants of the sky-island.

He heard voices just outside—Selis, Dargan, some of the others, not Ilane. With an effort that made his head spin, he shoved himself up on his elbows. More pain stabbed down his spine, taking his breath away. He tried to speak, coughed, and managed to croak, “Ilane?”

Footsteps, then someone grabbed his shoulder and shoved him over. Dargan leaned over him, then recoiled, his face appalled, disgusted.

“What—” Moon gasped, confused. He knew he hadn’t shifted. Half a dozen hunters pushed into the tent, Garin, Kavath, Ildras. Someone grabbed his wrists and dragged him outside onto the packed dirt of the path. Morning light stung his eyes. People surrounded him, staring in condemnation and horror.

I’m sick and they’re going to kill me, Moon thought, baffled. It didn’t make any sense, but he felt the answer looming over him like a club. He managed to push himself up into a sitting position. They scrambled away from him. Oh. Oh, no. It couldn’t be what it seemed like. They know. They have to know.

Dargan stepped into view again. His face was hard but he wouldn’t meet Moon’s eyes. Dargan said, “The girl saw you. You’re a Fell, a demon.”

Except a club would have been quick—one brief instant of stunned agony, then nothing. “I’m not.” Moon choked on a breath and had to stop and pant for air. Ilane had done this. “I don’t know what I am.” Desperate, he tried to shift again, and felt nothing.

“The poison only works on Fell.” Dargan stepped back, signaling to someone.

Poison. Ilane had seen him shift, then gone back and readied the poison, and waited calmly for him to return.

He heard running footsteps and suddenly Selis landed on her knees beside him. Her voice low and desperate, she said, “She followed you, saw you change. She probably thought you were going to another woman, the stupid little bitch.” The others shouted at her to come away.

With everything else, Moon barely felt this shock. “You knew.”

“I followed you the first time you left at night, months ago. But you never hurt anyone and you were good to us.” Selis’ face twisted in grief and anger. “She ruined everything. I just wanted my own home.”

Moon felt something wrench inside him. “Me too.”

Kavath darted forward, grabbed Selis’ arm, and dragged her to her feet. Selis twisted in his grip and punched him in the face. Moon had just enough time to be bitterly glad for it. Then the others jumped him, slamming him to the ground.

One arm was dragged up over his head, the other pinned under someone’s knee. Moon bucked and twisted, too weak to dislodge them. Someone grabbed his hair, yanked his head back, and covered his nose, cutting off his air. He bit the first hand that tried to pry at his mouth, but pressure on his jaw hinge forced it open. One of them punched him in the stomach at the right moment and his involuntary gasp drew the liquid in. Most of it went into his lungs, but they released him, shoving to their feet.

Moon rolled over, coughing and choking, trying to spit the stuff out. Then darkness fell over him like a blanket.

Moon drifted in and out. He felt himself being carried and heard a babble of confused voices, fading in the distance. The sunlight was blinding and he could only see shapes outlined against it. He heard wind moving through trees, the hum of insects, squawks from treelings, birdcalls. His throat was scratchy and painfully dry. Swallowing hurt, and there was a metallic tang in his mouth, the aftertaste of the poison. It tasted a little like Fell blood.

Whoever carried him dumped him abruptly; stony ground and dry grass came up and slapped him in the back of the head. The jolt knocked him closer to consciousness. They were in a big clearing, a rocky field surrounded by the tall, thin plume trees of the upper slopes of the valley. He rolled over to try to sit up; somebody stepped on his back, shoving him down again.

Enough of this. Rage gave him strength and he shot out an arm, grabbed an ankle, and yanked. A heavy form hit the ground with a thump and a grunt, and the weight was off him. Moon tried to shove to his feet but only made it to his hands and knees before the world swayed erratically. He slumped to the ground, barely managing to hold himself half upright. Desperately, he tried to shift. Again, nothing happened.

A kick caught him in the stomach. He fell sideways and curled around the pain, gasping.

Someone grabbed his right arm and dragged him around, then clamped something metal and painful around his wrist. Moon opened his bleary eyes to see it was a manacle and a chain. He hadn’t even known that the Cordans had chains. They hadn’t even had enough big water kettles to go around, and they had wasted metal on chains?

Moon lay on his back in the dirt, his shirt shoved up under his armpits, pebbles digging painfully into his skin. By the sun, it was mid-morning, maybe a little later. He felt a hard jerk on the manacle, turned his head to see Garin and Vergan pounding a big metal stake into the ground. Moon took an uneven raspy breath and forced the words out: “I never did anything to you.”

Vergan faltered, but Garin shook his head and kept pounding. After a moment, Vergan started again.

Finally Vergan stepped back and Garin tugged one more time on the chain, making certain it was secure. They backed away, then hurried across the clearing. Moon saw them join more Cordans waiting under the trees, then the whole group retreated out of sight.

Still alive, Moon reminded himself, but at the moment it was hard to muster enthusiasm for it. He shoved himself up, rolling over—and froze, staring at the back of his hand.

There was a ghost pattern of scales, his scales, on his hands, his arms. He sat up and looked down the open neck of his shirt. It was everywhere, a faint, dark outline just under the upper layer of his skin, obscured by the dusting of dark hair on his chest, his forearms. He rubbed at his hands, his arms, but couldn’t feel anything. Oh, that’s... bizarre. This had to be an effect of the poison. Suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin, he twitched uneasily, running hands over his face, through his hair, but everything else seemed normal.

At least now he knew why they had been so certain. They weren’t just taking Ilane’s word for it.

Ilane. He couldn’t afford to think about her right now. Later. He pried at the manacle on his wrist and tugged at the chain, looking for weak spots.

The sun beat down on his head, heat radiating up from the ground. The tall plume trees and underbrush around the clearing shielded him from any cool breeze, making it hot enough to torture a real groundling. Testing each link for weakness, Moon kept one uneasy eye on the green shadows under the trees. The Cordans were still out there somewhere, watching.

The chain wasn’t well made, but it didn’t yield, even when he braced his foot against the stake and leaned his whole weight on it. He gave that up and started digging around the stake itself. The dirt was hard and packed with broken rock, and it was slow going. And he had to worry that the Cordans might decide he was too close to escape and come out to knock him in the head. Instinctively he kept trying to shift, snarling impatiently at himself when nothing happened. This poison had to wear off sometime.

If it isn’t permanent. The thought had been hovering but articulating it was worse. It formed a cold, tight lump in his throat, threatening to choke him. He couldn’t live only as a groundling. It wasn’t what he was. He was some weird combination of both. To lose one form or the other would cripple him as surely as losing his legs.

He hadn’t even known a poison like this existed. The Cordans had been driven out of their old territory in Kiaspur by the Fell, and the elders had told stories of battles against them, but nobody had ever mentioned this poison, or the fact that they had brought it with them into exile. But even if you’d known, you wouldn’t have thought it would do this to you, he reminded himself grimly. He knew he wasn’t a Fell.

He wouldn’t have thought that Ilane would do this to him.

His fingers were already sore and bleeding, and the hollow in the hard ground around the stake wasn’t very deep. Moon dug up a couple of fist-sized rocks and set them aside, but those were the only weapons he had. He stood, putting his full weight on the chain again, working it back and forth. Abruptly he realized the birdsong had gone quiet. He jerked his head up and scanned the trees, pivoting slowly.

On the far side of the clearing something rustled in the undergrowth, movement deep in the shadows. Moon hissed in dismay. And this is when it gets worse. He dropped to the ground again and dug frantically, gritting his teeth. There wasn’t much else he could do. He had two rocks and he was still chained to this stake. This wasn’t going to be good.

A giant vargit walked out of the jungle. It wasn’t like the smaller ones down in the river valley that the Cordans hunted for food. It was a good twelve paces high at least, its beak long and sharp, its bright, greedy eyes fixed on Moon. Dark green feathers shaded to brown on its belly, and its wings were stunted, shaped almost like hooks, but it could stretch them out to snatch at prey.

Moon eased up into a crouch and picked up his first rock. He knew he could take a giant vargit—from the air, in his other form. Like this, unarmed, chained to the stake, all he could do was make sure the vargit had to work for its meal.

It cocked its head, sensing resistance, stalking toward him. Moon waited until it was barely ten paces away, then flung his first rock.

The rock bounced off its head, and the vargit jerked back with a shrill cry. But he hadn’t managed to crack its tough skull or, if he had, it just didn’t care. It crouched, its neck weaving, wings stretching as it readied itself for a lunge.

Then something big and dark struck the ground. A rush of air threw the vargit sideways and knocked Moon flat on his back.

He looked up, and up, at the creature from the sky-island.

It looked bigger from this angle, more than three times his size, but it was hard to focus on. He got an impression of sinuous movement from a long tail, spines or tentacles bristling around its head, a long narrow body standing upright, with a broad chest to support the giant wings. Then it moved, fast.

One big-clawed hand reached past Moon, caught the chain, and snapped it in half. Run, Moon thought in shock, scrambling to his feet to bolt away.

A blow to his back slammed him to the ground, a weight held him there. He struggled, twisting around; the creature had one clawed hand pinning him to the dirt. The other hand wrapped around the stunned vargit’s torso, gripping it securely.

From the trees, Dargan shouted, and half a dozen arrows struck the creature’s scales. It lifted the struggling vargit and tossed it toward the jungle. Moon couldn’t see where it landed but the startled screams of the Cordans and the broken crashing of underbrush were a good indication. Moon had a moment to wonder if the creature was going to throw him, too, and if he could survive it as well as the vargit evidently had. Then the hand pinning him adjusted its grip, wrapping firmly around his waist. Moon wrenched at its claws in desperation, knowing it was going to snap him in half.

Then it snatched him up off the ground and dragged him up against its chest. He felt the big muscles in its body gather, then it leapt into the air.

Moon yelled in pure, frightened reflex, muffled against the creature’s scales. Air rushed past him, cold and harsh; when he twisted his head, he could only get a view of the joins where the creature’s wings met its body. He knew they were high in the air, and it was terrifying. He had never flown except under his own power, and he had to fight down nausea.

They flew a long time, at least long enough to leave the valley, though it was hard for Moon to judge. The air was freezing. He tried to concentrate on breathing, not what was going to happen when the creature landed. Its scales were thick but overlapped smoothly, not unlike Moon’s other form. It was hard to tell how tough they were. Moon growled silently and wished for his claws.

He was shivering and nearly numb from the cold when the creature slowed, and he recognized from its change in angle that it was cupping its wings, getting ready to land. It adjusted its grip on him, and Moon twisted his head, squinting against the wind. He caught a glimpse of a square stone tower with sloping sides, perched on the edge of a river gorge. Then they dipped down toward it.

The creature landed on the tower’s broad, flat roof, and released Moon onto dirty stone flags. His shaky legs gave way and he sat down hard. It loomed over him, dark and sinuous and still hard to focus on, even this close. Moon dug his heels into the paving, scrambled away from it, and hissed in defiant reflex. It had brought him up here to tear him apart, but he wasn’t going down easy.

His vision flickered, as if the dark form was suddenly made of mist and smoke. Then it was gone and a man stood in its place, a tall, lean man with gray hair and strong features, his face lined and weathered. He was dressed in gray.

Moon stared, breathing hard. Then he lunged for the man’s throat. The burst of renewed fury only got him to his feet; the man stepped back out of reach and Moon collapsed to his hands and knees.

Between one heartbeat and the next, the man shifted. The great dark form crouched, spreading its wings. Moon flinched back, but it jumped into the air. Wincing against the sudden windstorm of dirt, he saw it soar out and down, vanishing over the side of the battlement.

Another shifter. Moon swore and sat back, rubbing sweat and dirt out of his eyes. The manacle was still on his wrist, the chain dangling. I can’t believe this.

He looked around. The tower was a ruin, cold wind tearing across it. The stone was cracked and dirt filled the chinks, weeds sprouted everywhere. He didn’t see any way down, no doorway into the structure below.

The battlement had rounded crenellations, blocking his view. He stumbled awkwardly to his feet; lingering weakness from the poison made him dizzy. Weaving from side to side, he made it to the battlement, aiming for a spot where one of the crenellations had broken and fallen away. Digging sore fingers into the crumbling rock, he dragged himself up enough to see. The tower stood on the edge of a gorge, surrounded by rock-clinging trees and vegetation, mountains rising all around. Then he looked down.

A long way down. The tower was hundreds of paces high, and though the sides were slanted, they were still far too steep to climb. If Moon had had his claws and wasn’t half dead, he could have done it. Of course, if he had his claws, he would have his wings and this wouldn’t be a problem. He tried to shift again, just in case the poison had miraculously worn off in the last few moments.

“Don’t fall.”

Moon’s lips curled into a snarl. He looked back, leaning into the wall to support himself. The shifter stood behind him. His voice a dry croak, Moon said, “You think that’s funny.”

The shifter just held out a small waterskin made of some bright blue hide. It took Moon a moment to realize the shifter expected him to drink from it. He shook his head. “That’s how I got into this.”

The shifter lifted gray brows, then shrugged. He tilted the skin back and took a drink. “It’s just water.”

Piss in your water, Moon started to say, then realized the words weren’t coming out in Altanic or Kedaic, or in any of the other common groundling languages. They were both speaking a language Moon knew in his bones, but hadn’t heard since he was a boy. It was too strange, another shock on top of everything else. He just said, “What do you want?”

The shifter watched him, his expression opaque. His eyes were blue, but the right one was clouded and its pupil didn’t focus. “Just trying to help,” he said. The even tone of his voice gave nothing away.

Moon grimaced, unimpressed. “You tried to kill me on the sky-island.”

“I tried to catch you,” the shifter corrected pointedly. “I just wanted a closer look.” His gaze flicked over Moon, assessing. He’s old, Moon thought, not sure what it was about the man that gave it away. Far older than his groundling form looked. Everything about him was faded to gray, skin, hair, clothes. He wore a loose shirt with the sleeves rolled up, pants of some tougher material, a heavy leather belt with a pouch and knife sheath. The man said, “I’m Stone, of the Indigo Cloud Court.”

Moon pushed away from the battlement, still weaving on his feet. He had never heard of the place, if it was a place. “Are you going to kill me, or just leave me up here?”

“I thought neither.” Stone stepped away, turning to cross back over the roof. A heavy leather pack lay on the dirty paving, and a pile of broken branches and chunks of log. Stone must have had the pack stashed somewhere lower in the tower, and that casually spectacular shift and dive had been to retrieve it and the wood. “What did they give you?”

“They said it was a poison that only works on Fell.” Moon followed him warily. He had met other shifters before. He had run into a group in Cient that could shift into big lupine predators; they had tried to eat him, too. He had never found or heard of any shifters who could fly. Except the Fell. But Stone wasn’t Fell. You didn’t think he was a shifter, either, he reminded himself. “I’m not a Fell.”

Stone’s brows quirked. “I noticed.” He sat on his heels, breaking up the wood to lay a fire. He was barefoot, like Moon. “Poison for Fell? I’ve never heard of that before.”

Moon eased himself down to sit a few paces away, wincing at the tug of pain in his back and shoulder. The battlement provided a little protection from the cold wind, but the thin fabric of his sweat-soaked clothes, fine for the warmer valley, was worse than inadequate here. If Stone didn’t kill him before the poison wore off—if the poison wore off... Brows knit, Moon looked down at his arms, still showing the ghost-pattern of scales just under the bronze tint of his skin. Oh, I get it now, he thought sourly. Just trying to help. Right.

“Why did they stake you out?” Stone broke up twigs for tinder. “Catch you stealing their cattle?”

Moon thought over possible replies, trying not to huddle in on himself against the wind. He could sit here and say nothing, but talking might distract Stone. He tried to answer, and had to clear his throat. “I was living with them. They found out what I was.”

Stone flicked a look at him and held out the waterskin again. The slosh of the water inside made Moon’s dry throat burn. He gave in and, without taking his eyes off Stone, took a long drink, then coughed and wiped his mouth. The lukewarm water soothed his throat a little. He tied the bone cap back on and set it aside.

Stone tried to light the fire. He shielded the tinder with larger pieces of wood, striking sparks off a set of flints, just like anyone else. Moon tried to reconcile this picture with the creature that had tossed the giant vargit into the Cordans. Frustrated curiosity getting the better of caution, he asked, “What are you?”

Stone glanced at him from under skeptical brows. “Did you get hit on the head?” Moon didn’t respond, and after a moment Stone’s expression turned thoughtful. He said, “I’m a Raksura. So are you.”

“I’m—” Moon started, then realized he had no way to finish that sentence. He had never known where he came from or what his people were called. And he speaks the language your mother taught you. Moon didn’t want to believe it. But if it was a ploy, it was a patently bizarre one. He’s trying to make me think he didn’t bring me up here to kill me, or... He had no idea. Moon settled for saying skeptically, “Then why are you so much bigger than me?”

“I’m old.” Stone frowned at him, as if Moon was the one who sounded crazy. “What court are you from? Where’s your colony?”

Moon debated a moment, weighing the tactic of implying that there were others who would come to his aid versus the possibility of being tortured to reveal their location. No, it wasn’t worth it. He admitted, “It was just my mother, and my brothers and sister. Dead, a long time ago.”

Stone winced, and turned his attention back to the fire. Once the tinder and the smaller twigs had caught, he sat back, carefully feeding in broken branches. “This happened somewhere further east? Around the curve of the gulf of Abascene?”

It had to be a guess. It was just a very good guess. “Further than that.”

“There were a few courts that went that far east. I thought they all failed and went back into the reaches, but maybe not.” Stone poked at the tinder thoughtfully. “This woman you call your mother. She was the reigning queen?”

Moon eyed him. “No,” he said, slowly, not trying to conceal his opinion that this was a crazy question. “We lived in a tree.”

Stone just looked annoyed. “What did she look like?”

Does he think he knew her? Moon thought, incredulous. At least trying to see where this was going helped take his mind off the cold and his impending death. “Like me.” He remembered he was a groundling at the moment with a scale pattern under his skin, and clarified, “When she shifted, she was like my other... me. With wings. And she was dark brown, with red under her scales.”

Stone shook his head, leaning over to untie the pack’s laces and rummage in it. “She wasn’t your mother.”

Moon pressed his lips together to hold back his first knee-jerk response, then looked away. It was stupid to get into a pointless argument with someone who was planning to kill you.

Stone pulled out a small cooking pot, battered but embossed with figures in a lighter metal around the rim. “Flighted females with those colors are warriors, and they can’t breed. Only queens and Arbora females are fertile.” Moon’s face must have reflected extreme doubt, because Stone added with a trace of exasperation, “Don’t look at me. We’re Raksura. That’s how it works.”

Moon stared at the fire, trying to keep his expression noncommittal. He couldn’t tell if Stone really did believe that Moon was a Raksura, or if he was just trying to get his confidence. The first option made his skin creep. The second... at least made sense. He wants you to sit here, thinking nothing’s going to happen, until the poison wears off.

Stone filled the pot from the waterskin and put it at the edge of the fire to warm. “This warrior, she didn’t say where you came from?”

“No.”

Stone’s gaze sharpened. “She didn’t tell you anything?”

Moon folded his arms and looked away. Talking had been a bad idea.

“She probably stole you.”

Moon set his jaw. It’s not enough that he’s going to eat you; he’s got to insult your dead mother.

With more heat, Stone added, “She didn’t even tell you how to reproduce, that’s—”

That stung him to a reply. “I was a child. Reproducing wasn’t exactly a concern.”

Stone watched him a moment, then turned to rummage in his pack again. “Oh, that young.” He pulled out a leather-wrapped packet. “There were four others? Younger than you?”

Moon eyed him narrowly, not sure how Stone knew that. “Yes.”

Stone heard his unspoken question. “It was a guess. There’s usually five in a clutch. They had wings?”

“No.” Through the first long turns alone, finding places to shelter, hunting for food, trying not to become prey for something else, all Moon could think about was how much better it would have been if the others were still with him. The isolation had driven him to seek out groundling settlements—disastrously, at first. He had gotten better at that. He had thought he had gotten better at it. The events of the last day or so would suggest otherwise. He let out his breath in resignation. “Just me.”

Stone nodded. He opened the leather packet, took out a dark cake of pressed tea, and scraped off a portion into the steaming water. “Raksura without wings are called Arbora. The females are fertile, and they can give birth to both Arbora and warriors.” He shook his head, admitting, “I don’t know how that works. A mentor explained it to me once but that was turns ago and it’s complicated. But Arbora are divided up into soldiers, hunters, and teachers. They take care of the colony, raise the children, find food, guard the ground.” He shrugged. “Run the place. They’re also mentors, but you have to be born with a special talent to be a mentor.” He glanced up, meeting Moon’s eyes. “We’re Aeriat. We protect the colony.”

Moon couldn’t stop a bitter snort. “Stop saying ‘we.’”

Stone ignored that. He dug a cup out of the pack and said, “You want some of this?”

Moon stared in disbelief. He shook his head incredulously. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“What?” Stone waved the cup in exasperation. “It’s tea. You watched me make it.”

Moon had thought he could play this game, but he just couldn’t stand it. He pushed away from Stone, stumbled to his feet. “You know, I’d rather you just kill me than talk me to death.”

Stone grimaced in frustration. “If I wanted to kill you—”

“You’re just waiting until the poison wears off. If you eat me while it’s still in me, you won’t be able to shift either.”

Stone slammed the pack down, stood, and shifted.

Moon dodged back, but Stone leapt into the air, caught the wind, banked, and dove away. Moon lost sight of him and pivoted, trying to watch the sky and all sides of the tower at once.

He waited, but Stone didn’t reappear.

Warily, tension making his nerves jump, Moon searched the roof again, looking for another way down. He found what might have originally been a trap door, but the shaft was filled in with rocks and mortar, as if intentionally blocked from below. As if the original inhabitants had tried to wall themselves in. He wondered if any of them had survived, or if the tower was a giant tomb.

Finally, shoulders hunched against the cold, he went back to the fire. He fed in more wood, building it up again. Then he looked through Stone’s pack.

It contained no weapons except for a small, dull fruit-peeling knife. There was another cup with the same design as the kettle, a couple of empty waterskins, and leather packets all of which contained food. And they weren’t even staples, just dried limes, nuts, two more pressed tea cakes, and some broken pieces of sugar cane. Opening a last packet of dark leather, expecting it to be more food, Moon found a heavy bracelet of red gold. Holding it up to the light, he could see designs etched on it, a fluid image like interlinked snakes.

Moon shook his head, baffled at the collection. He wrapped the bracelet up again and tucked it back in with the rest. Whatever Stone was, he didn’t have to pretend to be a groundling; he had few useful supplies for traveling or camping on the ground. And he must be strong enough to stay in his other form for a long time. Is that what he wanted you to see? Stone must have known that Moon would go through the pack or he wouldn’t have left it here. So he’s not lying about coming from some kind of shifter enclave. He had never heard of one, but the Three Worlds was a big place. Though Moon traveled faster and further than a groundling could have, he had only seen a tiny part of it.

Moon sat back and rubbed at the manacle where it chafed his wrist. The wind gusted, scattering sparks from the fire. It was only late afternoon, but it was getting colder. Even if he managed to get away from Stone, he could only fly so far in one day, only stay in his other form so long. His oiled skin coat and hood were back at his tent in the Cordans’ camp, with everything else he owned, like the good steel hunting and skinning knives he had traded for at the Carthas forge. Not counting the things he had gotten from the Cordans, there were his flints, his waterskins, blankets, and the bow and quiver he kept for show, to explain his success at hunting. Some of it he didn’t need when he wasn’t living as a groundling. But he would have to make his way through these mountains with nothing.

The whoosh of air warned him; Moon looked up to see Stone high in the air, drawing nearer to the tower. Moon just had time to stand and back away from the fire. Stone swooped in and dropped a carcass on the paving, a creature nearly as big as a kras, with thick oily skin and flippers instead of hooves.

Stone landed lightly on his feet, then shifted back to groundling. He waved toward the dead creature, still exasperated. “That’s what I’m planning to eat. You? From what I can see, you’re mostly skin and bones.”

He had a point there, but Moon demanded, “Then what do you want from me?”

Stone paced toward the fire, frowning down at it. The impatience was gone from his voice when he said, “I want you to come with me, back to my court.”

That... wasn’t what Moon was expecting. It took him a moment to realize he had heard Stone right. “What for?”

His gaze still on the fire, Stone said, “I’ve been looking for warriors to join us. Our last generation... didn’t produce enough. I’ve been at a colony to the east, the Star Aster Court. But I couldn’t talk any of them into coming back with me.” He glanced up, his face a little wry. “You’ve got somewhere else you want to go?”

Moon woke slowly, his body sluggish and his brain reluctant to face whatever was going to happen next. He couldn’t hear Ilane or Selis’ deep breathing, or the camp waking up around him. He was curled on his side, head pillowed on his arm, stiff and aching from lying on dirt-encrusted paving, but it was pleasantly warm. He rubbed his face and squinted up at the tent stretching over him—He went still, suddenly wide awake. Not a tent. It was a wing. Stone’s wing. That’s right. Yesterday your friends tried to murder you. The manacle was still around his wrist, the skin under it rubbed raw.

Moon rolled onto his back and stared up at Stone’s wing. With the morning light glowing through it, the dark, scaly membrane shone with a faint red tint. He hadn’t seen anybody else’s wings since his mother had been killed. This close he could see scars, old healed-over rents where the scales had been torn. The front edge of the wing still looked razor-sharp, but the skin folded over the joints was hard and gnarled where Moon’s was still smooth. Hopefully still smooth, if he could shift.

They had spent the night on top of the tower, not talking very much. Moon still had no idea how to reply to Stone’s offer, if Stone was even serious about it. Stone had stated that he was tired of arguing and they would talk about it in the morning when he hoped Moon would be less crazy. After some sleep, Moon was willing to admit that he had been a little hysterical, but it had been a hard day.

But it’s over. I hope. Moon bit his lip and looked at his hands. The faint outline of scales wasn’t visible, at least in this light. He pressed a thumb to the skin of his forearm, forcing the blood away, but still couldn’t see anything. All right. That’s good. He knew why he was reluctant. If he tried and nothing happened... Putting it off wasn’t helping. He took a deep breath, and tried to shift.

He felt the change gather in his chest. There might have been a hesitation or it might have been his fear. Then he felt his bones lighten and his scales scrape against the paving, the weight of his folded wings, his tail. He curled up on himself for a moment, relief washing over him in a heady wave.

From the deep, steady breathing, Stone was still asleep, or doing a good imitation of it. Moon crawled to the edge of the big wing, then wriggled out from under it.

Once free, he stood and stretched, shaking out his spines and frills. The morning light was bright on the snow-capped mountains, the air chill and crisp. Nothing had disturbed the roof of the tower while they slept except a few brave carrion birds picking at the remnants of the riverbeast carcass.

The manacle was still on Moon’s wrist. He hooked his claws under the lock, wincing as the metal ground into his scales. He exerted careful pressure until the lock snapped and fell away.

Moon crossed the pavement and leapt to the battlement, digging his claws into the crumbling stone. He looked down at the dizzyingly steep drop to the rock below. Then he unfolded his wings and dove.

He flew up and down the gorge, stretching his wings, fighting the gusty wind and feeling the sun heat his scales. The exercise made him hungry.

He rode the air currents down to the river, which rushed over tumbled rocks in its shallow stretches, then turned calm where the channel was wide and deep. Moon plunged into water that would have been shockingly cold in his groundling form, and swam along the bottom. He found a slow-moving school of fish, each nearly three paces long with thick, heavy bodies and trailing iridescent fins. He snatched one and shot up into the air again.

There hadn’t been much point in seriously considering Stone’s offer when he hadn’t known whether the poison had ruined him permanently or not. Now... Moon found himself thinking about it. Long ago he had given up looking for his own people, assuming if there were any others, they were lost somewhere in the vastness of the Three Worlds, not to be found except by wild accident. Now the wild accident had actually happened.

But going with Stone meant trusting him. Moon would be putting himself in the middle of a large group of shifters, and while he might be a Raksura, he knew nothing about what they were like. If they turned out to be as murderous and violent as the Fell, he could find himself trapped and fighting for his life.

Another option was to look for another groundling settlement to join, which meant starting over again, with all new pitfalls and hazards. What he wanted most at the moment was to fly off alone to hunt and explore, with no other people to make him constantly wary. He was sick of growing to like and trust groundlings like the Cordans, and knowing it all meant nothing if they found out what he was.

But he was sick of being alone, too. He had done this all before, resolving to live alone only to become desperate for company, any company, after a few changes of the month.

He was on his fifth fish when he surfaced and saw he wasn’t alone. Stone, in groundling form, sat on a big flat rock by the bank. He leaned back, propped on his arms, face tipped up to the sun. Deliberate and unhurried, Moon slapped his fish against a rock to kill it, finished eating, then went back in the water to wash the guts off his scales. He surfaced again in the shallows, below where Stone sat, and used the sandy bottom to clean his claws.

Still sunning himself, Stone said, “You’re not supposed to do that, you know. Raksura don’t.”

“Raksura don’t bathe?” Moon said dryly, deliberately misunderstanding. He shook water out of his wings, spraying the bank. “That’s going to be a problem.”

Stone sat up to give him an ironic look. “Yes, we bathe. We don’t fish. Not like that.”

Moon climbed up onto the rock and sat to the side so he could keep his wings unfolded and let them dry. The sun was warm but the wind was still cold, and if he switched back to groundling form now, the water still on his scales would soak his clothes. “Why don’t you fish?”

“I don’t know. Probably never had a good place for it.” Stone squinted at him. “So. I’ve got one other court to visit before I head home. Are you coming with me?”

Moon looked across the river. Small swimming lizards stretched out on the rocks across the bank, waiting for them to leave so they could go after the remains of Moon’s fish. “If you were looking for Raksura, why did you come to the valley?”

Stone didn’t seem disconcerted by the question. “It was on my way back. I stopped to rest, caught a scent of something that turned out to be you. It was faint because you were in groundling form.” He shrugged. “Thought I’d stay on a few days to look around, see if there was a small colony there that I hadn’t heard about.”

Moon hadn’t been able to scent Stone. But that might just mean that Stone’s senses, like his shifted form, were stronger and more powerful. And it was beyond strange, talking to someone while Moon was in his other form; he had forgotten how different his own voice sounded, deeper and more raspy. He liked not having to hide.

He let his breath out, frustrated. Agreeing to go with Stone wasn’t a commitment to stay in his colony. If Moon let this chance go by, he knew he would regret it. He said, “I’ll come with you.”

Moon couldn’t tell if Stone was relieved. Stone just nodded, and said, “Good.”