The Cloud Roads

Chapter Five

Moon reluctantly followed Flower and Chime back to the colony, alighting in the teachers’ court again. The food and the cold water had helped, but Moon’s exhaustion had settled in his back as long lines of sore muscle, and he knew he had reached the limit of his endurance. When he shifted back to groundling, he almost stumbled into a shallow pool of water half-concealed by trailing vines. He said, “Where’s Stone?”

“He’s still with Pearl,” Chime said, watching him anxiously. “You know, the reigning queen.”

Flower took Chime’s arm and gave him a gentle push toward the door into the common room. “Go and tell the others not to worry.” She turned back to Moon. “Stone is the only one who has any chance of convincing Pearl not to treat with the Fell.” Her hair was tangled from the flight and she smoothed it back. In the daylight her skin was milky pale, almost translucent; it made her seem absurdly delicate. The shadows under her eyes looked like bruises. “We’ve all tried, and he’s our last hope.”

Moon had to admit that was more important than his problems. If the Fell came at this place the way they had attacked Sky Copper, hope wouldn’t be an issue. He looked around the court; maybe the rain would hold off and he could at least get some sleep. “I’ll wait here.”

Flower gave him a rueful look. “Come inside to the bowers. There’s plenty of room and you can get some rest. And we’ll find you some new clothes.”

Moon shook his head. He didn’t want to accept gifts from these people. “No, I don’t need—”

“Moon,” Flower said, with a trace of exasperation, “Yours are about to fall off. And you’re a guest here; we owe you that much, at least.”

When she put it that way, it was hard to argue. And the lure of a comfortable place to sleep was impossible to resist.

The first part of the living quarters Moon saw was the baths. Petal and Bell led him down the stairs from the common room to a series of vaulted, half-lit chambers, where pools were filled by the water wheels that fed the fountains throughout the pyramid. Some were as cold as the river while others were warmed by hot stones, fueled by the same magic that made the glowing moss.

Once Petal and Bell left, the place was almost empty. Only one chamber at the far end of the space was currently occupied. It held two young men and a woman, presumably teachers, who all struggled to bathe five small children. With all the splashing and shrieking, no one paid attention to Moon. Hot water and oil soap were a luxury he hadn’t experienced in more than a turn.

He spent the time just lying in a hot pool, soaking the aches out of his skin. His clothes were mostly dry by the time Petal returned, but she brought him a robe of heavy, silky material, dark blue lined with black.

He followed her up another level to a long open hall. It had many tall doorways, some opening to narrow stairways, some to rooms curtained off with long drapes of fabric. A shallow pool of water stretched down the center, and air shafts wreathed with vines pierced the outer wall.

“It’s all teachers in these bowers,” Petal said, pointing him to one of the dooways. It had a little set of stairs leading up to a small room. “There’s an extra bed up there. No one will bother you.” He hesitated. Smiling, she gave him a little push. “Go on. You need to rest.”

Moon went up the stairs to the little room at the top. He had thought it would be too closed-in for comfort, but it was only partially walled off, with a large gap between the tops of the blocky walls and the ceiling. It took him a moment to realize the big straw basket thing suspended in the middle of it was the bed.

It was curved, made of woven reeds, and hung from a heavy wooden beam placed across the walls. Wide enough for at least four people, it was stuffed with a random collection of blankets and cushions. A few more tightly-woven storage baskets were stacked around. Moon lifted the lids and saw they held soft folded cloth, packed with sweet herbs. He wondered if they traded it to anybody. There were plenty of places where bolts of good strong cloth would be highly-prized items.

By that point, he could hear that Petal had left the room below, and he went back down to do a little exploring. A few other people remained, all of them occupied with chores; no one paid much attention to him. He prowled around the long central hall to find other ways in and out, exploring the air shafts, making certain he could get out in a hurry if he had to. He went up a stairway, finding three levels of similar halls above this one, all of which seemed to be occupied by Arbora. It was all open, nearly indefensible. When the Fell came, the stone walls might keep out the major kethel, but the minor dakti would come through here in swarms, killing everything in their path.

When Moon returned to his room or bower or whatever it was called, he faced the swaying basket bed, regarding it with weary doubt. He had slept on the ground, on rocks, and occasionally hanging upside down by his tail from a tree branch, so he supposed he could manage this. At least the basket was more than long enough for him; he had spent time in the enclaves of short-statured groundling races where all the beds were a pace or two shorter than he was.

He shifted to use his claws to climb the wall, belly-flopped into the basket, and shifted back. It took his weight, only swaying a little, and he sprawled in relief.

Whether it was the soft cushions or the fact that the basket was suspended in the air through no effort of his own, it was the most comfortable bed he had ever been in.

He slept soundly, only cracking an eyelid suspiciously when he heard quiet footsteps on the stairs. But it was only Petal, who left a bundle of clothing on the top step and retreated.

He woke sometime later, aware that somewhere past the heavy stone walls, the sun had set. His stomach was empty again, and he realized he had no idea if they had an evening meal here. Add one more to the long list of things he still don’t know.

With a groan, he climbed out of the bed and dropped to the floor. He picked up the bundle of clothes Petal had left, still debating whether or not to accept them. The fabric was dyed dark, the weaving of the shirt so fine it caught on the callous on his fingers. The pants were of a tougher and probably more durable material. A draft came up the open stair raising a chill on his groundling skin and reminding him it would be cooler here, especially at night; he decided not to be stupid.

He pulled on the shirt and pants, leaving the robe Petal had loaned him on the basket next to the bundle of his old clothes. He started to go down the steps, but hesitated in the doorway.

The scent in the air was different than it had been earlier. He couldn’t hear any casual movement, but instinct told him someone waited silently nearby, maybe more than one someone. The others who lived in this hall would be talking or sleeping or doing some task, not just watching. Stalking, Moon thought, putting a name to that change in the air. It might be the two soldiers again, back for another try at him. If he was going to be attacked, he might as well get it over with.

He went down the steps and into the apparently empty hall. To draw them out, he stopped at the pool and sat on his heels to scoop up a handful of water and drink.

Two male warriors dropped out of the shadows in the high ceiling and landed lightly on the floor not ten paces away. Moon didn’t twitch, didn’t glance up at them.

One said, “Solitary.” His voice had the extra resonance of his shifted form, rough and threatening.

Moon slid a look at him, slow and deliberate. “That’s not my name.” The first warrior was a vivid green, with a blue tone under his scales. The other was copper with a gold tone. Both were big, at least as tall and as broad as Moon’s shifted form.

The green one tilted his head with predatory intent. “I’m River and that’s Drift. We don’t care what your name is.”

Moon shook the water off his hand and pushed to his feet, making the movement casual and easy, as if they were no more threatening than a couple of noisy groundling kids. “How long were you waiting to tell me that?” He didn’t shift; they wanted a fight, and he wanted to make them work for it.

River didn’t make the mistake of trying to answer the question. He gave an amused growl. “You thought no one would notice you hiding down here with the Arbora?”

“No. I thought even you two could find me.” There was a certain freedom in not having to be unobtrusive; Moon could be as big an ass as he wanted to these two.

Drift, the copper warrior, bared his fangs in a derisive grin. “Oh, we found you. And this court doesn’t need a consort so badly that we have to take in a crazy solitary.”

Moon folded his arms, another sign he didn’t consider them a threat. “I heard you did, since Star Aster wouldn’t bother to piss on you.”

That one hit the target. Drift hissed, and River snarled, “If you want to leave here alive, then you leave tonight.”

Moon moved forward, shifting in mid-step and closing the distance between them in a sudden blur of motion. The next instant he was barely a hand span away, wings half-extended and spines flared. “Make me leave.”

Drift jerked back, but River didn’t flinch. His spines flared, but voices from the far end of the hall interrupted. A group of men and women were coming in through the passage, some of them in Arbora form. One of them said, loud enough to carry, “What are River and Drift doing here? I thought they were too good for us.”

In a hushed tone, someone else said, “And who’s that?”

Drift fell back another step. “River. Not in front of them.”

Moon didn’t move. River hissed again, low and furious, then he leapt up the nearest partition. Drift was barely a pace behind him, and they both vanished into the darkness of the ceiling near the air shafts. The Arbora watched them go, with a babble of hushed comment.

Feeling suddenly far too conspicuous, Moon shifted back to groundling and turned away. He didn’t really have anywhere else to go, so he went to the doorway on this end of the hall, descending the steps toward the teachers’ court.

He was at the bend of the stairs when he heard Stone’s voice. On impulse, he stopped just out of sight of the room below. He couldn’t see anything except glowing moss crammed into a niche on the opposite wall, but he could hear a dozen or so people, breathing, stirring uneasily.

He heard Stone say, “I’m telling you, I want to leave here.”

Sounding startled, someone said, “But you just got back.”

There was grim exasperation in Stone’s voice. “I meant the colony. Is there any one of you who won’t admit that there’s something wrong here? That there has been for the past forty turns? We’ve had dead clutches, fewer births —”

“But that just happens—” another voice protested.

“That doesn’t just happen,” Stone snapped. “You’re all too young to remember how it should be. We’re a strong court with good bloodlines. We should have as many Aeriat as we have Arbora, and enough consorts that each sister queen could take three or four and go off to build her own court. That’s what they’re doing at Star Aster. Why do you think none of them would come with me?”

Someone said, “If their mentors told them this place was ill-omened, they were—”

“Pearl’s thinking of treating with the Fell,” Chime pointed out, his voice dry. “I’d call that ill-omened.”

Flower spoke, and she just sounded tired. “Stone, I’ve looked and looked. All the mentors have looked, alone and in concert. We can’t find anything wrong, no matter what we try.”

There was a pause, and Stone prompted, “And?”

“And I think it means that whatever it is... is hidden very carefully,” she admitted.

There was an uneasy murmur from the others. Petal said, “There’s nothing wrong with your augury; we know that.”

A new voice, male, low and rough, said, “Speaking for the soldiers, I’m not against leaving. Whether it’s some kind of bad omen working here or not, this place hasn’t been good for us for a long time. But what is Pearl going to say?”

“The fact that we’re having this talk without her says a lot, doesn’t it?” Chime said uneasily.

Stone didn’t seem disturbed by the objection. “I’ll handle Pearl.”

Flower sighed. “I know you want her to give way to Jade. I do, too. But Jade has to take that responsibility for herself. You can’t do it for her.”

There was another uncomfortable pause. The man who had said he spoke for the soldiers broke it with, “I think we all agree that if Jade takes the court, it would be a good thing. But not with a consort we don’t know.”

There was an edge to Stone’s voice. “What exactly did you think I was going to Star Aster for, Knell?”

Knell replied, “He’s not from Star Aster. He’s a wild solitary you picked up along the way.”

Petal’s voice was pointed. “If he was wild, he wouldn’t have been living with groundlings; he would have been eating them—”

“How do we know he wasn’t?” Knell said. “Besides, living with groundlings isn’t exactly a point in his favor either—”

Flower cut him off sharply. “Knell, the mentors and teachers in this room have spoken to him. You haven’t. You may want to reserve your opinion until you have something to base it on.”

There was another glum pause. Then Chime said, “And how do you know Pearl isn’t going to want him herself? I mean, he’s beautiful, and if she takes a new consort—”

Stone interrupted, “She’s three times his age, and she’s not so lost to sense that she’d try to take a young consort against his will.”

Flower cleared her throat suddenly. “And he’s here.”

She must have caught Moon’s scent. He didn’t hesitate, pushing away from the wall and taking the last few steps down into the room. The space was more crowded than he had realized, with people seated all around on the floor, standing in the other doorways. All of them stared, flustered by his sudden appearance; for most of them, this would be their first look at the feral solitary. Moon ignored it all to face Stone. “Something you forgot to tell me?”

His voice came out more choked than he had intended, and his jaw was so tight it almost hurt to talk. It was ridiculous to feel this way; Stone didn’t owe him anything. Moon had been the one in debt, and helping Stone against the Fell in Sky Copper had made them even.

Stone watched him a long moment. His blue eyes, clear and clouded, were as unreadable as ever. He said, “We need to talk in private.”

There was a confused stir as some of their audience took that as a dismissal, but Stone turned and walked outside to the atrium. Moon went after him, stepping out of the light of the glow-moss into the dark garden space and the heavy scent of wet earth and recent rain. His shoulders twitched in relief; it was enough for the moment just to be out of reach of all those unfriendly and curious eyes.

Stone didn’t speak; he just shifted and jumped straight up and climbed the side of the building, a great dark shape, big wings half-furled and tail lashing.

Moon waited until Stone leapt off the building into the air. He shifted and followed, climbing up until he could drop off a ledge and catch the breeze with his wings. The crescent moon was mostly shrouded by clouds, but he could see Stone had already crossed the dark stretch of the river and the terraced fields. Stone landed on one of the higher hills, treeless and unoccupied by anything except a few flat rocks arranged in a rough circle. Moon banked around and landed a careful distance away, well out of the reach of a sudden lunge.

Stone shifted back to groundling, then sat down on one of the rocks, facing toward the dark shape of the colony. He moved slowly, like his body ached, like old groundlings with bad joints moved.

Moon hesitated then shifted, too. The wind was cool enough to make him glad he had accepted the new clothes. He could scent other Raksura in the air, probably sentries, but none were close. Stone didn’t move, and after a moment Moon walked up through the wet grass to stand near him.

The pyramid was studded with light from doorways, openings, and air shafts, shining down to reflect off the dark surface of the river. In the night the whole structure looked vulnerable—too open, indefensible.

Up here, the only sound was the wind moving through leaves. Into the quiet, Stone said, “I meant to tell you at Sky Copper, but I changed my mind. If you knew, you might not have come here with me. And I needed you to come here with me.”

Moon felt a little of the tension go out of his back. At least Stone wasn’t trying to pretend it had been some kind of mistake and not a deliberate omission. Moon folded his arms, looking down the dark river. His own thoughts weren’t so easy to sort out.

Becoming one of the warriors who defended the colony from Fell and other threats was one thing, but this... was something else. And he hadn’t forgotten that a queen’s power wasn’t just theoretical; a queen could keep him from shifting, keep him grounded, as long as he was close to her. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, and was a little surprised when it was, “The last woman I was with poisoned me so her people could drag me off to be killed by giant vargits.”

It was hard to tell in the dark, but Stone seemed to take that in thoughtfully.

He shrugged. “Most groundlings think consorts look like Fell.”

Moon’s grimace was bitter. “I’d been with her for months. She said she wanted a baby. My baby.”

“Oh.” Stone apparently felt he couldn’t argue with that. “Are you going to leave?”

Moon took a sharp breath, swallowing back the first impulsive reply. He paced away, looking down on the terraced fields, the plants moving gently in the breeze, the moonlight catching a glint of water between the rows. It would help if he knew what he wanted. “What, are you saying you wouldn’t keep me here?”

Stone snorted. His voice dry, he said, “We both know you can get away from me if you put your mind to it.” He sat up straight and stretched extravagantly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Even if I was that stupid, the Arbora wouldn’t stand for it, especially the mentors. Besides, the court doesn’t need a prisoner, it needs consorts.”

From what Moon had seen, the court apparently differed in that opinion and didn’t feel it needed either. Moon said, “I’ve already been told to leave.”

“By a warrior called River?”

Moon rolled his shoulders and didn’t answer, staring stubbornly at the dark fields. Stone’s occasional ability to read minds was only one of his annoying qualities.

“That was a guess,” Stone said. “I told you about royal clutches. Sometimes they’re all male, and the fledglings who don’t develop into consorts become ordinary warriors. Amber was Pearl’s sister queen, and River came from one of her royal clutches.” He added, with a trace of acid, “I don’t solicit River’s opinion, no matter how much he thinks I ought to.”

That might be true, but it didn’t change anything. River wasn’t the only one who wanted Moon gone.

Moon realized he could hear sound rising from across the river, a chorus of notes, high and low, blending in harmony and mingled with the wind and the gentle rush of the river. He went still, staring toward the colony, the breath catching in his throat. He couldn’t make out words, but the sound seemed to gather in his body, resonating off his bones, as if it were playing him like an instrument.

Stone lifted his head, listening. “They’re singing, Arbora to Aeriat, and back again.” A single voice, high and pure, lifted to weave through the others, then died away. Moon felt sweat break out all over his body, prickling on his skin in the cool air. Apparently unaffected, Stone said, “That was Jade. Pearl never sings anymore.”

Moon turned half away, suppressing the urge to shiver and twitch. The singing felt... alien, and he resented the way it seemed to pull at him. It could pull all it wanted; whatever that was, he wasn’t a part of it.

He wondered just how close the Cordans’ camp had been to the Star Aster Court, how close he had been to finding other Raksura. Or how close they had been to finding him. Not that that would have left him any better off than he was now. It sounded as though Star Aster had no need for extra consorts; having seen the prevailing opinion of feral solitaries here, he knew they would have driven him off. He spoke the thought that had become increasingly obvious all day long, with every interaction he had had. “I don’t belong here.” Maybe if he had been younger, there would have been a chance, but not now.

Stone made a derisive noise. “You’re afraid you don’t belong here. There’s a difference.”

Moon seethed inwardly but held his temper, knowing it would give Stone a victory if he lost it. “I’ve been walking into new places all my life. I know when I don’t belong.”

Stone sounded wry. “You’ve been here half a day, and for most of that you were asleep.”

Moon said sourly, “I like to make quick decisions.”

Stone pushed to his feet with a groan, looking across at the pyramid. If Flower was right, Stone had been with Pearl all afternoon trying to convince her of things she apparently didn’t want to hear. “All I’m going to ask is that you stay until I convince Pearl to give way. I want the court to leave this colony and go back to the west, to the home forest. They won’t even consider it unless we have a consort—at least a prospective consort—for Jade. Once we have a secure colony, we’ll be in a better position to get a consort to come over from another court.” He added, his voice grim, “It won’t take long. Things will come to a head soon.”

Moon wished he could find an objection to it, but it just didn’t seem that much to ask. Staying here for a short time, even if he was threatened, stared at, and talked about, wouldn’t hurt him. Not much. But there was the other problem. “What about the Fell?”

“The place of the Raksura in the Three Worlds is to kill Fell.”

Moon looked at Stone, not certain he was serious.

Stone shrugged, as if he wasn’t saying anything particularly odd. “They’re predators, just like Tath, Ghobin, a hundred others. We should be hunting them, not the other way around.” He shook his head. “After Pearl’s reign, we don’t have a lot of allies except for Sky Copper. I’d been talking to their reigning queen about combining with us.”

Moon thought Stone wasn’t the only one in the Indigo Cloud Court who had been talking. “Then someone warned the Fell you wanted to join with Sky Copper. Someone here.”

“I thought of that, too.” Stone’s voice held an edge now. “You staying?”

Moon looked at the colony; all those people, so vulnerable in the dark. “I’ll stay, and I’ll let you use me for this. But I won’t promise anything afterward.”

“We’ll see,” Stone said, amused rather than grateful. “Maybe you’ll make another quick decision.”

Moon hissed at him, shifted, and leapt into the air.

Flying back across the river to the colony, he avoided the teachers’ court and the other lighted areas. The voices still rose and fell, but the effect wasn’t as loud or as penetrating, as if many of the singers had lapsed into silence.

Moon landed on a ledge and went to one of the air shafts he had found earlier, climbing down, taking the back way into the living quarters. He hoped that if anyone detected his presence, they would take the hint and leave him alone. The hall was empty, and he went back to the bower Petal had shown him. He had a warm place to sleep, at least, and he should take advantage of it while he could.

But as he climbed the steps to the little room, he paused. Someone else had been up here, and it hadn’t been Petal or Bell, or even River or Drift; the unfamiliar scent still hung in the air.

Moon had left his old clothes on a basket next to the robe Petal had loaned him. There was now something on top of them, a roll of blue fabric. He poked it warily, and when nothing leapt out at him, unwrapped it. Inside was a belt, of dark butter-soft leather, tooled with red in a serpentine pattern, the round buckles of red gold. Attached to it was a sheathed knife. He drew it, finding the hilt was carved horn, and the blade was something’s tooth, sharp as glass with a tensile strength like fine metal.

He thought of the bracelet he had found in Stone’s pack, made of the same rich red gold as these buckles, and how Flower had said something about a token Jade had sent, to be given to the consort Stone might bring back from the Star Aster court. And he recalled Stone’s comment: I’m bringing a present back for my great-great-granddaughter. Moon let his breath out in a bitter hiss. Very funny.

Moon sheathed the knife and re-wrapped it and the belt, and left the bundle halfway down the steps of the bower. Hopefully that made it clear that he wasn’t accepting the gift, bribe, wage for selling himself into servitude, or whatever it was. Hopefully Stone would tell Jade or whoever had left it that Moon had said he would cooperate, that this wasn’t necessary.

He climbed into the bed, listening to the court’s song as it gradually diminished and finally faded away.

When Moon woke the next morning, he lay still for a while, watching dust drift in a ray of light from an air shaft. He wasn’t looking forward to the day, mostly because he had no place here and no idea what to do.

He had slept badly; even if he hadn’t been half-expecting River to return for another try at him, the noise had kept him awake. The openings between the thick walls and the ceiling allowed sound to travel from the other bowers, making him even more hyper-aware of quiet voices, deep breathing, and the soft sounds of sex. It hadn’t been any different at the Cordans’ camp, and he knew his nerves were only on edge because these were strangers, some of them actively hostile.

The noise hadn’t seemed to bother anyone else. Though if there had been two or three friendly bodies in this bed like there obviously were in some of the other bowers, Moon wouldn’t have noticed it either.

He decided to do what he would usually do anywhere else and go hunting. It would give him some space to think and also make it clear he wasn’t depending on the court’s generosity for food.

When he climbed out of the bed, he saw the wrapped knife and belt still lay where he had left them, undisturbed. But on the step below it was another bundle, a bigger one. Unrolling it, he saw it was a fur blanket, the long soft hair dyed a shade of purple close to the haze of twilight.

With an annoyed grimace, Moon rolled it back up and left it on the step. If this went on, he was going to have to climb over a pile just to get out the door.

He went through the hall and down to the common room. As he stepped out of the stairwell, there was a sudden flurry of movement and a flash of blue and silver-gray disappeared through the outer door. The people left in the room, including Chime, Bell, and a few he didn’t know, all tried to pretend that nothing had happened, with varying degrees of flustered confusion.

Moon had the feeling he knew who that blue and gray figure was: the woman he had seen on the ledge of the pyramid yesterday with a slim build and a mane shape and scale color different from anyone else. If that was Jade, then the best thing he could do was follow her example and make himself scarce. At least the atrium was bright with sunlight, promising a good flying day. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m going hunting. Is there any place I should stay away from?”

They stared blankly at him. Puzzled, Bell asked, “What do you mean?”

“Territories? Preserves? Places that are reserved for other people, or where you’re letting the game increase?” He wished they would stop looking at him like that. This was a perfectly rational question.

One of the women he hadn’t met yet said, “Aeriat don’t... don’t usually hunt, not when they’re in the colony.” She must be a warrior herself. She had a slim but strong build, with dark skin and curly honey-colored hair tied back from a sharp-featured face. “That’s what the hunters do.”

Moon set his jaw, trying to control his annoyance. Yes, even I figured that one out. “Where I come from, if Aeriat don’t hunt, they don’t eat.”

Chime stood hastily. “I’ll go with you.”

Flustered, the woman followed him a moment later. There was something just a little awkward about her that made Moon think she was young, maybe not that far from girlhood. She said, “I’m Balm. I’ll go, too.”

Moon kept his expression noncommittal. He had meant to go alone for a chance to explore the area and to think, but if he was going to be saddled with guards, he wasn’t going to let his irritation show. He just turned and walked out to the atrium, leaving them to follow or not. The sky was a clear blue vault, no clouds in sight.

They did follow, Balm saying, “The hunters have the forest portioned off so they don’t over-hunt any one area, as you said. But they don’t go much more than four or five ells from the valley.”

Ells? Moon thought. They must have a system of measures that he had no idea how to translate. That was all he needed. I’m getting tired of feeling like an idiot. A feral idiot.

Fortunately, Balm continued, “So if we fly toward the east, past those hills, we’ll be well out of their range.”

Moon shielded his eyes to look in that direction and nodded. “Good, let’s go.”

Balm’s directions weren’t wrong. Past the edge of the jungle, the hills gave way to a grassy plain with a deep clear lake in the center. Moon spotted at least five different breeds of grasseater on the first sweep, from small red lopers with high racks of horns to big shaggy beasts with blunt heads and hooves like tree trunks. But that wasn’t the valley’s most striking feature.

A series of large statues made of some grayish-blue stone half-circled the plain, pitted and worn by the weather. Each had to be at least eighty paces tall and twice that wide. Moon circled one but couldn’t tell just what kind of creature it was meant to depict. It seemed to be a crouched bipedal figure with a beak, but any other detail had long been worn away.

Flying closer, he saw that at some time the figures had been connected by arched bridges, but most of that structure had fallen away and lay half-buried in the tall grass. He landed on the flat top of a statue’s head, the warm stone pleasant under his feet, and turned for a view of the valley. Traveling across the Three Worlds, he had seen plenty of ruins, but there was something about the way the statues were placed, the way the plain swept up to them, framed against the hills. Whoever had done this had seen the entire valley as a work of art.

Chime landed beside him, furling his wings. “Impressive, isn’t it?” He managed to sound as if he had personally constructed it.

Moon thought impressive was a good word for it. “Is it part of the same city as the colony?”

Chime nodded. “Probably. The stone is worked in the same way.”

Balm circled overhead, waiting impatiently, and Moon was hungry. He jumped off the statue, catching the air again.

They split up to hunt, but as Moon made his first pass, he heard a yelp. He pulled out of his dive and banked back around, startled to see Chime on the ground. He huddled over his wing. It didn’t look broken but it was crumpled, as if he had landed badly and fouled it.

Moon hit the ground nearby with a dust-raising thump and started toward him. Chime snapped, “No, leave me alone!” and half-turned away.

Moon stopped, but he wasn’t going to leave with Chime helpless on the ground, even if he was only winded from a bad impact. The high grass didn’t allow for much visibility and the herds of grasseaters would draw predators.

A wing injury could be bad, and shifting to groundling would just transfer a break to Chime’s arm or back, where it could be much worse. Moon knew he healed faster when he wasn’t in groundling form, and assumed that was normal for all Raksura. He hoped it was normal.

Even if Chime was hurt, he was still lucky; Moon could carry him back to the colony, or send Balm for help if the wing was too damaged to move without splints. Moon had broken a small bone in his wing once, slamming into a rock wall while trying to avoid being eaten by the biggest branchspider he had ever seen. He had spent three days curled in a hollow tree, sick and shivering, waiting for it to heal enough that he could shift without crippling himself.

And he needed to get it straight in his head whether he wanted to leave the Indigo Cloud Court because he thought it was too late for him to belong here, or because he just bitterly resented the fact that nobody had found him before.

Balm landed beside him, calling out, “Chime? Are you all right?”

“Yes. Ow.” Sounding more disgruntled than hurt, Chime pushed to his feet, stumbled a little, and carefully extended the crumpled wing. His tail dragged along the ground in complete dejection. “I think it’s just... bruised.”

Moon looked down, distractedly digging his claws into the dirt, trying to conceal his expression. Bitter resentment or not, it was a relief that Chime wasn’t injured.

Balm must have misinterpreted his relief as something else. “Chime didn’t learn to fly until a couple of turns ago,” she said, a little embarrassed, apparently feeling she needed to excuse Chime’s behavior.

Moon was trying to stay out of this, but that was so odd he had to ask, “Why not?” He had thought Chime was his age. And Chime might be a little uncoordinated in flight, but he didn’t look unhealthy.

Still limping and trying to work his wing, Chime growled, “Because I’m a mentor.”

“I know that.” Moon didn’t quite suppress an irritated hiss. “If you don’t want to tell me, don’t.” He wasn’t going to be a permanent part of this court, and it wasn’t as if he needed to know.

“All right, fine.” Chime’s voice grated as he carefully extended his wing again. “I was born a mentor. But then three turns ago, I shifted, and—” he gestured helplessly at the wing, “—this happened.”

Moon hesitated warily, his first thought that Chime was making it up, or being sarcastic. But Balm’s expression was deeply uncomfortable. Suspiciously, he asked, “Are you serious?”

Chime sighed, waved a hand over his head, and almost tangled his claws in his own mane of spines. “Unfortunately, yes. Believe me, I wish it was a bad joke.”

Balm folded her arms, betraying some exasperation. “If you’d just make an effort, let Drift or Branch teach you—”

Chime’s hiss was pure derision. “I don’t need their kind of teaching.”

Moon was still stuck on the horror of the initial change. “That must have been...” He couldn’t conceive of how strange it would be, to shift and find your other body had changed, that you were different. Feeling inadequate, he finished, “...a shock.”

“You have no idea.” Chime’s shoulders slumped in relief. Moon wondered if too many of the others had reacted by telling him he should just feel grateful for getting wings. Moon couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to fly once they learned what it was like, but that wouldn’t make the sudden change any less horrifying. He knew, from shifting to groundling and back, that the weight of his wings, even when folded, drastically changed his balance, that his tail helped to compensate for that. An Arbora’s body must be completely different, since it was designed for climbing and leaping. When Chime had first changed, he must have had to re-learn everything, even how to walk in his other form. And all the Arbora Moon had seen were shorter and more heavily built than Chime. So his groundling form could have changed, too, Moon thought, feeling the skin under his scales creep in uneasy sympathy. He hadn’t known that could happen. He wished he didn’t know it now.

Still depressed, Chime added, “Did you know that Aeriat really do have to sleep more than Arbora? I didn’t. I thought it was a myth; I thought they were just lazy. In the afternoon, I can’t get anything done. All I want to do is nap.” He shrugged in unwilling resignation. “Flower thinks it was because of the shortage of warriors in the colony, that it’s just something that happens.”

“Are you still a shaman?” Moon asked. When Balm ruffled her spines in embarrassment and looked away, he realized it might be an insensitive question.

He was certain of it an instant later, when he could practically see Chime’s spine stiffen. “That’s not all there is to being a mentor.”

“I didn’t know mentors existed until—” Moon counted back. “Nine or so days ago.”

“Oh, that’s right. Sorry, I keep forgetting.” Chime relaxed a little. “We’re not just augurs and healers, we’re historians, physicians. We keep the records of the colony, make sure the other castes have the knowledge they need.”

“Then what’s wrong with learning what you need to know to be a warrior?” Balm demanded, her tail lashing impatiently.

Chime hissed at her and turned away.

Moon felt he had to say, “She has a point.”

Chime didn’t respond for a moment, lifting and flexing his bad wing with a cautious wince. He finally said, “You’ve been alone all this time. How did you teach yourself to fly?” He waved a hand at the plain, the breeze bending the tall grass, the now-distant herds of grasseaters. “How to hunt? How did you know—”

It was Moon’s turn to hiss in annoyance, and he paced away from them, lashing his tail. It was turns too late for him to want sympathy from these people. “If you stop asking me about it, I’ll show you how to take down a grasseater without breaking your neck.”

He had only said it to make Chime angry and to shut him up. He didn’t expect him to perk up and say, “All right.”

Even as Moon explained the basics—grip the creature with your feet to leave your hands free, rip its throat out quickly before it has a chance to roll over on you, don’t attack anything too much bigger than you are—he didn’t expect Chime to listen. But Chime did, asking careful questions and prompting Moon to provide more detailed examples and advice, things he had learned for himself the hard way, and other knowledge picked up from the various groundling tribes he had hunted with.

Balm, tactfully, didn’t stay to watch or to enjoy being vindicated. She flew off to take a kill from the edge of one of the smaller herds, and then carried it away downwind to bleed it. Chime, after three false starts, managed to follow Moon’s example and take down a young loper bull. Moon wondered if Chime’s aversion to learning had more to do with being taught by people he had grown up with, who had known him only as a shaman, with abilities they didn’t have.

To eat, they took their kills back to the flat-topped head of the statue Moon had first landed on, high above any predators that might stalk the plain. The wind up there was strong enough to keep away the more persistent insects, and the view was still impressive.

When he finished eating, Moon, who had been looking forward to this since he had first seen the valley, leapt high into the air to circle around and dive into the deep part of the lake. Chime and Balm didn’t follow his example, but did venture into the shallows, swimming around the tall water grass near the bank. After a while, Chime actually relaxed enough to get into a mock-fight with Balm, both of them splashing and snarling loud enough to drive all the game to the far end of the valley.

When Moon swam back to see if they were really trying to kill each other, Chime tackled him. Since Chime’s claws were sheathed, Moon just grabbed him and went under, taking him out of the shallows and all the way down to the weedy bottom, some thirty paces down. He then shot back up. By the time they surfaced, Chime was wrapped around him, wings tightly tucked in, clinging with arms, legs, and tail. “I didn’t know we could do that!” he gasped.

“You learn something new every day,” Moon told him, grinning. Chime tried unsuccessfully to dunk him, and Balm stood in the shallows, pointing and laughing.

If Moon had been alone, he would have spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping on the warm stone of the statue’s head, but he was supposed to be a functioning member of the court and that meant each of them bringing another kill back. After this day, it didn’t seem like such an insupportable burden.

They flew back to the herd, and Moon and Balm took their kills with no difficulty. They waited upwind while Chime tried to bleed his without ripping up the meat too much and losing all the organs.

Moon caught a scent on the wind that wasn’t blood or viscera. He pivoted, studying the empty sky. “Did you smell that?”

“What?” Balm lifted her head, tasting the air. “No. What was it?”

It had just been a trace, there and gone almost too quickly to mark it. “Fell.”

“There’s been Fell taint in the air off and on since that ruler came to see Pearl.” Balm showed her fangs in a grimace of disgust. “They must still be in the area, watching the court.”

The wind came from the south, away from the colony. The Fell must be lurking out there somewhere; maybe this valley wasn’t such a good place to nap in the sun after all. Moon asked, “Were you there? When the ruler came?”

Balm shook her head, her spines flaring. “No, I’m not in favor with Pearl. I’m Jade’s...” She trailed off, looking up at Moon, suddenly uneasy.

It was the hesitation that did it. Spy, Moon thought. Spy is the word you’re looking for. He had known that Chime and Balm had only come out here to keep an eye on him; that Balm was here specifically on Jade’s behalf somehow made it... personal.

Chime landed next to them, dropping a carcass on the dry grass. He panted with exertion, proud and flustered with his success. “There, is that right? Can we go now?”

Moon turned away, picked up his own kill, and leapt into the air. Behind him, he heard Chime asking Balm, “Hey, what’s wrong? What did you do?” Moon didn’t listen for the answer.