The Serpent Sea

Chapter Nineteen

Moon and Jade saw Stone off at dawn the next morning, while the warriors slept in a little longer. From the wide branch of the mountain tree, they could see the rising sun reflecting rose and gold off the wispy clouds. It would be another good day for flying.

Stone stretched extravagantly, yawned, and told Jade, “Don’t think I don’t know why you’re sending me ahead.”

Jade nodded. “So Pearl can take it out on you instead of us.”

Moon knew they were right, but he couldn’t help saying, “We got the seed back. What kind of sense does that make?”

“Sense doesn’t enter into it where queens are concerned,” Stone told him. He jerked his head at Jade. “Get used to it.”

Jade folded her arms, regarding him deliberately. “Please. Coming from you, that’s funny.” She hesitated, her gaze on the pack that held the urn and the carefully bundled seed. “Don’t let Pearl hold Flower’s farewell until we get there.”

Stone shouldered the bulky pack without apparent effort, though with the urn it was almost four paces tall. He said, “I won’t.” With that, he walked to where the branch sloped down, and jumped off. He shifted in mid-fall, snapped his wings out to catch the air and flapped to stay aloft, hard wingbeats taking him away through the forest.

Watching him vanish in the green shadows, Moon realized he didn’t even know what Raksura did with their dead. He knew from what the others had said that the bodies at the old colony had been burned inside the ruin, with the Fell dragged out and left for predators along the river bank, but he didn’t know what the normal practice was. He said, “What’s going to happen at Flower’s farewell?”

He hadn’t phrased the question particularly well, but Jade understood what he meant. “At the old colony, we buried our dead in the gardens. But here… The histories said that there’s a place down in the roots of the tree for burials of Arbora and warriors. They used to put the royal Aeriat inside the wood itself, somehow, and made the tree grow over them. I don’t think we know how to make that happen anymore.”

Stone had said something about that, when they had found the urn in Ardan’s collection. That thought made Moon remember just how much he wanted to return to the tree. “I don’t care how crazy Pearl is going to be, I can’t wait to get back.”

Jade smiled at him. “Then wake the warriors and let’s go.”

They still took it easy on the warriors, finding a place to camp before dark and sleeping past dawn. One evening, they stopped on a mountain-tree platform to rest and hunt the herd of furry grasseaters grazing on one of the stretches of open meadow. They weren’t too hungry, so Jade told Balm, River, and Floret to only take three kills, while the others got a camp ready.

Moon flew up to a branch to keep watch over them, so had a good view of it when River tried to slam Balm out of the way and take the buck she was stooping on. Balm, who had either been expecting something like this or just had lightning-fast reflexes, rolled up and away from the blow, twisted to come down on top of River, and flung him out of her way. River righted himself with a couple of wild flaps, Balm took her kill, and Floret circled away to make it clear she wasn’t involved.

When the warriors returned to the camp, no one mentioned the incident. Moon just smiled to himself. Balm obviously had no intention of allowing River to push her around anymore.

They traveled steadily for six days with no trouble, then ran into a heavy rain that lasted a day and a night. It was too heavy to fly through, so they took shelter in a hollow in an ancient, dying mountain-tree. The tree was crumbling and the hollow had leaks, something they didn’t discover until it was raining hard enough that no one wanted to venture out to look for a better shelter.

It didn’t make for a good night’s sleep, and they all emerged early the next morning wet and cranky. To make up for it, Jade decided they would make camp on a small forest platform nearby, with the idea that full stomachs would make up for the lack of sleep.

Jade, Balm, and Song stayed at the campsite, and the others broke up into groups for hunting. Moon went with Chime, with Root tagging along, and they flew some distance from the camp before they found a platform big enough for a grasseater herd.

They took a big buck, and Moon bled the carcass by draping it over the branch, while Chime and Root kept a lookout for predators. “You think Stone’s had time to get there yet?” Chime asked. He sat nearby, and Root was above them, exploring the knobs and hollows on an upper branch.

Moon thought about it, gauging time and distance and Stone’s superior speed. “No, not yet.” They were taking the direct route from the coast to Indigo Cloud, but Stone had planned to stop at Emerald Twilight. He should have reached it two or three days ago, and he would have stayed the night at least, both for the meal and the chance to sleep. He would have also told them about the seed and how they had gotten it back, in order to make sure Emerald Twilight knew Indigo Cloud was no longer a weak court at the verge of disaster. Jade had thought this would make for a better chance of good future relations between the two courts. “It’ll probably take him another day or so.”

“The others will be so relieved that we got the seed back.” Chime frowned. “Until he tells them about Flower.” He shook his head. “At least by the time we get there…”

Moon hesitated, but Root was still on the branch above them, occupied with poking a stick into a hole, and wasn’t listening. He said, “It’s still going to be hard. They’re all going to want to talk to you about her.”

“I know.” Chime shrugged his spines uneasily. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about her, but it’s just… hard right now. We knew she was dying for so long, and yet it still feels like it happened so quickly. I guess I was too good at putting it out of my mind, pretending she was going to be fine if she just got more rest.”

Moon nudged the carcass over, and sat back on his heels, hooking his disemboweling claws into the wood to steady himself. “Did you have a chance to talk to her about what happened inside the leviathan? How you kept getting—” He waved a hand beside his head. “Visions from it?”

“No. I wish I had.” Chime looked up at Moon, the scales on his brow furrowed with worry. “Esom kept wanting to talk about it. He seemed to think I’m going to be able to sense things like he can. I told him I wasn’t like a groundling sorcerer, and I wasn’t going to be like one, no matter what.”

“Would it be so bad if you were?”

Chime glared at him. “Yes.” He glanced back around, toward the west. “The others are coming this way.”

Moon stood and leaned over the steaming carcass to see if it was ready to move. Then Chime said, “Wait. Who’s that with—” His voice sharpened. “That’s not them.”

“What?” Moon looked, straightening up. Four warriors… no, five warriors came toward them through the trees. The colors and sizes were all wrong; these were strangers. “We’re about a day’s flight from Emerald Twilight.” He looked down at the carcass, belatedly wondering if they were trespassing. “Are we hunting in their territory?”

“Yes, but we’re just passing through. Nobody cares about that.” Chime pushed to his feet, watching the warriors approach.

There were two big males with copper-red scales, a smaller blue male, and two females, one green and one dull yellow. It was obvious they were heading this way. Maybe nobody cared about poaching back in the territory the old Indigo Cloud colony had occupied, but things might be different here in the Reaches. Moon said, “Root, come down here.”

Root dropped from the branch above to land next to Moon. “What do they want?” he asked, sounding a little nervous.

“We don’t know.” Moon wondered what the penalty for poaching was, if they would have to fight, and how many warriors he could take out on his own. Chime wasn’t the best fighter, and Root was still on the small side. Chime’s spines flicked uneasily and he whispered, “This isn’t good. I don’t know everything about being a warrior, but I don’t think they should be approaching a strange consort like this.”

Moon flicked his spines back. “If they’re from Emerald Twilight, they know who we are. We’re not strangers.”

“Still…” Chime muttered.

The warriors banked in, then split up at the last moment so that three landed on the branch above and two came down on this branch, about ten paces from Moon, Chime, and Root. There was something about them that made Moon’s spines itch. He didn’t recognize any of them from Emerald Twilight, but there had been a lot of warriors and he hadn’t been paying much attention to the ones clustered around the younger queens.

The green female had landed on their branch, and now she said, “What court are you from?”

She didn’t sound angry or aggressive, and Root and Chime both lowered their ruffled spines. Chime said, “We’re on our way back to Indigo Cloud. Are you from—”

Something hit Moon in the face, a wet membrane filled with liquid, thrown by one of the warriors above them. He staggered back a step, startled more than hurt, and snarled in surprised fury. Root growled, astonished, and crouched to leap upward. But Chime grabbed for Moon, shouting, “No, don’t breathe, don’t breathe!”

But the heavy sweet fumes of the splattered liquid filled his lungs, his head. Another membrane hit Chime in the side of the head and he jerked away. Moon stumbled sideways, darkness closing in around him rapidly, falling…

Moon drifted awake slowly, weighed down by a heavy lassitude. He felt oddly reluctant to move. He made himself turn his head, and felt leaves and branches creak and rustle beneath him, smelled the pungent scent of crushed foliage. Leaves? he thought, and remembered falling. He opened his eyes.

He was lying on a woven surface of leafy branches, more branches arching over him, latticed with big broad fern fronds. Chime lay beside him, sprawled on his back with one arm over his eyes. They were both in their groundling forms. The reason for the shelter was obvious; rain pattered gently on it. The light coming through the leaves was much darker, and it felt close to early evening. Moon rubbed his forehead, frowning. I don’t remember… anything. How they had gotten here, building the shelter, where here was.

Something stirred behind him; there was someone else in here with them. He managed to roll to his side and shove himself up on one arm.

A young warrior in groundling form sat near the mouth of the makeshift shelter. He was heavily built, with light copper skin and red-brown hair, and wore a faded gold vest and pants, and copper armbands with polished grey-white stones. Moon stared, trying unsuccessfully to recognize him.

Then the warrior smiled complacently and said, “Don’t be afraid.”

“What?” Instinctively, Moon tried to shift. But he felt the pressure, the constriction that halted the change, that meant there was a queen nearby deliberately preventing him from shifting. That doesn’t make sense… wait. Memory returned. The strange warriors. They drugged me. The liquid the warrior had thrown at him had been a simple to cause sleep. Moon snarled, lunged forward, and slammed the heel of his hand into the warrior’s face.

Moon had moved too quickly for the warrior to shift. He reeled back with a yelp and clutched his bloody nose. Moon shoved him aside, scrambled out of the shelter, and pushed to his feet.

They were on a platform high in the suspended forest, in a small camp in a clearing surrounded by fern tree saplings. The mountain-tree supporting the platform arched and twisted above them, the giant branches deflecting most of the rain, so it fell on them only as a light drizzle. There were two other shelters, just lean-tos, with warriors scattered around, all staring at Moon. He counted at least seven, all still in their winged forms. It looked like a semi-permanent camp. They had dug a small firepit in the center, and there was an embossed metal kettle on the coals. Then a queen stepped out from the shadow of one of the shelters. Moon had been half-expecting Ash, young, arrogant, foolishly persistent Ash. But it wasn’t her.

For a moment he thought it was Tempest. Her scales were the same light blue, the webbed overlay the same tint of gold. But this queen’s build was a little slighter, her features sharper. Moon tried to shift again, just on the off chance she would let him, but the pressure preventing him was still there.

She eyed the warrior with the bloody nose, who stumbled to his feet, then cocked her head speculatively at Moon. She said, “So that rumor about you being a fighter wasn’t all talk.”

Chime crawled out of the shelter, tried to stand, and sat down hard. He focused on Moon, and said, worried and wary, “What happened?”

Moon shook his head to show he had no idea. He asked the queen, “Who are you?” She hadn’t been introduced with the other queens at Emerald Twilight; he would have remembered her. Unless that was her out on the balcony when Ash fought Jade, and not Tempest. At that distance, it would have been hard to tell them apart. “You were with Ash, at Emerald Twilight?”

She inclined her head. “I’m surprised you noticed me. I’m Halcyon.”

Halcyon. From her appearance, and her name… “You’re Tempest’s clutchmate?”

“Yes. And I’m afraid I’m the one who provoked Ash to challenge your queen. It was her own impulse to confront you in the greeting hall, but I decided to make use of the opportunity. Ash has always been easily led.” Halcyon stepped toward him, casually rippling her spines to shed the rainwater. “And she’ll be blamed, when word of your disappearance is carried to Emerald Twilight.”

Moon’s head was beginning to clear, enough to realize just how much trouble they were in. Chime said, incredulously, “You’ve been out here all this time, waiting for us?”

“No, only for the past three days, since your line-grandfather stopped at Emerald Twilight,” Halcyon tilted her head, still studying Moon. “All we had to do was search the direct routes from the coast to Indigo Cloud.” She added, “You were easy to find, but we won’t be. We’re a half a day’s travel away from where my warriors found you, not in the direction of Emerald Twilight.”

They wouldn’t have caught us, if we hadn’t stopped for the rain. Moon bet Halcyon had forced her warriors to fly through it. “Why? What do you get out of this?” He couldn’t believe that besting Indigo Cloud, small and struggling as it was, would be any kind of triumph for an Emerald Twilight queen. And he couldn’t believe that an ex-feral consort from an unknown bloodline was that big a prize.

Halcyon took another step toward him. “Ice is nearing the end of her reign, and the last thing she wants is trouble from another court. She’ll have to punish Ash, and Tempest will step forward to shield her, and be disgraced.”

Moon exchanged a look with Chime, who grimaced in dismay. Moon turned back to Halcyon. “And that will leave you as sister queen? What about all the others?”

Halcyon flicked her spines, this time in a shrug. “Ice knows I’m the only one who could replace Tempest. I’m not worried about the others.”

I’m worried about us, Moon thought. This plan wouldn’t work with a live consort or warrior around to explain that Ash wasn’t the guilty party. He wasn’t sure why they were both still alive now. Wait, we weren’t alone. He looked around and didn’t see any sign of a third prisoner. He demanded, “What did you do to Root?”

“The young warrior who was with you?” Halcyon glanced at one of her warriors, the big green-scaled woman.

The warrior snorted with contempt. “Nothing. He ran away.”

Chime hissed at her. “He wouldn’t run away, he’s too stupid. You hurt him.”

“We didn’t,” the warrior said, and her spines ruffled angrily. She repeated with emphasis, “He ran away.”

Moon didn’t believe it either. Root might be dead. But if he had run back to the others, all he could tell them was that strange warriors, possibly from Emerald Twilight, had taken Moon and Chime away. Which would suit Halcyon’s purpose completely.

Maybe she had planned to kill them, but when it came down to it, found it hard to take that final step. Especially with a consort. Maybe she just wasn’t certain if her warriors would go that far. Moon didn’t think pretending he didn’t understand that would do any good. “When are you going to kill us?”

Chime made a faint noise. Either he hadn’t realized this inevitable component to Halcyon’s plan, or he just didn’t want Moon to mention it aloud.

The warriors stirred a little uneasily, but Halcyon hissed with amusement. She stepped close, close enough for Moon to feel her breath. Every muscle tensed and the back of Moon’s neck prickled, but he didn’t step back, didn’t drop his gaze.

She said, with dry amusement, “I didn’t say I’d kill you.”

“Then what did you plan to do with me?”

“That’s up to you. You could cooperate.” Halcyon trailed the back of her claws against his cheek, sending a shivering pulse down Moon’s spine.

“What do you mean?” Moon was fairly certain he knew exactly what she meant, but he wanted to stall. It had to take extra concentration to keep Moon and Chime from shifting without affecting her own warriors. All they needed was a chance to escape. Moon thought he could outfly a queen, especially a queen who hadn’t been doing much of anything but sitting around Emerald Twilight plotting against her clutchmate. It was Chime he was worried about; with all the long distance flying they had been doing lately, Chime might have an advantage over the other warriors. But a queen could catch a warrior easily. Which was probably why they had bothered to drug Chime and bring him along, as a hostage for Moon’s good behavior.

As if in idle speculation, Halcyon said, “I could say I took you from Ash. Your queen wouldn’t want you after that. You could stay with me.”

Moon hoped she couldn’t hear how hard his heart was pounding. “I think you’re underestimating my queen.”

She laughed. “They said you knew very little of our ways. I see they were right.”

“What about your consort?” Presumably he was back at Emerald Twilight, enjoying the respite from his queen.

Her lip curled. “He does what I tell him to do.” Her hand dropped and she ran sheathed claws down Moon’s throat. “A change would be interesting.”

“No,” Moon said, reacting before his brain caught up to him. Keep stalling, he thought. Keeping himself and Chime alive was all that mattered. “It wouldn’t—”

A sound high above them made everyone look up. It was a warrior, flying down from the upper branches. Not flying, Moon realized. He was falling. One of the others leapt up to catch him, breaking his fall. But the others stared at what hurtled down after him.

A flash of vivid blue and silver-gray resolved into Jade, wings spread and spines furled, as she dropped down on them like vengeance itself.

With a startled growl, Halcyon jerked Moon around, his back to her, her claws pressed against his throat. She yelled at the warriors and they sprang into the air to attack.

Jade flared her wings to meet them. She slapped three Emerald Twilight warriors out of the air without a pause for breath, then closed with a big male and tossed him aside in a spray of blood.

Root appeared out of nowhere, leapt on a smaller warrior, and wrestled him off a branch, but Moon didn’t see any of the others. Not that Jade needed them, apparently. Moon couldn’t do anything but stare, Halcyon’s claws pricking his skin. He had seen Jade fight Fell, but never seen her take on other Raksura, not when she was really angry. The fight with Ash had been nothing; these warriors had no chance against her.

Halcyon must have realized it too. She shrieked, “Stop! I’ll rip his throat out!”

The remaining warriors broke off and veered away from Jade. Three were gone, either fallen to the forest floor or caught on the branches and platforms somewhere below them. Some of the others flapped unsteadily to nearby branches, badly wounded. Root dropped to land on the platform near Chime, who crouched uneasily.

Jade snapped her wings in and landed ten paces away from Moon and Halcyon. Flexing her bloody claws, she bared her fangs. She radiated fury like a furnace. Her scales were slick with rain but unmarked. None of the warriors had been able to land a claw on her. She took in Halcyon’s position, how she was using Moon as a shield, and sneered. “Coward.”

Halcyon snarled, her voice rising in rage. “Bitch.”

Jade hissed an unpleasant laugh. “Dead woman.”

Halcyon tossed Moon aside and leapt for her. Moon hit the wet grass with a thump and rolled, then scrambled up. Jade and Halcyon slammed into each other, tumbled across the platform, and broke apart. Their scales were already streaked with scratches and blood. They circled each other, moving fast, then Halcyon darted in and nearly caught a slash across the face.

Moon tried to shift to his winged form and hissed with relief when the change flowed over him. Halcyon was obviously too distracted to maintain control over him. But unlike Ash, Halcyon was closer to an even match for Jade. And after that brief conversation, Moon doubted either of them were in any state to think about consequences or negotiate. He stepped over to the firepit and grabbed the kettle. It was a heavy one, with an iron bottom meant to hold warming stones. As Halcyon ducked away from a slash, Moon lunged in and slammed her in the head with it, putting all his weight behind the blow.

Halcyon jolted forward, right into a blow from Jade that rocked her head back. Between that and the kettle, she dropped like a rock.

Jade stood over her, breathing hard. She stared at Moon, incredulous, offended, and still wild-eyed. “What was that?” she demanded, her voice gravelly with rage.

“You can’t kill her,” Moon said deliberately. He dropped the kettle beside the firepit and shifted back to groundling, hoping that would calm Jade down. Halcyon’s head was cut and bleeding, some of her spines broken and crushed, but he saw her furled wings tremble, showing she was still breathing. “We have to take her back to Emerald Twilight and make her tell what she tried to do.” If Jade killed her, the warriors could lie about what had happened, claim they were attacked. Emerald Twilight might choose to believe them just to avoid the disgrace.

Jade didn’t think much of that idea. A growl thickening her voice, she said, “She won’t tell them. She’ll lie.”

“Her warriors won’t, if you threaten them. Tell them you’ll kill her unless they tell the truth.” The survivors had all fled the tree, but Jade could still catch one if she hurried.

Jade shook her spines and hissed in pure fury. Root shifted to groundling and dropped to a crouch, prudently not taking sides. But in a small voice, Chime contributed, “You can ask for a mentor as witness when you get to Emerald Twilight. That will involve the Arbora, and the other queens can’t pretend it didn’t happen. They’ll be forced to deal with her.”

Jade shook her spines and grimaced with contempt. “We’ll never get her there without killing her, so I might as well do it now.”

Moon countered, “They have simples that make you sleep. It worked on me. It’ll probably work on a queen.”

Jade’s shout of thwarted rage was so loud it hurt Moon’s ears. He winced, and Chime and Root both flattened themselves down in the grass and covered their heads. She stalked back and forth, then stopped and flung her hands in the air. “You’re right! I’ll go get a damn warrior. If that piece of excrement moves—” She growled again and flung herself into the air.

“Get the green female!” Moon yelled after her. She had seemed like the leader of the warriors, and was probably the one most attached to Halcyon.

Root sat up to watch Jade speed away. “She carried me here, so I could show her the way,” he confided to Moon. “I’ve never flown so fast!”

Chime pushed to his feet. Shaking a little, he wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I’ll go look for the simple. It’s probably in one of these shelters.” He went to the first one and ducked down to look through the entrance.

“Hurry.” Moon sat down the grass, keeping a wary eye on Halcyon. The simple had given him a headache and a dry throat. His neck was bleeding a little from Halcyon’s claws, but not enough to worry about. It felt like the end of a very long day, though so far he had only been conscious for a small part of it. “Where are the others?” he asked Root.

“On their way here, following Jade’s markers. We were going to wait until they caught up, and attack in the middle of the night, but—” Root waved a hand, indicating the disturbed camp. “Jade changed her mind.”

“This is it.” Chime came out of the shelter, holding a lizardskin bag, intricately tooled and dyed. He sat down to rummage in it and pulled out various cloth packets and a couple of stoppered bottles. “I’ll have to mix another batch, but it won’t take long. You don’t have to be a mentor to make it work, which is probably why they picked this one.”

Moon reached over to ruffle Root’s hair. “So you just pretended to run away?”

Root nodded, fairly pleased with himself. “Right, until they stopped chasing me. Then I followed them from a distance, until they got to this camp. Then I flew back to find Jade. We left the others, so we could get back here by dark.”

Chime glanced up from the herb packets. “That was smart.”

“I know.” Then Root popped up and cuffed Chime in the head. “Ow!” Chime protested in outrage, reeling back.

“I heard what you said earlier. I’m not stupid,” Root said, coming back to sit next to Moon. “I have a big mouth, but I’m not stupid. There’s a difference. A big difference.”

“Hey, no hitting,” Moon said belatedly. Though he figured Root probably did owe Chime that one.

“I’m sorry.” Chime subsided, looking abashed.

“Jade’s back,” Moon said, and got to his feet.

Jade dropped down to the platform and flung the dazed warrior to the ground. She was in groundling form, a tall woman with light bronze skin and reddish hair. Her shirtsleeves were torn, and there were scratch marks on her arms, and a few rapidly darkening marks on her face about the size of Jade’s fist. “Are you happy?” Jade shouted at Moon.

“Yes,” he told her. “But I’m easy to please right now.”

Oddly enough, Jade didn’t appreciate the joke.

While she paced, fumed, and made certain that any of Halcyon’s warriors still lurking in the area knew that a rescue attempt would end in a bloodbath, Root tied up the female warrior and Chime made the simple. Halcyon was groaning and starting to wake by the time he finished, but once it was administered she settled into a deep sleep. While searching the packs left behind for rope, Moon found a cake of very good tea, so he built up the fire again, filled the dented kettle from a waterskin, and made some. Chime and Root went to scout for injured warriors, and found three dead, victims of the first clash with Jade. They found a few blood trails, but the survivors must have retrieved all their wounded.

Darkness had fallen and it was well into the night before the Indigo Cloud warriors arrived. It was good timing, because it had taken about that long for Jade to calm down.

While Chime and Root greeted them and answered questions and traded various congratulations and recriminations, Moon stood up and stretched his back. His headache had gone, but he had spent most of the time sitting by the fire, watching Jade stare grimly at Halcyon’s unconscious body, braced to intervene if she suddenly changed her mind about leaving the other queen alive.

Moon circled around the fire to the shadows where Jade stood. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you wanted to rescue me, again.”

“I did rescue you,” she pointed out, though she sounded more huffy than angry. Her sigh was too weary to be a hiss. “Did you have to hit her with the kettle?”

“It had a handle. It was easier than a rock.” Moon felt some of the tension melt out of his spine. As impressive as she was while enraged and defending her consort, he still liked her normal self better.

“It’s not going to make a very good story, in the annals of my time as sister queen.” She quoted dryly, “‘Then her consort jumped up and knocked the foreign queen unconscious with a kettle.’”

“If Cloud had been fast with a kettle, then you wouldn’t be here,” Moon admitted.

“That is hardly fair to Indigo. Indigo was nothing like—” She waved a hand back toward the camp. “That.”

Before she could get worked up again, he took her wrist. “Come on, the others can keep watch. Let’s go to bed.”

“Sometimes you have good ideas,” she said grudgingly, and let him tow her over to the shelter.

The trip to Emerald Twilight took a day and a half, with Jade and Balm taking turns carrying the unconscious Halcyon, and Vine carrying the woman warrior, whose name turned out to be Torrent. During the awkward and desultory conversation around the camp at night, she admitted that she was from a queen’s clutch, sister to Tempest and Halcyon. She seemed to feel bad enough, so Moon managed not to ask her if there were any sisters besides Tempest from that clutch who weren’t crazy.

They knew Halcyon’s surviving warriors followed them at a distance, but none of them ventured any closer, or tried to talk to them. Balm said, “I bet they would have tried to stop us if we were heading toward Indigo Cloud. But they know we must be taking her back to Emerald Twilight. They’re probably going to quietly slip back into the colony, and hope Ice is too distracted by dealing with Halcyon to worry about who was with her.”

Once they arrived at the court, Jade didn’t waste any time. She dropped the still limp Halcyon on the landing platform outside the greeting hall, and Vine set the woman warrior down. At first the warriors and Arbora who hurried out seemed to think that they had found Halcyon and Torrent injured in the forest, and brought them back here for help. It was reassuring evidence that only Halcyon’s group of warriors had been involved in the plot, and that most of the court had known nothing about it. But it made Moon feel even worse for those about to hear the truth. Then Jade demanded a mentor be called as witness, and the whole colony had seemed to go still.

One of the older mentors who had helped Flower came out, and Tempest, Ash, and three of the other sister queens, and every warrior and Arbora who could get outside in time. They all listened in shocked silence to Torrent’s guilty recital. Tempest kept her expression under control, though her spines trembled with the effort. Ash kept alternately flaring hers and flattening them, looking from Jade to Tempest to the other queens, incredulous and horrified.

Afterward, Tempest stiffly offered Jade hospitality, seemed relieved when Jade refused it, and they left. Ice and Shadow hadn’t appeared, and Moon was glad for it, because the whole thing had been deeply embarrassing. He made a resolution to ask Stone if he had ever fathered any clutches who tried to kill each other and what to do if they did.

It was a relief to be shed of Halcyon and Torrent, and they made good time back to Indigo Cloud, reaching it during the late afternoon five days later.

As they approached the colony tree, Moon could see already that the Arbora had made progress while they were gone.

Several of the garden platforms had neat planting beds built, others had plots that had been stripped of grass and were now covered with turned earth. The weeds and moss that had choked the main runoff pools were gone, the deadfall cleared away from some of the old orchards. There were Arbora out on the platforms too, digging in the gardens, weeding, moving baskets of dirt. The two flying boats were still anchored in place, with a few Arbora climbing over them, sanding claw-damaged wood and making other repairs.

Warrior lookouts had already spotted them and carried the word to the tree. More warriors flew out to meet them, and swooped around and called out greetings. Moon and Jade and the others landed in the knothole and were almost swept through the passage into the greeting hall by a happy swarm of Arbora.

The well rapidly filled up with Raksura, coming up the stairs from the level below or dropping down from above. All the shell-lights were lit, and caught reflections off the polished wood and the rich carving, the slim pillars along the criss-crossed stairs, the overhanging balconies. The waterfall across from the entrance ran clear and fresh, streaming down the wall to the pool in the floor, which now boasted floating flowers.

Heart pushed her way through the growing crowd to hug Jade impulsively, and tell her, “We were so worried! We expected you days ago!”

“We were delayed unexpectedly. I have to tell Pearl about it first.” Jade released Heart and asked anxiously, “What about the seed? Is it all right?”

Heart admitted, “We’re not sure yet. The instructions the Emerald Twilight mentors sent said it had to be coated in mud from below the roots and then soaked in heartwater.” Before Moon could ask, she said, “That’s the water drawn up through the roots. We had to get it just as it came out of the wood, through the spring in the top of the tree. But first we had to find the spring. That took most of a day. Stone thought he knew where it was, but apparently it moves around when the tree grows. Or that’s what Stone said, anyway. Now we’re just waiting to see if it will show the signs that it’s ready to be placed in the tree.”

“I see.” Jade exchanged a worried look with Moon. It had been a big unspoken fear that all Ardan’s meddling with the seed might have damaged it somehow. Moon had been hoping that fear would be banished by the time they arrived. It wasn’t good to hear that they would still have to wait and see.

Heart turned to Chime, and they looked at each other a long moment. They had been Flower’s last students, and Chime couldn’t act on her teaching anymore. Heart stepped forward and Chime caught her in his arms, burying his face against her shoulder.

Stone wandered up out of the crowd, stopped and eyed Moon for a moment, then nudged his shoulder. “You all right?”

“Yes.” Suddenly that was all Moon could trust himself to say. He felt like he had never really come home before, not to a permanent home, not to a place where everyone knew the real him. He couldn’t even trust himself to shift to his groundling form, even though it was technically rude to stay like this while Stone was a groundling. What he really wanted to do was run away and hide in a corner, and enjoy this intense, unaccustomed feeling privately.

Then Pearl dropped down from the levels above. Arbora and warriors scattered to make way for her. River impulsively started toward her, and remembered just in time to stop and wait with the others, while she greeted Jade. Moon was so emotional at the moment he even felt a spark of pity. River might sleep in Pearl’s bower, but he would never be her consort, anymore than Chime could ever be an Arbora again.

“You’re late,” Pearl said, and frowned at Jade. “Stone was ready to go out looking for you.” Then her gaze hardened. She had obviously spotted the recent scratches on Jade’s scales, though they had faded over the past few days. Knowing Pearl, she might even be able to tell they had been made by another queen. Her spines started to lift in agitation. “What happened?”

Jade set her jaw and braced herself. “Halcyon, a sister queen from Emerald Twilight, tried to steal Moon.”

Moon had half-expected Pearl to express disappointment that Halcyon hadn’t succeeded. But Pearl’s eyes went black with fury. Her spines stiffened, until they flared out around her head.

Stone lifted his brows and gave Moon an incredulous look. Moon shrugged helplessly. Pearl ignored them. Her voice flat, she said to Jade, “Did you kill her?”

Jade’s spines lifted in response, but she kept her temper. She said, “No.” Her voice heavy with irony, she said, “I was persuaded not to.”

Moon belatedly shifted to groundling. The last thing he wanted at the moment was Pearl’s attention. But Pearl stayed focused on Jade. She tilted her head, her gaze hardened to ice. “Why not?” The words dropped into a near perfect silence. No one in the hall breathed. Moon could hear the breeze rustling leaves outside.

Jade flicked her spines. “I didn’t want to start a war. We took her back to Emerald Twilight with one of her warriors, and made the warrior speak before a mentor.” She paused, and added deliberately, “They owe us a great debt now.”

Pearl was silent for so long there were probably warriors in the hall starting to suffer from lack of air. Then she said, “I’m surprised you thought of that, in the heat of the moment.”

Moon tried not to react in any way. He wondered if he had made things worse by talking Jade out of immediate vengeance. But Jade was calm and didn’t take Pearl’s bait. She said, “It seemed the best course.”

Pearl held her gaze a moment more, then said, “We’ll see.”

She turned away, and the whole hall took a collective breath of relief. Out of the corner of his eye, Moon saw Chime’s knees buckle, and Heart and Balm reach hastily to steady him.

As the crowd parted for Pearl, she lifted one hand in a signal to River. He hurried after her. Moon regretted the sympathetic impulse. Keeping his voice low, he said, “He’ll tell her everything that happened.”

“So he will.” Jade wasn’t worried. The long flight here from Emerald Twilight had evidently given her a much more sanguine perspective on the situation. “She’ll see the advantages.”

“Somebody needs to tell me everything that happened,” Stone pointed out. “But you need to do it on the way to the nurseries, because Frost accused me of leaving you somewhere for dead, and she’s managed to convince the rest of the clutches that she’s right.”

Moon winced. When he had left, he had been afraid of something like that happening, but there hadn’t been any real choice.

Jade took his wrist and pulled him with her as she followed Stone. She said, wryly, “We’ll both go. I think I need to spend more time with Frost.”

Moon thought that was probably the best thing they could do.

They held the farewell for Flower later that evening, after Jade and Moon and the warriors had had a chance to sleep and rest. The Arbora had found a niche in one of the walls up in the unused Aeriat levels, which Stone said was one of the old grave niches for royal urns. Heart and the other mentors didn’t know how to make the wood grow to seal the niche yet, but it would still make a good resting place.

The whole court sang for Flower. Moon didn’t contribute, but he made himself sit still for the whole uncomfortable performance. It wasn’t as eerie this time, though it still felt alien to him.

Afterward, Moon ended up sitting outside with Chime on a ledge above the waterfall. They watched the tiny flying lizards chase lightbugs in the spray, while the sun set somewhere past the mountain-trees and the green twilight deepened toward darkness. The whole court felt tense and uneasy. From what Moon understood, either the seed would show that it was ready to be reattached to the tree within the next day or so, or it wouldn’t. There was nothing to do now but wait.

Chime said suddenly, “They’re choosing a new chief mentor tonight.”

That was an uncomfortable thought. The balance of power in the court was already delicate. Moon asked, “Who is it going to be?”

“Probably Heart.”

That was an uncomfortable thought for a different reason. After the fight to escape the Dwei hive, Heart hadn’t been able to put Moon into a healing trance. “But she’s so young.”

“That’s not actually a problem,” Chime said, though he still sounded depressed. “You want someone young, to grow into it. And she still has all the other mentors to help her. Heart is reasonable, and good at settling differences, and Pearl and Jade both trust her. She was Flower’s second… first choice as a successor.”

“The first choice after you,” Moon said, then realized a moment later that he should have withheld that thought.

“But I’m not a choice anymore,” Chime said, sounding less depressed but more exasperated.

“Sorry.”

Chime shook his head. “It’s all right. It’s just… I wish I could help with the seed.”

Moon wished Chime could help, too. He tried to imagine packing the two flying boats again and heading off for some new destination, and it felt like a little stab in the heart. He wanted to stay here.

Stone had been right from the beginning. The court belonged here. And Moon meant to belong here, too.

Late that night, when Moon and Jade were asleep in their bower on the teachers’ level, someone banged loudly on the hanging bed. Moon, closest to the bottom, started awake and Jade rolled off him with a growl. They both leaned over the edge to see Blossom looking up at them expectantly. She said, “It’s the seed! It’s ready!”

Moon realized he could hear a lot of movement and voices out in the passage. Jade gasped, vaulted out of the bed, and bolted out of the room with Blossom. Still half-asleep, Moon climbed out, got his clothes on, and joined the trickle of Arbora moving toward the nearest stairs. Moon passed Niran, half-dressed and bleary with sleep, his long hair wrapped up in a scarf for the night. “What is it?” Niran asked.

“They think the seed’s ready,” Moon said as he passed by. “They’re going to try to attach it to the tree.”

“Ahh! Good luck!” Niran called after him.

Moon followed the others all the way down to the lower level where the seed’s chamber lay. The corridors leading to it were already packed with Arbora and warriors, everyone whispering anxiously. Some had shifted and clung to vantage points on the low ceiling, though Moon didn’t think they would have much of a view up there, either. He was standing on tiptoes, trying to get an idea of what was happening, when Balm elbowed her way through the crowd, grabbed him by the wrist, and unceremoniously hauled him back with her through the passage and up to the door of the seed chamber.

Jade was there in a little group with Pearl, Stone, and Chime, and the leaders of the Arbora, Bone, Bell, and Knell. River and Pearl’s other warriors crammed into the corridor behind Pearl. Balm deposited Moon at Jade’s side, and Jade whispered, “What were you doing back there?”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to be up here.”

Pearl hissed at them to be quiet and Moon gave up on an explanation.

The door was open and the seed chamber softly lit. From here Moon could see the mentors all in the small room, standing back against the walls. Even Copper, the young mentor-to-be, had been brought from the nurseries. He stood next to Merit and clung to the older mentor’s leg. Heart knelt in the center of the room, holding the seed.

It was easy to see how they had known the seed was ready. The hard outer husk had softened and was now covered with soft white petals. Another female mentor crouched beside Heart, holding a sketch that they compared the seed to. “It looks right,” the other mentor muttered. “It should be sprouting.”

“I think I feel tendrils,” Heart said, gently lifting one of the petals. She looked back at Stone. “Should we try?”

Stone shrugged, not helpfully. Pearl said, “Just go ahead.”

Heart took a deep breath and set the seed carefully into the cradle in the center of the web of dried and broken tendrils. Moon realized he was holding his breath along with everyone else.

Heart said, “I think now we just have to wait. It’s bound to take time to— Everyone, out!”

As the mentors scrambled to get out of the room, Moon fell back with Jade and the others to make space for them in the foyer. As the last mentor hopped out of the chamber, Moon saw that the seed had sprouted new white tendrils. They snaked out and twined around the crumbling remnants of the dead tendrils to follow their path into the heartwood. The tension ran out of Moon’s body and he leaned back against the wall, letting his breath out. That’s it, he thought. The seed was alive and well and back in its place.

“It worked,” Chime said, his voice trembling, and the word passed through the crowded passages, a growing murmur of relief.

Stone pushed the chamber door closed, and said, “Well, we’re home now.”