The Siren Depths

Chapter Three

The Arbora worked for the rest of the afternoon, mostly to get the berries picked and the essential planting done. But they also checked over the blocked drainage and irrigation channels for signs of leaks or weakening supports. Working from below, Jade and Balm and the other warriors found several spots that needed attention, enough to know they would have to carefully check every platform on the tree.

Everyone came in at dusk, and after the berry harvest had been stored away, Moon and most of the court ended up sitting in the greeting hall talking over the situation, worrying, and forming and discarding various plans of action. Everyone knew the platform gardens were too important to their survival to lose. The hunting here was good but they still needed the root crops and ground fruit to augment their food supply. They had traded some of the cloth and raw materials brought from the former colony to Emerald Twilight for dried tea and native root seedlings, but they couldn’t trade for all the food they needed. Especially after Tempest’s aborted visit, when their relations with Emerald Twilight might be even more uncertain than they had been before.

“It might be the fact that the seed was missing for a while,” Merit said, when appealed to for his opinion as a mentor. “The damage inside the tree healed, but if it killed some roots and branches in the platforms...”

Chime snorted in disagreement. “We would have noticed before now.” He tended to give the younger male mentors a lot of attitude, and the others speculated that it might be pure jealousy of their powers. Moon was fairly certain it was pure jealousy of their powers.

Bone shook his head. He looked weary and worried, as if his age was wearing on him. “It’s possible, but it might just be the rot from the blocked channels. The water’s had to go somewhere, and it’s been draining right through some of those platforms.”

Jade said, “We can figure out how it happened later. What we need to do is decide how to repair the damaged branches and roots.” Pearl had already left with most of her coterie, but Jade had been listening thoughtfully, chin propped on her hand, letting the others give voice to their fears and worries. Though Moon could tell she was tired and ready to get away from them all for a while.

As the others all started to offer different ideas for the repair, Moon got up, threaded his way through them, and sat on his heels next to Jade. He leaned against her side, his groundling body against the warmth of her scales, and nuzzled her shoulder. Jade took his wrist and immediately pushed to her feet, tugging him along with her. Chime and Balm glanced up, both with inquiring looks. Moon shook his head slightly, telling them to stay behind. If Jade had wanted more company, she would have signaled for them to follow.

Once they had climbed up the inner well and were safely inside Jade’s bower, she groaned, a comment on the whole long day. “We should have checked the platforms as soon as we got here. I should have thought of that.”

“The tree looked solid,” Moon pointed out. He shifted to his groundling form, going to the bowl hearth to put the kettle on the warming stones. “And it had been like this for turns with no problems.” Which did lend weight to Merit’s theory that the rot had been caused by the seed’s removal.

“Yes, but…” Jade rubbed her forehead, then shook her spines out, as if shaking off pointless recriminations. She started to take off her jewelry, armbands, pectorals, and belt, dropping it into a glittering pile on the fur mat. “Pearl said the royal clutch saw Plum and the others fall. Were they upset?”

“Not really.” Moon had taken a few moments during the afternoon to check on them. “I think they liked seeing me and the warriors catch them.”

Jade snorted. “They would.” The bathing pool was full and the warming stones in it had kept the water hot and steaming. She stepped in and sank down completely under the surface. Moon stripped off his shirt and pants and stepped in after her.

The water had been heating all day and would have been painfully hot for most soft-skinned groundlings, but Raksura loved heat, even in their most vulnerable form. Moon settled into it, leaning back against the smooth stone side of the basin, feeling the knots in his back relax.

Jade surfaced and shifted to her other form, the disturbance from the change making the water bubble up away from her. She leaned back, her frills floating around her.

Moon rested his head against the rim and breathed in the steam. “What did you and Pearl decide about letting the Arbora start clutching again?”

“We were going to let them start after the first root harvest came in, the red tubers, and talk to them to make sure they all didn’t clutch at once. But now, I don’t know if we should go ahead with it.” She added wearily, “But we still need warriors. I just hope they produce some this time.”

“Maybe we’ll have a clutch of warriors,” Moon said, to see how she would respond.

“Maybe.” She sounded matter-of-fact, which didn’t exactly help. She pushed through the water, steam swirling around her, and leaned on the rim next to him. “Any luck with Bitter?”

Moon ran his fingers through her frills as they floated on the surface, and tried not to notice how quickly she had changed the subject. “Not yet.”

“You should talk to Stone about it when he gets back.”

Moon had been trying to avoid that, mostly because he wanted to solve this problem himself. And he was afraid Stone’s methods might be more direct. “He’ll want to throw Bitter off a branch and force him to fly.”

Jade laughed. “No, he won’t.”

“If I wouldn’t fly, he’d throw me off a branch.”

“Yes, but that’s you.” Jade sunk down in the water, eyes closed, her nose just above the steaming surface.

Moon asked, “Do you want to sleep?”

She sat up with a splash, water streaming down her scales. “Not yet.”

Moon smiled up at her, and suddenly found that all the worries were easy to put aside, at least for now. “What do you want to do?”

Jade took his wrist and pulled him up out of the water with her. “Guess.”

When Moon woke the next morning in the hanging bed in Jade’s bower, she was already awake, sitting up, and staring down at him.

He stretched, yawning. The air tasted of a fresh cool dawn, the sweet green scent of the tree, and Jade. Looking up at her, still bleary with sleep, he realized her expression was pensive and not a little worried. “What’s wrong?”

She blinked, as if she had been so lost in thought she hadn’t noticed he was awake. “Nothing.” She leaned against the curving side of the bed, shaking her frills back. She was in Arbora form, softened by sleep, not wearing her jewelry and seeming vulnerable without that armor. “I couldn’t sleep.”

The bowers were quiet, except for the water trickling down from the channel above the pool. Before he could change his mind, he asked, “Do you still want a clutch?”

“Yes.” The answer came with gratifying emphasis, though Jade still looked as if she was thinking of something else. Then she focused on him, her gaze suddenly sharp. “Why do you ask? Because we might have to put off letting the Arbora clutch again?”

“Right, that.” Moon rolled over to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and hiding his face against the warm scales of her stomach. Jade hadn’t changed her mind, so the problem was in him somewhere. He needed to talk to someone, find out what the chances were, if it might be something temporary. But whoever he spoke to might tell Jade, or worse, Pearl. “I thought you might want us to wait, too.”

Her hand moved through his hair, then kneaded his shoulder, her claws grazing his skin possessively. “No. No, I don’t want to wait.”

The Arbora spent the next several days diverting the drainage channels from the more vulnerable outer platforms, and weaving more living branches into the root mats to support them. Moon stayed out with them, being a reassuring presence in case anyone fell, and occasionally helping with the work in the more difficult spots where wings and longer arms were needed. He took breaks only to visit the nurseries and to occasionally bring the royal clutch out to watch. Frost expressed disappointment that none of the Arbora fell, since she liked watching Moon fly so fast to catch them.

Plenty of the warriors helped with the task as well, and Jade and Pearl came out for the most difficult sections, but for some reason the Arbora still wanted Moon there. And they made their appreciation clear. The varieties of spiced roots he liked best appeared every night for the last meal. Rill made him a new sash, of a blue silky cloth brought from the old colony, worked over with vine patterns in black thread. Other gifts—flowers, polished stones, and braided leather and copper bead bracelets—showed up in his bower. Maybe consorts were considered lucky. Whatever the cause, after months of being alert for signs that the court’s opinion was turning against him, it was a relief, at least for a while.

A few days into the work, Moon was hanging by his foot-claws from the supports of a platform, guiding the Arbora above to a dead branch woven through the living roots. It was partially rotted and might damage the platform’s stability in the future, though it seemed sturdy enough now. The Arbora’s footsteps crunched across the grass of the platform toward the broken spot Moon had marked, when River swooped up beside him.

River caught a root with one clawed hand, making the platform shiver. “What was that?” someone called from above, muffled by the layers of dirt and branches.

“Nothing,” Moon assured them. It was more a comment on River’s personality than his physical presence. “Absolutely nothing. Keep coming this way.” Rustling and thumps sounded overhead as the Arbora resumed probing for the broken support.

River slung himself closer and folded his wings in. As a warrior his scales were blue with a green undersheen, and in his groundling form he was a dark-haired man with copper skin. He said, “You’re letting them take advantage of you. Working you like a common warrior.”

Moon had to laugh. “Thanks. You’ve always been so concerned on my behalf.”

River flared his spines, contemptuous and amused. “You have no idea how other courts would look at this.”

Moon was fairly certain he knew exactly how other courts would look at this, but he had no intention of stopping. Knowing River, he was probably repeating things that Pearl had said in private. Whether Pearl intended this or not was hard to tell; River only appointed himself to speak for Pearl when Pearl was nowhere around. “If you don’t want other courts to know, then don’t tell them.”

“You think no one will talk about this on the next trading visit?” River’s amusement was turning into real irritation. “The courts in the Reaches have to see us as something besides struggling refugees coming back to our old mountain-tree to die off in peace. It’s bad enough that they know we have a feral consort with no bloodline; when you act like one you’re shaming all of us, making us look weak.”

The biting suspicion that River might be right made Moon snap, “If the gardens keep collapsing, nobody’s going to care what kind of consort you’ve been stuck with.” Above them, on top of the platform, the Arbora were digging down through the loam, getting closer, and he didn’t want them to hear this.

“Exactly.” River bared his teeth in real frustration. “If the queens could convince another court to give us a consort, don’t you think they would?”

A crunch overhead told Moon that the Arbora had broken through the crust above the supports. Bramble’s voice said, “Oh, it’s River. That’s why there’s an argument.”

Spice’s voice seconded her. “Well, he couldn’t be here to help!”

River hissed at them and dropped from the branch, snapped his wings out, and angled to catch the updraft.

Moon stayed where he was, flexing his claws into the wood, while Bramble and Spice and the others dug and chatted and sawed at the rotted support. He didn’t think the Arbora were taking advantage of him, not intentionally. But it had been turns since they had had a real first consort, since Pearl’s consort Rain had died. After that there had just been a few young consorts sent away to queens in other courts, and Stone. Maybe they hadn’t thought about Indigo Cloud’s place with the other courts. Most of them had only seen foreign queens and warriors when they came to visit, and that had been rare for Indigo Cloud even before the court moved here.

It doesn’t matter, he reminded himself, if the Arbora or the warriors or even Jade led him astray, let him get away with more than he should. No one was going to ask for or accept excuses for his behavior. You’re on your own, as usual.

Later that day, a storm came up, the high wind and heavy rain making only indoor work possible. Jade was busy with Balm somewhere in the colony, so Moon ended up sleeping with Chime in his bower.

Queens and consorts usually had warrior lovers, and no one seemed to mind that Moon slept with Chime occasionally. Which was good, because Chime had really wanted to.

Stubbornly, Chime had never moved out of the teachers’ level up to the warriors’, though he did have a bower with a balcony looking out into the lower central well below the greeting hall. Moon hated storms but the tree’s heavy trunk made the thunder a distant grumble, and the air from the balcony held the fresh scent of rain that had drifted in through the knothole. Chime’s bower-bed was warm and comfortable, but Moon couldn’t relax into sleep.

He finally said, “I need to ask you something.”

“Um.” Still half-asleep, Chime nuzzled his shoulder. Chime claimed to have gotten used to every aspect of being an Aeriat rather than an Arbora, except for the need for more rest. Once he was asleep he was hard to wake.

“Can consorts and male Arbora turn their fertility off like queens and female Arbora?” Moon was hoping the reason Jade hadn’t clutched yet was something that he needed to do, or needed to stop doing. One of those things that everyone assumed he knew all about that he had no idea existed.

In the past months, Moon had found out everything he could about clutches, and why stillbirths seemed so common. The mentors said that the babies in a clutch might be conceived at different times, so that when the first was ready for birth, some of the others might not be as developed. It also didn’t help that queens developed in the womb faster than consorts, and consorts faster than warriors. This wasn’t as big a factor for the Arbora clutches, because Arbora and warrior babies developed at about the same rate. Moon thought he had asked about everything he needed to know, but it hadn’t occurred to him that the conception process might entail more than the obvious.

Chime pushed up on one elbow and stared blearily at him. “No. Why would we need to suppress our fertility—I mean, why would they? They don’t need to. It’s the females who decide when to clutch.” He shook his head, baffled. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” Moon let his breath out in disappointment. There went that, unless it was a secret consort thing that not even a former mentor would know about, which he doubted. That left the other, far more disturbing possibility: that Moon wasn’t as fertile as a consort was supposed to be.

Chime settled back down, grumbling, “You do ask the oddest questions.”

A few days went past, mostly uneventful. There were no more platform collapses, and no serious sickness and only a few hunting injuries. The work on the gardens was going so well, the hunters decided to go ahead with the plan to take the warrior fledglings and the younger Arbora on a teaching hunt. Moon took advantage of the opportunity to ask to bring Frost, Thorn, and Bitter along, too.

There was a Raksuran prejudice that queens and consorts didn’t hunt; they were taught to, but only later, when they were past fledglinghood. But Moon would have died as a boy if his foster mother hadn’t taught him to hunt when he was barely able to leap from branch to branch. He thought he would have trouble convincing Pearl that the royal fledglings needed to learn along with the others, but she gave in with only minor grumbling.

That actually made Moon more worried than anything else. The concession had been granted with suspicious ease, almost as if Pearl felt sorry for him for some reason. He made the mistake of mentioning it to Chime, who said, “You really are crazy, aren’t you?”

“No.” Moon hissed in annoyance. “It’s just strange. I know she’s humoring me, but why would she bother?”

Chime sighed. “She probably thinks she owes you a favor after you saved Plum and have been helping so much with the work on the gardens.”

Moon grudgingly admitted that might be it.

Despite Moon’s suspicions, it was a very good day. Moon didn’t let Frost and Thorn try to take any game, but had them watch the others and then get their claws dirty helping the Arbora bleed and gut the carcasses of their prey. Bitter didn’t make any attempt to fly, but he did obviously enjoy the outing. He was carted around by Moon, Balm, Chime, and the female warrior Floret, as well as Bone and some other Arbora hunters, mostly Bramble and Salt. He helped with the gutting and got as covered with mud, loam, and blood as Frost and Thorn.

After they returned to the tree, Moon took the royal clutch down to the nurseries for baths and sleep. On his way back, he passed one of the small workrooms and saw two Arbora sitting on the floor, bent over a glittering pile on a stone slab, deep in a discussion about whether to use amethysts or polished onyx. It was Merry and Gold, the two best artisans in the court. Curious, Moon stepped into the room to look at what they were making.

It was a fingerwidth-wide band, in pieces now so it was hard to tell if it was meant for a bracelet, necklace, or ankle or arm band. It was figured with the coiled shapes of Aeriat, all with wings half-spread and outstretched arms, intended to hold polished stones that hadn’t been set into place yet. Moon was startled again by how intricate the Arbora’s creations were, how much hard work they were willing to do just for the sake of art. “That’s beautiful.”

Merry and Gold both flinched, staring up at him. “Moon!” Gold, an older female with masses of curly auburn hair, managed to say, “Uh, we didn’t hear you come in.”

“Sorry.” Moon sat on his heels for a closer look at the piece. “Is it for Jade or Pearl?” Now that they were getting visits from other courts, the Arbora might be feeling a need to make sure their queens had more impressive finery.

Moon looked up in time to catch a fleeting expression of relief on Gold’s face, but it was gone too fast to be sure he hadn’t imagined it. “It’s for Pearl,” Merry said. Lifting his brows, he added, “You think she’ll like it?”

Gold nudged Merry’s shoulder, giving him a quick glare, as if she hadn’t liked the question. That Moon definitely hadn’t imagined. “Of course she will,” he said, and stood, leaving before it got more awkward. They must have thought he would be annoyed that it was meant for Pearl and not Jade.

It was two days later when Moon figured out who the piece was actually for.

It had rained all night and much of the morning, very bad conditions for work on the outer platforms, so most of the court was staying inside today. Moon sat with the others in the teachers’ hall, which had become a common gathering place for Arbora and Aeriat alike.

It was a large central chamber below the greeting hall, its walls and domed ceiling covered with a detailed carving of a forest, with plume trees, spirals, fern trees, and many others, their branches reaching up to entwine overhead, their roots framing the round doorways that led off to different passages. With the shells set into the walls glowing with soft white light and the hearth basins filled with warming stones, it was a comfortable welcoming space. There was always someone there, and it was a good place to go if you wanted to talk, or just listen to others talk. Someone was always making tea, baked spiced roots, or flatbread, and the older Arbora gathered there to tell stories, or read aloud from one of the books in the mentors’ library.

Moon liked the readings best, since that was his only chance to hear what was in the books. He had taught himself to read the other languages he could speak, but Altanic and Kedaic had much simpler writing systems. The written Raksuran language was proving just as twisty and complicated as the Raksura themselves.

He had been trying to remedy this, timing many of his visits to the nurseries to coincide with reading lessons. He sat with Frost, Bitter, and Thorn while Rill or Bark or one of the other teachers drew the letters and words on clay tablets and the fledglings copied her. When they read from the simpler books, Moon looked over their shoulders. It wasn’t a particularly effective way to learn, since he couldn’t be there for every lesson and he couldn’t ask questions without giving himself away. But he had made some progress, memorizing all the characters for the various sounds, and he was starting to recognize a number of words. He didn’t think anyone had caught on, except, oddly enough, for Thorn.

At the third lesson Moon had attended, Thorn had eyed Moon thoughtfully, and moved his tablet so Moon had a better view of it. Moon had eyed him back, but they had never spoken of it, and Moon was fairly sure Thorn hadn’t shared his suspicion with anyone else, even Frost or Bitter. He thought Thorn might like having a secret to share with Moon, something that was his alone. That suited Moon.

But that rainy afternoon in the teachers’ hall, no one brought out a book. Instead, Rill said, “Moon, tell us a story about groundlings.”

The Arbora and older warriors settled in to listen, and even the young warriors lounging on the fringes of the group were hard put to conceal their interest. The entire court knew Moon’s life had been substantially different from theirs, but most of them had little idea of what that really meant. They knew he had traveled widely and seen strange places, but so had Stone. Moon had never seen much point in trying to convey what it had really been like, so he avoided stories like the time he had had to flee a Morain cliff-town in the middle of the night, got trapped in a tunnel and had to hide in a crack in the rock barely wider than his body while his former comrades hunted him.

So he told them about the Deshar in the hanging city of Zenna, and their elaborate social customs that made passing through the place so difficult for visitors. Predictably, everyone wanted to hear more about the Deshar’s attitudes about sex, which were as baffling to the other Raksura as they had been to Moon at the time.

“So if they have sex without this ceremony first, they can’t have it again?” Bone said, scratching the scar around his neck thoughtfully. He was clearly having trouble following this strange brand of logic.

Moon tried to explain. “Sort of. You can only have sex with your permanent mate, and you can’t have a permanent mate without the ceremony, and if you have sex before the ceremony, nobody wants to be your permanent mate.”

Bark frowned. “But do they have to have a permanent mate?” Except for queens and consorts, Raksura usually didn’t.

“If they want babies. If you have a baby with anybody but a permanent mate, it’s bad. For you and the baby.” The idea that offspring might be unwanted was hard for Raksura to understand as well. Queens and Arbora only clutched when they wanted to, and there were always teachers to take care of the babies or fledglings.

“But how do the others know if someone’s had sex?” Chime protested. “How can they tell? If they have sex without the ceremony, shouldn’t they just keep quiet about it?”

“Do they change color when they have sex?” Balm asked thoughtfully.

“No. They just seemed to know.” Moon admitted, “I never figured that part out.”

Bone snorted, stretching to pick up the kettle. “Strange creatures. Though I’m sure they’d say the same of us.”

If confronted by a Raksura, the Deshar would probably have been too busy having hysterics to say anything. In the east where Raksuran courts were rare, groundlings confused them with Fell. Before Moon could point this out, one of the soldiers, Grain, dropped down the stairwell from the greeting hall, calling out, “Where’s— Moon, visitors just arrived from another court! Two queens, and some warriors, and they’ve got a consort with them!”

Everyone gasped and exclaimed. Moon exchanged an alarmed look with Chime and Balm. That meant this was the most formal form of visit. It would have to be today, Moon thought. Everyone would have been tracking mud and water through the greeting hall all morning. Knowing Raksura, the visitors had probably planned it this way to put them at a disadvantage. He said, “Is someone telling the queens?”

“Yes, Sage went up there,” Grain told him, bouncing up and down with excitement.

Rill stood hastily, shaking crumbs out of her skirt. To Balm, she said, “We should give them tea in the greeting hall first, give them a chance to dry off before we send them up to the queens’ hall.”

Balm got to her feet, looking down at herself helplessly. “I have to get up there.” The senior female warriors were the ones who were supposed to initially greet visitors, and as Jade’s clutchmate, Balm was the most senior one available. She was wearing an old pair of brown pants and a shirt stained with the juice from the berries they had all been eating, and her only jewelry was a copper armband. She was still beautiful, but it was definitely not the way to be dressed while formally greeting two foreign queens and a consort. Moon looked worse, but he wouldn’t have to appear until the first round of formal greetings were done, and that might take quite a while, depending on how difficult the queens all decided to be.

“Wait, wait,” Rill said, and whipped off her dress, holding it out toward Balm. “Put this on!”

“Oh, good idea.” Balm took her shirt off and pulled on the sleeveless dress. She was much taller than Rill, so on her it was more of a tunic, but the dye on the soft fabric was a blue that faded to violet toward the hem, and it looked good against Balm’s dark groundling skin. Someone else contributed a necklace of flat polished amethyst and everyone judged Balm ready to go.

Balm took a deep breath and started up the stairs with Grain, as everyone else scattered to get cushions and one of the better tea sets. Moon headed off to take the back passages up to the consorts’ level.

As Moon traveled upward through the colony, he warned everyone he met about the visitors. When he reached the Aeriat levels, he skipped the queens’ level and went right to the consorts’, tracing a path through the maze of empty rooms and antechambers and bathing rooms to his bower, just above Jade’s.

He hadn’t spent a lot of time here. During the evenings, he was either down in Jade’s bower, or Chime’s, or sitting with the others in the teachers’ hall. But this was the first time he had had a room in a permanent structure that was just for him.

The curving ceiling was carved with Aeriat in flight, on a background of waves that Chime had said symbolized the west wind. The half-shell of the bed hung near the far wall, lined with comfortable blankets and cushions. The hearth basin was in the center, and filled with fresh warming stones. There were a couple of furs and some cushions to sit on, and a woven-reed basket stood against the opposite wall, holding a few extra blankets and his clothes. A normal consort Moon’s age would have far more possessions than this, baskets stuffed with belongings and gifts. What Moon had was a narrow shelf in the wall, holding the things that the fledglings and the Arbora children had given him on his visits to the nurseries. These were usually shiny rocks or pieces of wood, or intricate little sculptures made out of twigs or twisted scraps of cloth.

He opened the top basket, and pulled out his best set of clothes. The shirt and pants were made of the same silky fabric, the color a blue so dark it was almost black. He also had a belt-sash woven through with gold threads. That, with his consort’s gift, a heavy red-gold bracelet with the serpentine shapes of two entwined Raksura etched into the band, should be enough to make him look respectable. And respectable was about as good as it was going to get.

Chime ducked in through the doorway, having hastily changed clothes as well. “Is that what you’re wearing?” he said, as Moon was pulling the shirt over his head. He caught Moon’s narrow-eyed look and waved his hands. “Sorry, I’ll be quiet!”

Moon had arrived at Indigo Cloud with nothing except the clothes on his back, which by that point had been about to fall off. He now had clothes for both everyday use and to save for special occasions, which was more than he had ever owned in his entire life. “Did you hear where they were from?”

“Yes, and it’s a little odd.” Chime paced anxiously, tightening the sash around his waist. “One of the queens is Tempest, from Emerald Twilight.”

“Again?” That was odd. Unless this visit was meant as amends for the last abbreviated one. Or revenge for the last abbreviated one. But they brought a consort.

“I know, it doesn’t make sense.” Chime waved his hands, baffled. “The other queen is Zephyr, a sister queen from Sunset Water. They’re related somehow. I think she’s the daughter of an Emerald Twilight consort, maybe Shadow’s clutchmate, who was given to the reigning Sunset Water queen.”

Moon committed that to memory, in case it came up in later conversations. One of the benefits to being a consort was that he wasn’t expected to talk much during these visits. He would presumably have to speak to the other consort at some point, though. Just don’t get in a fight, he reminded himself.

Chime continued, “But I can’t think why Tempest is here with her. It’s not like a Sunset Water queen would need an introduction. They must have known we’d be happy to make an alliance with them.”

“We’ll find out,” Moon said. He folded his arms, resisting the urge to pace with Chime. It would be a while before he needed to appear. The warriors would be made comfortable down in the greeting hall, and the queens would be taken up to the queens’ hall to make pointed conversation with Jade, then Pearl would appear, then finally they would send for Moon. It might be different, considering the extra queen and the consort, but…

“Moon?” Floret stepped into the doorway. Her face was anxious, her copper skin flushed. “They want you in the queens’ hall now.”

“Already?” Chime stared. “Are you sure?”

Floret spared him an annoyed glance. “Very sure.” She told Moon, “Jade is…tense.”

“Right.” Moon bit his lip. Obviously the situation with Tempest was about to come to a head. It can’t be that bad. They wouldn’t bring a consort with them to declare war on us. I think. “I’ll go down.”

Chime said, worriedly, “Good luck.”

Moon took the winding stair down to the consorts’ passage, pausing for a quick look into the queens’ hall.

Everyone was sitting near the hearth basin, which had been filled with fresh warming stones, steaming faintly in the damp air. Cushions had been scattered around for seating, with the visiting queens and the consort facing Jade and Pearl, with Bone, Heart, Bell, and Knell, representing the four castes of the Arbora, arrayed in a half circle behind them. The four Arbora must have been hastily summoned; they were wearing silk robes, embroidered or with water-faded patterns. This was something of a shock, since Moon had seldom seen Bone and Knell wear anything but battered leathers and work clothes. The best kettle was on the heating stones in the hearth, with a set of blue-glazed cups waiting nearby.

Everyone was in groundling form, except the four queens, who were still winged. Jade and Pearl wore their best jewelry, armbands, heavy necklaces, rings, belts of silver wire and flat polished stones.

Facing them were the two foreign queens. Tempest was about Jade’s age, with light blue scales webbed with gold. Zephyr of Sunset Water, seated beside her, was older, with a heavier build, and had dark amber scales with a green web. The smaller figure of the consort was seated behind them, wearing a dark robe with the hood pulled up. From this angle all Moon could see were his hands, folded tightly in his lap.

Moon took a deep breath, and stepped out into the hall.

All eyes immediately went to him for one nerve-racking moment, then away. About halfway across the hall it occurred to him that no one was speaking, not even the pointed bordering-on-insult conversation of two courts testing one another. The Arbora radiated tension, all except Bone, who was as still as a rock.

Moon took a seat behind Jade, trying not to look awkward as he settled on the cushion. Pearl flicked her spines in acknowledgement, then started the introductions, naming Jade, Moon, and the four Arbora for the two foreign queens.

Fortunately, Moon wasn’t required to respond or acknowledge anyone during this part. He used the moment to try a casual glance over at the other consort, but the man was looking down, the hood obscuring his expression. All Moon could see was that he was fairly young, with light bronze skin.

Moon leaned down, tilting his head, trying for an angle that would give him a better look under the hood. Jade reached over and pinched his leg, and he sat up straight. It wasn’t Tempest’s consort, or at least not her main consort; Moon had met him briefly at Emerald Twilight, and he had been about Moon’s size. This consort must belong to Zephyr, which had to be a good sign.

Pearl finished her introductions, and Tempest said, with a trace of impatience, “Tempest, sister queen of Emerald Twilight, and Zephyr, sister queen of Sunset Water.”

Zephyr rippled her spines in acknowledgement, though she looked distinctly uncomfortable. Moon expected her to introduce the consort, but she didn’t.

Silence fell for a moment. Then Pearl said, “I think we all know what this is about.”

No one responded. As stiff as if even being here in the same room with them was an insult, Tempest said, “As I said last time, I’ve brought Zephyr, to prove that this is not some trick.” Her gaze on Jade, she said, “Did you tell him?”

Moon stared, a jolt of apprehension shooting through his body, as if he had heard the first reverberating grumble of a thunderstorm. This wouldn’t be about one of the Arbora, and there was only one other “him” here. He looked at Jade.

Jade showed Tempest the tips of her fangs. “No. I told you I wouldn’t.”

It was Bone who said, with quiet force, “The Arbora haven’t been told, so perhaps someone could explain.”

Her voice stiff with embarrassment, Heart said, “I was asked by both our queens not to speak of it.”

Bone reached over and patted her knee, showing that he didn’t blame her. “Well, apparently we’re speaking of it now.”

Pearl waved a lazy claw toward their visitors. “It’s their doing. Let them explain.”

Zephyr turned to Tempest, who was still locked in a staring contest with Jade. Resigned, Zephyr inclined her head to Bone, and said, “Your consort was from a court to the east, near the Gulf of Abascene, that was destroyed.”

“Yes.” Bone’s frown deepened. He glanced at Moon, whose heart had started to pound. “He was too young to remember anything of it.”

Zephyr conceded that with a nod. “When he was brought to Emerald Twilight a season ago, the reigning queen Ice believed that she might have recognized his bloodline.”

Moon made himself take a breath, careful not to let it out as a hiss. Bone, Knell, and Bell looked at him in growing consternation, but Heart had her eyes fixed on the floor.

Zephyr continued, “Ice said nothing of this at the time, because she wasn’t certain. It had been many, many turns since she visited the court in question. So she sent warriors to them with a message, asking if they had had a branch of their court go east during the turns of the Great Leaving, and if they had heard news from that branch in the past forty or so turns. They replied that they had, and that the portion of the court that had split off and gone to the east had been attacked and partially destroyed, and the survivors had returned to the home colony. They asked the reason for her curiosity.”

Tempest, as if unable to hold her peace a moment longer, snapped, “She was trying to do you a favor.”

Jade’s expression was stony. “And it’s turned out so well.”

Zephyr cleared her throat. “Ice sent another message, asking if among the lost there had been a consort fledgling called Moon. The message they sent in return—”

Jade’s voice was as tight as wire. “What do they want?”

Zephyr took a sharp breath. Still speaking to Bone, she said, “As Tempest told your queens on her last visit, Ice thought they would offer your court an alliance. At worst, she thought they would ignore the connection. Their response was…unexpected. Ice has been attempting to negotiate with them, to explain that the consort has been taken and there is no need to—”

Tempest said, flatly, “They want him back.”

Silence settled over the room, as if everyone had stopped breathing. Bone shook his head in grim disbelief. Bell looked as though he didn’t understand and didn’t want to, Knell’s face gave away nothing. Heart just looked miserable. Moon said, “Tell them to piss off.”

Everyone turned to stare at him in blank shock, as if the kettle had spoken. As if they just expected him to sit here silently and take this. He said, more pointedly, “Tell them to piss off.”

Pearl settled her spines. Jade reached for Moon’s wrist and he jerked his arm away in reflex. He was burning with fury. They—Jade—had lied to him, kept this from him.

Tempest asked Jade, “Have you clutched yet?”

Jade’s claws flexed, but she said, evenly enough, “No.”

Tempest sat back, hissing in a mix of regret and irritation.

“What?” Moon demanded. “Why does it matter if we’ve clutched or not?”

Her voice dry, Pearl said, “If you’d clutched, we could tell them to piss off.”

Zephyr stirred uneasily. Glancing from Jade to Pearl, she said, “I know what it looks like. But you’ve seen that Emerald Twilight has more consorts than they know what to do with. The idea never occurred to Ice or anyone else that a court would want one back, once he was claimed by a queen and comfortably settled.”

Moon said, “What do they want? In exchange for me.” He had a moment to realize that his voice sounded oddly normal, considering the turmoil going on in the rest of him.

Nobody answered. Pearl said, “It doesn’t work that way.” The trace of sympathy in her voice was almost the worst blow of the day. “We have no right to have you here.”

Her voice low and tight with tension, Jade told him, “We have to go there. I’ll have to formally ask them for you. Everything will be all right. They have an advantage over us, and they want to press it, that’s all. Don’t worry.”

That’s all. Don’t worry. It was nothing; that was why she and Pearl and Heart had been lying to him about it since Tempest’s last visit. Moon looked at the other consort, huddled silently behind the queens. If he belonged to Zephyr…They should have introduced him. They should have done that before now. He said to Zephyr, “Who is he? Does he belong to you?”

Startled, Zephyr twitched her tail, but didn’t answer. She threw a pointed look at Tempest.

Moon rounded on Jade. “Why is he here?”

Her claws flexed again, and she said, “It’s not what you think.”

Moon snarled and shifted, took one bound to the edge of the well and flung himself off. He dropped all the way down to the greeting hall, snapping his wings out at the last moment to break his fall. He landed on the floor in a crouch, scattered startled warriors and Arbora, and shot through the narrow passage out through the knothole, so fast he scraped his scales on the turns.