by Martha Wells
Moon found a draft and rode it up, hoping he hadn’t broken any of Plum’s ribs. He had tried not to hit her too hard, but he hadn’t wanted to risk overshooting her either.
He came up over one of the big garden platforms, where warriors circled overhead and a group had gathered around the other rescued Arbora. Moon swept in to land lightly on the grass, and tried to set his Arbora on her feet. She shifted to groundling, but didn’t let go of him.
Chime reached them first, partially extending his wings for a long leap across the platform, over the heads of the Arbora who bounded toward them. “Is she all right?” he demanded, patting Plum’s hair anxiously. “Are you all right?”
Plum took a deep breath and managed to unclamp her hands. “Yes, I am.” She looked up at Moon. Her eyes were wide and her skin had flushed a dark copper; she looked as if she was about to be sick. “Thank you, Moon. I’ve never—I’ve never fallen before—I mean, Sage dropped me once accidentally when we were little, but it was only a few paces—”
The other Arbora reached them, Merit, Bark, and Rill first. With exclamations of relief and sympathy, they coaxed Plum away from Moon and guided her over to sit down.
“It’s lucky you were there,” Chime muttered, watching them. “I don’t think any of the warriors were close enough or fast enough to catch her.”
“You’re a warrior,” Moon pointed out. It still occasionally slipped Chime’s mind.
Chime gave him an exasperated look. He hated being reminded. “I know, but I couldn’t have caught her.”
He might be right; consorts could fly almost twice as fast as warriors, and Plum had been trapped in the falling debris for a good while. But Moon had been close enough to help and there was no point in wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t been here. “You didn’t ‘hear’ anything before the platform cracked?”
“No.” Chime grimaced. “Still useless.”
Since they had returned from the leviathan city months ago, Chime had been having erratic flashes of insight, but it was always about things that they didn’t really need to know. He could sometimes tell when a cloud-walker went by overhead, so far above the forest it was invisible even to Raksuran eyes. If Heart put him in a light trance, he could hear deep rumbling voices, which the mentors thought might come from the mountain-trees. But he hadn’t been able to augur or predict anything, or tell where dangerous predators were. It was disappointing, but then Chime’s strange new senses had been so much help on the leviathan, it seemed like ingratitude to expect more.
Toward the trunk, Moon caught a glimpse of Jade, spiraling down with Balm to examine the place where the platform had given way. Knell, the leader of the Arbora soldiers’ caste, was standing on the edge of this platform, waiting for them. Hands planted on his hips, his whole body was expressive of disgruntled disgust. He’s right, we didn’t need this, Moon thought.
Then Pearl landed nearby, scattering Arbora. She looked around at them and said, “No one’s hurt?”
“Everyone’s all right,” Rill told her. “The warriors got them in time. Moon saved Plum.”
Then Pearl focused on Moon. “Where are the fledglings?”
Alarmed, Moon looked up at the branch. But Dash had them, bringing them down the wide path atop the branch toward the climbing ridge along the trunk. Bitter, in his winged form, clung securely to Dash’s neck, and Dash was leading Frost with a firm grip on her wrist. She was craning her neck to watch the activity on the platform, and hanging on to Thorn, who trailed docilely along behind. There was nothing wrong with Dash’s instincts as a teacher, either; Frost was definitely the one most likely to make trouble.
Pearl followed his gaze and her spines twitched, in relief or possibly thwarted irritation. She couldn’t blame Moon for leaving the fledglings with an elderly and respected teacher. Pearl hissed, and looked for the next target. “Knell!”
Knell bounded over to land nearby. His spines carefully flat, he said, “They think it was the water. The channel for the fountain was plugged, but the water inside it was seeping out and wearing away at the platform’s roots.”
“Of course it was.” Pearl turned to look across this platform, then up at the ones nested in the higher branches and dripping roots and vines. “We’ll need to check every platform with a channel, plugged or not.”
Knell was tough, but Moon saw him brace himself as he told her, “Jade and Balm are starting that now.”
But one of the things Moon had learned about Pearl was that she never reacted the way anyone thought she would. Instead of an angry outburst at Jade’s presumption, she confined herself to an ironic snort. She said, “I’ll send warriors to help them.” She glanced around at the Arbora who had gathered to listen. “I want you to keep off the platforms with blocked pools, but are you willing to stay out here and finish the planting?”
Knell looked at the others, taking in their mood. Some looked uneasy or reluctant, but most nodded. Someone in the back said, “I guess now we know what the upheaval in the augury is.”
There were a few murmurs of rueful agreement. Another Arbora said, “We need to get the ripe berries picked on the lower platforms. I don’t think we can afford to waste the day.”
Pearl nodded in acknowledgement. “Work as quickly as you can.” She crouched and sprang into the air, snapped her wings out, powerful beats taking her up toward the knothole.
Chime let his breath out in relief. “That went better than I expected.”
Moon had to agree. “Are you going to help Jade and Balm?” Chime had a better eye for detail than the average warrior.
Chime nodded absently. “I’d better. I think I’ll start with this platform.”
Knell gave Chime an annoyed glare. “This one doesn’t have a blocked drain.”
“Better safe than sorry.” Chime leapt into the air.
Knell turned to Moon, and said, a little stiffly, “Will you stay out here?” Knell was another of Chime’s clutchmates, but when Moon had first arrived, he had been one of the Arbora who had objected to him joining the court. Even after everything that had happened since, it still seemed to color all their dealings. “It would make the others less uneasy.”
Some of the other Arbora still within earshot were watching Moon anxiously. “It’d sure make me less uneasy,” Spice seconded fervently.
Moon thought they were overestimating his abilities, especially if one of the large platforms collapsed. But it was good to be asked. “I’ll stay,” he said.
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 po
wers. 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 c
oming 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.”