by Martha Wells
He didn’t distrust the other warriors, but he needed to concentrate on finding the missing, not wonder if the warriors were going to listen to a consort in a crisis, or if they were going to do something stupid because there wasn’t a queen to keep them in line. He didn’t know that River would listen to him all the time either, but at least River wasn’t stupid.
He growled, “All right. If Stone agrees.” That last was pointless, since Stone’s indifference to River’s presence or absence was even more complete than his indifference to Ember, but it gave Moon the option to change his mind.
River hissed, partly in relief and partly in some emotion that clearly wasn’t gratitude. But he said, “Thank you.”
Moon snarled at him and went on up the stairs.
As the sun set, the warriors brought the word that no sign or scent of any attack had been found in the colony tree’s immediate vicinity. Moon wasn’t surprised.
Moon was in the queens’ hall to hear the news, with Stone, Pearl, Ember, a dozen warriors, and the Arbora caste leaders Bone, Heart, Bell, and Knell.
Floret finished describing the search and sat down, watching Pearl uneasily. Pearl was on her feet, facing the central well. She said finally, “So there is no attack.”
One of the warriors in the back of the group stirred. Floret ignored him, but Pearl tilted her head in his direction. “Yes?”
Band, a young male warrior with more mouth than brains, said, “Just because they aren’t out there today doesn’t mean they aren’t on their way. Maybe they meant to arrive after the foreign queen left.”
Moon saw Floret give Vine a look of long-suffering annoyance, and Vine returned it. Apparently they had been hearing this from the younger warriors all during the search.
Knell twitched around to face Band and said, “As soon as the Ocean Winter party arrived, we’d know something was wrong. We would be on the watch for an attack. It doesn’t make sense for them to plan to arrive later.” He glanced at Pearl. “It doesn’t make sense for them to send a queen in here at all, if they meant to attack.”
“It doesn’t make sense for them to plan an attack at all,” Pearl snapped. She paced a few steps, lashing her tail. “And I don’t believe they have.”
Moon didn’t believe it anymore, either. It had just been a faint hope to cling to, to make the terrible day bearable. He said, “I want to leave tomorrow, to go look for them.”
Pearl turned to face him. One brow lifted in ironic comment, she said, “I know. You and Stone have already been recruiting warriors and Arbora to go with you.”
Stone growled under his breath and started to speak, but Moon said first, “If we’d waited, you would have been angry about that, too.” In Pearl’s current mood, direct honesty seemed the best defense. “You know there isn’t time to waste.”
Pearl’s spines twitched at his tone, and for an instant he was afraid she was going to say that there could very well be plenty of time, since the chance that Jade’s group had survived was almost negligible. But she said, “I can’t leave a consort in charge of a court.”
Moon stared, taken aback. Even Stone looked a little startled. The warriors on the other side of the hearth looked horrified.
Ember said anxiously, “We’re talking about Moon, right? Moon in charge of the court? Because I don’t think I should be left in charge of the court.”
It had occurred to Moon that Pearl might want to stop him from going, but it had never crossed his mind that she might want to go in his place. He hesitated, realizing it did make sense. Pearl was faster, stronger than Moon, her senses more acute. She and Stone working together would be a powerful force. But Moon would be stuck here, with no idea what was happening, unable to affect the search. Maybe that’s for the best, he thought, though it hurt. Maybe he was too emotional, and it would cause him to make bad decisions. Pearl’s record for making bad decisions wasn’t so great either, but in this maybe her perceptions would be clearer than his. He swallowed down the protest and the lump in his throat, and managed, “You could. I’ll do it. I’ll stay, if you want to go.”
The scaled furrows in Pearl’s brow deepened as she considered it.
Then Heart said reluctantly, “Pearl, you can’t. We have to let Garnet go eventually, and the word will spread everywhere.”
Knell added cautiously, “And if something happened, and you didn’t come back …”
Bone sounded reluctant, but seconded Knell. “With you gone, Moon would have to fight half the idiot warriors in the court. Not that that would be a bad thing, necessarily, but wearying for the rest of us.” He added, “We can’t chance leaving the court without a reigning queen. We just can’t do it.”
“‘We?’” Pearl said with a hint of a growl, but Moon could see the moment had passed. “Very well.” She regarded Moon again. “You leave tomorrow morning.”
Stone pushed to his feet. “Then we have a lot to do tonight.”
Pearl called Moon and Stone to the queens’ hall in the late evening. Moon had expected to be summoned for an argument about something at some point. But when they arrived, Pearl was facing Garnet and one of her warriors.
Uneasy, Moon took a seat beside Stone. Floret, Vine, and a few other warriors were seated behind Pearl. Behind Pearl’s back, Floret leaned out and tried to give Moon some sort of warning signal involving lifted eyebrows, but he had no idea what she meant by it.
With something that might be malice or irony, Pearl said, “Garnet has a request.”
Stone sighed. Moon eyed Garnet warily. She said, “I know you are planning to retrace your queen’s route to Ocean Winter. I want my warrior Venture to accompany you.” She gestured to the female warrior seated at her side, who was big, broad-shouldered even for an Aeriat, with copper skin and light-colored curling hair. She gazed back at Moon, her expression cool and confident.
This was an easy decision. Moon said, “No.”
Garnet was taken aback. She turned to Pearl, who tilted her head in a way that clearly said, he’s not my consort.
Talking to Pearl, Garnet said, “Venture is the clutchmate of our reigning queen. She will be helpful to you in your search, and if it takes you into Ocean Winter territory, she can explain your presence to our patrols.”
Moon said, “And betray us at the first opportunity, if you’re lying.”
Venture’s expression tightened, and Garnet’s face worked as she struggled not to react. Garnet said finally, “The consort speaks freely.”
Pearl’s spines flicked once in amusement at Garnet’s discomfiture. “It’s his bloodline. His birthqueen is Malachite of Opal Night.” She added dryly, “She also speaks freely.”
Pearl had a love-hate relationship with Moon’s recently discovered lineage. She hated that an older and more powerful queen than herself had a proprietary interest in Moon, but she loved to use Opal Night’s patronage as a diplomatic club on other courts. Every court that might consider crossing Indigo Cloud was well aware that they weren’t just dealing with a small struggling court recently re-established in its ancestral territory, they were dealing with Malachite, the Terror of the Western Reaches.
Garnet bared her teeth briefly at the implied threat. She said, “Allowing my warrior to accompany him will be a sign of good faith on your part.”
“I don’t have good faith,” Moon said, “so why should I show signs of it?”
Garnet said pointedly, “Good faith on your reigning queen’s part.”
Pearl abruptly tired of the game. In a tone that meant that she was not interested in further arguments, she said to Moon, “Take her with you.”
Moon set his jaw, but he had had a moment to consider that there had to be a reason Garnet wanted Venture to go with them. If Venture tried to sabotage the search party, then Moon would have proof that this was a plot by Ocean Winter. He said, “Yes, Pearl.”
Pearl regarded him with narrowed eyes.
Moon and Stone spent the rest of the evening in the sitting area in the consorts’ bowers, send
ing for various warriors and Arbora to talk to them about the journey, and waiting for word from the mentors.
The debate about how many warriors to take had been a serious one. Moon asked for twenty, though he didn’t think Pearl would agree; that number came too close to leaving the court short of warriors, which they couldn’t afford to do whether Ocean Winter was really their enemy or not. Pearl refused, but not for that reason. “If we send so many into Ocean Winter’s territory, they can take it as an act of war,” she said. “Then they would have a legitimate reason to attack us, if we can’t prove they had something to do with Jade’s disappearance. If they did, it may have been their plan all along.” She added, “There’s a reason we usually only send five warriors on trips to strange courts.”
Moon conceded this point reluctantly, and they ended up with nine warriors: Floret, Sage, Serene, River, Drift, Sand, Aura, Briar, and Band. Sand was in Jade’s faction, Aura and Briar were young female warriors who hadn’t really picked a faction yet, and Drift was Drift. Moon had wanted Sage, who was also in Pearl’s faction but was an easygoing older male who had never given Moon any problems. Pearl insisted on keeping Vine, since Moon was taking Floret, and Vine was good at keeping the younger males in line. Band was one of the younger males who needed to be kept in line.
Many of the hunters had volunteered to go, but Bone had chosen Bramble, Strike, Plum, Salt, and Braid. “They’re the best trackers,” Bone told Moon and Stone. “Sharp eyes and sharp noses.” He squeezed Moon’s shoulder, but didn’t add any reassurances. They both knew too much about the dangers of the Reaches.
And then there was Venture. Moon wasn’t sure what her purpose was, but he was fairly sure it wouldn’t be to help them find Jade and the others.
When it was late and the colony was mostly quiet, Stone said, “Go get some sleep.”
Moon shook his head. “I don’t think I can.”
“Do it anyway.” Stone gave him a shove that was half annoyance and half affection. “We fly tomorrow.”
So involved in planning the trip, Moon had almost forgotten that part. He left, grudgingly.
He didn’t want to go to his own bower and he didn’t want to go to Jade’s or Chime’s. Those rooms, empty except for the lingering traces of their scent, would just emphasize their absence.
And he didn’t want to think about a future where their scent was all that he had left of them.
So Moon went down to the teachers’ hall and then to the nurseries.
The nurseries were as familiar a place as Moon’s own bower; more so, because he spent more time here. He stepped through the door with its carvings of fledglings and baby Arbora at play into the big low-ceilinged chamber. The spelled shell-lights lit a maze of smaller rooms opening off the main area, which held several shallow fountain pools for washing and playing. Everyone was asleep, the younger fledglings and babies curled up in nests of furs and blankets on the floor, along with the Arbora who watched over them.
Blossom, sleeping near the doorway, woke as Moon stepped inside and started to sit up. He motioned her to go back to sleep, and stepped past her to head for the room at the back of the nurseries.
In a cubby carved out of the wall, the Sky Copper clutch slept in a nest of blankets. Rill slept only a few paces away. She cracked an eyelid as Moon sat down, then subsided as she saw it was him.
After a few moments, someone stirred and then Frost crept out. She sat next to Moon and curled against his side. “I wish I could go with you.”
It wasn’t a surprise that the news had spread among the fledglings. “I wish you could come, too.” Within the past couple of months, talking to Frost had become less like negotiating with a small angry hostage and more like talking with Spring, the female warrior fledgling from the last clutch of Amber, the sister queen who had died before Moon came to Indigo Cloud. Frost was turning from child into adolescent, but also settling into the court. Moon said, “You’re a little too small yet.”
“I know.” Frost sighed. “I can’t wait until I’m big enough to go off to rescue everyone. Then you won’t have to do it.”
That was a dire thought. “Hopefully when you’re big enough, everyone won’t need rescuing so often.”
Frost gave him a pitying look, as if Moon’s unreal expectations made her sad but she wasn’t going to try to disillusion him. She tugged on his arm. “Come sleep with us.”
Moon followed her into the cubby where Bitter and Thorn were curled up. Moon took a blanket from the stack against the wall and lay down next to them.
Sleep was still elusive, but at least here he could relax, surrounded by the scents and soft sounds of the court’s future.
Moon woke before dawn with Bitter tucked up against his chest. He disentangled himself and eased away without waking the fledglings.
As he went up the back stairwell, he could hear the court stirring, earlier than normal. He ran into Heart in the interior passage to the queens’ hall. She looked hollow-eyed and tired; she and the other mentors must have been scrying all night. Before he could ask, Heart reported, “No one sees death. We can’t see what happened, but we don’t see death.”
“Do you see us finding them?” Moon asked.
Heart reached up to put her hands on his shoulders and said, “Not yet. But you know how this works. Sometimes we have to be … closer to the event, to get anything useful.”
“I don’t know how this works.” Moon stepped back, putting a tight lid on his seething frustration. “Did you decide who’s coming with us?” They were taking a mentor, both for scrying along the way and in the hope that Jade and the others were stuck somewhere with too many of the group wounded to transport.
“Merit will go.” Heart pushed her hair back, betraying some frustration. “I wish I could, but—”
“I know.” Heart was chief mentor and they needed her here. This wasn’t like the journey to find the seed, where Flower had been their best hope. And Merit was the second most powerful mentor in the court. “It’s a good choice.”
Heart pressed her lips together for a moment, then met Moon’s gaze. “Take care of him. I know he can help you find … whatever happened.”
Moon just nodded. Mostly what he wished at this moment was that Flower was still alive. He didn’t want a mentor he needed to take care of, he wanted a mentor who could take care of him and anyone else who needed it.
Not long after dawn, they gathered in the greeting hall, and Moon checked over the supplies everyone had collected. Even though they were bringing a mentor, Moon made sure everyone had flints to start a fire with, plus blankets, dried meat for emergencies, waterskins, and cutting tools. Even Band didn’t need to have it explained to him that if he was separated from the others, it would be stupid to die because he didn’t have anything to carry water with or no ability to start a fire.
Merit had prepared a pack with an extensive collection of dried herbs and powders, most for making medical simples and a few to help with augury, and the other things he needed for healing. “Where’s your blanket?” Moon asked him. “And some spare clothes?”
Merit blinked, looked around as if he had misplaced them, then said, “Oh, I forgot.”
As Merit hurried away to pack another bag, Moon rubbed at the incipient headache in his temple. Merit wasn’t a fool by any stretch of the imagination, he was just intensely focused on his duty as a mentor at the moment. Moon would probably have to put another Arbora in charge of him to make sure he ate and slept regularly.
He looked up to see Venture watching him with bemusement, as if it was a very good joke to see a consort pretending to have any idea what a long journey might be like. He ignored her, since from Garnet’s comments he was certain Ocean Winter knew of his origins, so Venture was just trying to deliberately provoke him.
Most of the court had gathered to see them off, but Moon was surprised to see Pearl drop down from the queens’ hall. She usually didn’t bother to watch anyone leave the court, no matter how important the trip.
Moon felt his heart thump. Everyone had been carefully preparing him and themselves for the worst. He said, “I will,” putting all the conviction he could into it, even knowing it might be a lie.
Pearl stepped back, and Moon led the others away and into flight.
By agreement, Stone flew ahead to scout the most likely route Jade would have taken to Ocean Winter and look for signs of camps. Stone could fly much farther and much faster than Moon or the warriors, so he could search much more territory in a day than they could, crossing the path they thought Jade would have taken. His senses were far more acute, as well. They knew Jade had been in no hurry, and would probably have camped each night, and there would be evidence of that.
Flying through the suspended forest was normally a fascinating experience, with mountain-trees grown in all sorts of bizarre shapes, their platforms of entwined branches supporting small forests of their own, with waterfalls, pools, herds of different grasseaters, colonies of treelings, and all sorts of animals and strange fungi and plant growths. Now Moon was just impatient to keep going, to get out of Indigo Cloud’s territory as quickly as possible.
Warriors should be able to fly most of the day without stopping, but because six of them were carrying Arbora, Moon called a halt three times, to let the Arbora stretch and rest briefly and so the warriors could trade carrying duties. Moon knew from personal experience that being carried in flight was uncomfortable, so at the first stop it was a relief to find that the Arbora were taking it well. Bramble and Braid had actually fallen asleep, and the others, having never been so far from the colony, were too interested in the scenery to mind the discomfort.
Stone still hadn’t returned by the time the light started to fail, so Moon found a platform they could camp on for the night. It was a relatively small one in a large and gnarled mountain-tree, with a pool collecting runoff from the trunk. Several large spreading fern trees had taken root on it, and the grass had been recently flattened by a herd of grasseaters who must have reached it by one of the masses of entangled vines and roots that formed bridges from the other platforms.