by Martha Wells
Indigo took a deep breath. “I didn’t force him to leave. He wanted to go with me. His queen, Argent, didn’t care about him.”
Cerise had rather been hoping Indigo had somehow witnessed Argent actually abuse her consort. That would have made the whole situation much more clear. “Is that what he told you?”
“He didn’t have to tell me, I saw it. In front of us, when we had dinner with her and Beryl and the other sister and daughter queens.” Indigo’s claws curled in indignation. “She ignored him, and when she didn’t ignore him, she was treating him as if… she was contemptuous of him. If any of us treated a consort like that at all, let alone in front of members of a foreign court, you’d throw us out of the tree.” Lapis was nodding in agreement. Indigo added, “They haven’t clutched yet, either, and he said she doesn’t want him anymore.”
Cerise exchanged a lifted brow with Fluff. Fluff asked, “He’s not from an Emerald Twilight bloodline?”
Indigo shook her head. “No, he’s from Sunset Water. His birthqueen was a sister queen there. She died when he was still a fledgling, and he was offered to Argent a turn ago.”
Cerise crooked a claw at the nearest Arbora, and when she hurried over, told her, “Go tell Tranquil we’re going to be sending a message to Sunset Water. She should find some warriors willing to take it and tell them they’ll leave at dawn.” A consort belonged to his queen, but until she clutched his birthcourt still retained some rights over him. If Umber Shadow was going to get out of this mess without a fight, they would need Sunset Water’s support. If Sunset Water was willing to give it. For all Cerise knew, the consort Cloud might be a perennial troublemaker whose court had sent him away with a collective glad heart.
As the Arbora hurried away to find Tranquil, Fluff said, “But he accepted her.” He didn’t make it a question this time.
Indigo shrugged that away as immaterial. “He made a mistake. He was young. He’s two turns younger than I am.”
“Yes, that makes him nearly an infant,” Cerise said, her voice dry. Fluff gave her a look of reproof, and Cerise flicked a spine in apology.
Indigo bared her fangs briefly and then settled into a stubborn grimace. “He said she was good to him at first but then her sister got a consort from Starlight Sun with a much more prestigious bloodline and she just … she didn’t want him any more.” Her spines drooped. “He said she was young too, and there’s a lot of competition between queens at Emerald Twilight. It’s not like here, not like between you and Ruby and me. They’re all pushing to put themselves forward, to get the notice of the reigning queen. He said he thought Argent made her choice too quickly, because she was so anxious to get a consort before her sisters and to look as if she was more fit to have a higher position in the court than them. Then he turned out to be the wrong choice, and she blamed him. He says they’ve only slept together a few times. She just sleeps with her warriors now.”
Cerise frowned. Those words carved a forlorn image. A very young consort in an important and wealthy foreign court, believing he had been swept off his feet by a dashing young queen, only to find out she wanted him for his bloodline and was jealous that her sister had gotten the better of her.
Clearly more frustrated than moved by the sad story, Fluff said, “Why didn’t he send a message to Sunset Water and tell them he was unhappy? If his birthqueen is dead, does he have clutchmates living?” Fluff had presided at Indigo’s birth, and tended to take a sire’s interest whenever she did anything particularly smart or particularly stupid. “If he does, they would want to know he was unhappy; if he doesn’t, the court may be depending on him to help continue that bloodline. They may be expecting to try to re-breed his line back into their court.”
Indigo said, earnestly, “He didn’t want to upset them.”
Cerise snorted. She reached out a claw to pull the baking pan off the heat before the bread burned. “As if this isn’t going to upset them.” If this had happened to Light, a consort from Cerise’s first clutch who had been taken by a queen of Vale Horizon and had two clutches of his own now, Cerise would have been screaming for war herself.
“So you feel no inclination towards him,” Fluff said, watching Indigo sharply. “You helped him out of kindness only.”
Indigo looked away, then turned back to glare at Fluff as if she suspected him of sarcasm. Cerise was fairly certain Fluff was being sarcastic. “We were … attracted to each other at once. If his queen will give him up, I’ll take him for my consort. If she won’t …” Indigo’s voice hardened. “I’ll fight her, and then take him for my consort.”
Cerise wasn’t aware she had lifted her arm until Fluff grabbed her wrist. Cerise took a deep breath, sat back, and settled her spines. “And you don’t care if your court goes to war because of it.”
Indigo hadn’t flinched. Her daughter was many things, Cerise knew, and brave to the point of folly was certainly one of them. If Cerise could ever get her past the point of folly, she would make an excellent reigning queen. Indigo said, “There won’t be a war. She won’t drive her court to war over a consort who doesn’t want her. She’ll fight me, but that’s all.”
Cerise hissed. “You wouldn’t drive a court to war over a consort that didn’t want you. I wouldn’t. Ruby wouldn’t. Fluff and the other leaders of the Arbora castes would see all three of us dead before they’d countenance it. But the reigning queen of Emerald Twilight thinks Argent means to start a war, that she won’t be satisfied with a fight, especially if you win. That’s the only reason she’s held her back from coming here, to give me a chance to think of a way out of it.” Things had changed in the Reaches in the past generation. Large courts like Emerald Twilight were the norm, not the exceptions, and they were edging out smaller courts for territory. Alliances were vital and competition for trade was more tense than ever. “You don’t know how serious this is.”
Lapis hunched her shoulders, looking away in dismay. Indigo bristled her spines and said, “She can’t start a war if her reigning queen won’t have it.”
That was part naiveté, part overconfidence. Cerise said, “Oh, there are ways.” And she thought she had had enough of this conversation, at least for now. She pushed to her feet and Indigo and Lapis both twitched a little, startled and defensive. Cerise sighed. “Get some rest. You’ll need it. I’m going to see if Paragon is still speaking to any of us.”
Lapis winced and Indigo’s expression was momentarily stricken. Cerise didn’t wait for either to attempt a reply.
She didn’t want to take the direct route through the greeting hall—the entire court would guess she was going up to speak to Paragon about their guest and they had all had enough excitement already. She took a passage through the teachers’ level and to a back stair that wound all the way up through the trunk to the royal levels.
The consorts’ level was above the queens’ bowers, and there was no central hall, but there was a number of small sitting areas suitable for general gatherings. She found Paragon in the one nearest his bower.
There was a kettle on the heating stones of the bowl hearth and Paragon sat on one of the furs, nursing a cup of tea. He was in his groundling form and looked pensive. He was several turns older than she was, because Cerise had found a more mature consort far more attractive than the flighty young ones she had been offered. He had dark hair and eyes, and dark copper skin, and she still thought he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. His bloodline came from Rain Mist, which was known for a tendency to produce line-grandfathers.
Line-grandfathers were consorts who lived long past the normal span, outliving their queens and often all their direct descendants. It was not something Cerise was sure she wanted for Paragon, as it could become a lonely existence, but it had apparently skipped the previous generation, so hopefully it would skip Paragon as well.
The only other consorts with him were Cinnabar, her sister-queen Ruby’s consort, and a young fledgling who was hiding under a blanket and giggling as Cinnabar tickled him. The temper of
the group was much less fraught than Cerise had anticipated.
She took a seat near the hearth. Paragon eyed her grimly. Cinnabar tickled the giggling blanket one more time, then said, “Would you like some tea, Cerise?”
“No, thank you. How is Ruby?” Cinnabar had been closeted with Ruby for the past ten days, waiting for the clutch to arrive, and Cerise supposed he had taken the opportunity for a break to help Paragon deal with the crisis.
“Angry. Impatient.” Cinnabar smiled.
Cerise flicked a spine in sympathy. “So no different than usual.” She badly wished for Ruby’s support right now but her sister queen couldn’t even shift in her current condition. Cerise lifted a corner of the blanket. “Shouldn’t this one be down in the nurseries?” Normally she didn’t care to be too strict with the fledglings, but tonight she wanted them all secure in the teachers’ level, being watched over by paranoid hyper-alert Arbora.
The fledgling sat up and pulled the blanket off his head. It was Stone, from Cerise’s last clutch. She had been trying for more queens, but had ended up with one consort and four warriors again. And Stone had been born with a bad eye, a cloudy streak cutting across the pupil. It was a pity about the eye, as queens usually preferred physically perfect consorts, but Cerise had decided she preferred to keep his bloodline in Umber Shadow anyway. The defect was not likely to be passed down and she thought his growing bone structure and wing length indicated that the rest of him was unusually strong and healthy. She would just have to find a queen discerning enough for him. Watching her seriously, Stone said, “Are you going to talk about the consort that Indigo stole?”
“They are, and you’re going down to the nurseries,” Cinnabar said, and stood, scooped Stone up and tossed him over his shoulder.
Paragon waited until Cinnabar had carried away the protesting fledgling, then said, “Well?”
Cerise told him about her encounter with the Emerald Twilight queens, Argent’s anticipated arrival, and the gist of the conversation with Indigo and Lapis. There was no need to speak of their mutual relief that their favorite child had not carried away a young and vulnerable consort against his will. When she finished, Paragon said, “And what does Fluff think?”
“Fluff is skeptical of Indigo’s motives and Cloud’s veracity.” Cerise tasted the air but couldn’t scent the new consort among all the Raksura who were on or had been on this level in the past hour. “Where is he?”
Paragon grimaced and set his cup down. “In the bower next to mine with Bright and Sunrise and their warriors, being told how brave and put-upon he must be.”
“Ah. I suppose we could trade Bright and Sunrise to Emerald Twilight for him.” The two were among their more foolish consort offspring. Cerise supposed they would show promise eventually. She hoped.
Paragon snorted. “If only.”
“And what do you think?”
“I don’t know yet.” She waited, and after a moment he admitted, “Let’s say I share Fluff’s skepticism. I don’t think Cloud is as helpless as he pretends. And Indigo has already admitted that she isn’t disinterested in him. She’s intelligent enough that she could have found other ways of helping him.”
“Like taking a letter to Sunset Water on his behalf. Yes, I wondered about that too.” Cerise picked up the kettle and poured more water into the pot. The tea was Paragon’s favorite, the dark earthy scent of it warming the air between them. The words I think we should have another clutch were in her head suddenly. She was getting older, and the court needed more queens. There had been a strange dearth of queen births in the past two generations, which the mentors thought might be related to the growing population of the Reaches. She put it aside; she had other things to worry about. “You think Cloud wants her?”
Paragon frowned into the distance, giving the question serious consideration. Cerise, about to pick up one of the delicate green cups, hesitated. She had expected him to say yes. He said, “I don’t know.”
That could be a problem. Cerise groaned in frustration. “Children. Why can’t they make up their minds?”
Paragon gave her a dark look. “Their actions are decided enough as it is; if they knew what they were doing, it would be worse.”
He was probably right.
Cerise spent the evening in the teachers’ hall, for the convenience of the Arbora and warriors on guard, so they didn’t have to carry messages all the way up to the royal levels. And she was impatient for news, for Argent the Emerald Twilight queen to arrive, to find out just how deep a hole Indigo had dug for them.
Indigo’s side of the story had already spread through the court, with the news that the consort had been brought here in an ill-advised rescue attempt and not stolen. This had greatly relieved the Arbora, who gathered in groups around the teachers’ hall to talk the problem to death, which was what Arbora generally did. The warriors gathered to gossip and wonder what it would be like to go to war with another court; it wasn’t something that had happened very often in the collective memory of the Reaches. Cerise sat alone, nursing a cup of tea.
After a few hours Cerise ordered another set of warriors to take the place of those outside on patrol, knowing Streak would be doing the same with the soldiers. A short time later Tranquil dropped down the stairwell from the greeting hall. She shook a last few raindrops out of her spines and then shifted to groundling. She looked tired. As she approached, Cerise motioned to one of the male warriors to bring her some tea. Tranquil sat down on a cushion with a weary groan, and Cerise said, “I take it the rain hasn’t let up.”
“No, it’s steady. Probably last all night.” Tranquil smiled a little.
Cerise flicked a spine in amusement. “Well, it was their decision.”
A couple of teachers took the tea pot away from the male warrior and brought it over themselves, with a plate of warmed fruit. Tranquil drank the tea but picked at the fruit with the air of someone who was too worried to eat. “What do you think will happen?”
People had been asking Cerise variations on that question all evening. The only person close by was Fluff, who had his eyes closed and appeared to be sleeping while sitting up. She lowered her voice and for the first time answered honestly. “If this queen, Argent, is so rash and angry that she fights Indigo, Indigo may have to kill her to survive.”
Tranquil grimaced.
Cerise continued, “Beryl and Silver will attack Indigo in a rage. I kill them, forcing Emerald Twilight to send more queens and warriors to retaliate and the two courts go to war. Or they injure me badly and because Ruby is incapacitated by her pregnancy and can’t intervene, and Indigo is injured, the warriors and Arbora panic and attack Beryl and Silver and kill them.”
Tranquil lifted a brow, skeptical. “The Arbora? They have more sense than that.”
Fluff, without opening his eyes, said, “Arbora are perfectly capable of swarming when in a collective rage. Not unlike flightless dakti, but considerably stronger and smarter. This is why we spend a great deal of effort on not getting into a collective rage.”
Tranquil twitched uncomfortably. Cerise said, “We rely on the Arbora as a calming influence, but we forget that we’re related to the Fell, and that our blood now runs through the Arbora’s veins.” That the Raksura were in some way related to the Fell had been debated by the mentors for a long time; not all courts believed it, and some refused to hear it mentioned. Cerise had never thought there was any point in denying it.
Tranquil said, reluctantly, “What if Argent kills Indigo?”
Cerise moved her spines in resignation. “Then I kill Argent in a rage, and it all starts anyway.” She shook her head. “I can’t let that fight take place. If I trusted them both to fight until first injury, it would be different.” She trusted Indigo to fight until first injury. It would be a relief if Argent arrived and proved to be sensible about the whole thing, but Cerise wasn’t holding her breath in anticipation. “It’s too great a chance to take.”
Tranquil didn’t ask anything more, and after a t
ime she lay down beside Cerise to sleep.
About an hour later, one of Streak’s soldiers dropped down the stairwell from the greeting hall to say, “Another party from Emerald Twilight just arrived.”
Cerise flew out to the platform with Tranquil and four more warriors. This time she left Fluff in the knothole entrance. If Argent wanted to provoke a war, attacking an Arbora was a sure way to force Cerise’s hand. Cerise had no intention of letting anyone force her to any course of action. Just keep telling yourself that, she thought sourly. Keeping her own temper was going to be as difficult as forcing everyone else to keep theirs.
Rain fell steadily and the clearing under the tree’s canopy was dark except for the lights around the little camp. The Emerald Twilight warriors had set up a couple of tents and spread around some of the stones spelled for light that Tranquil had delivered to them. The camp still looked small and makeshift.
As Cerise drew near she saw the new party was composed of ten warriors led by a young queen. That had to be Argent. Cerise felt a little relief. At least the reigning queen hadn’t come.
As Cerise landed and furled her wings, the new queen rounded on her, snarling, “Where is Indigo? Tell her to come out and face me!”
It was good to know that Cerise had been right about Argent’s temper and intent. She strode forward, stopped a pace from Argent while Beryl and Silver tensed and lifted their spines. Cerise said, evenly, “Indigo will come out when I tell her to, and not a moment before.”
Argent tilted her head. Her spines were already flared. “So she’s afraid of me.”
“No.” Cerise held Argent’s gaze. “She’s afraid of me.”
Argent had no immediate reply to that. She fell back a pace by instinct, realized what she had done, and stepped forward again, rattling her spines aggressively. “She stole my consort.”
Cerise kept her voice even. “He asked her to take him away from you.”