He sat down on the cushions by the hearth. There was already a kettle on the warming stones and he found a cake of tea in the bowl and crumbled a few pieces off into the pot.
Jade rose up out of the pool, water dripping from her frills. “Everything all right?” She was in her softer, wingless Arbora form, and it was good to see her relaxed.
“Yes, the groundlings took Delin, and all the warriors are back.”
Jade stepped out of the pool, took a cloth from the pile, and started to dry her scales. She said, “Well, this turned into another interesting day.”
That was all too true. Moon turned back to the hearth. “I can’t believe we might have to fight for this place again.”
Jade sat on the fur blanket across from him. Her expression ironic, she said, “You mean it’s not fair that we have to fight for this place again.”
“Hah.” Fairness was a concept taught to fledglings and babies so they would share their toys and food and not shred each other over trifles. It wasn’t something that applied to real life, at least in Moon’s experience.
Watching him, Jade said, “If I follow the groundlings to the city, will you go with me?”
Moon took the pot and swirled it absently, just to have something to do with his hands. He knew what a compliment it was that Jade trusted him enough, and trusted his abilities, to ask him to do something like this, so outside a normal consort’s experience.
Being physically born a consort didn’t convey any instinctive knowledge of how to be one, and Moon had struggled with it since coming to the court. This past turn, raising the Sky Copper fledglings and his own first clutch, it had seemed like he might have finally gotten past pretending to be a consort and started to edge into actually being one. Nobody had called him a feral solitary to his face in months. Now . . . He didn’t want to leave his clutch while they were still so young. But he didn’t want Jade to go off without him, either. And Chime would have to go too, as the only other one who had seen the inside of the forerunner city. He said, “I don’t know yet. I know what I want to do. I want to stay here.”
Jade’s expression was hard to read. “I sometimes wonder if you’ve been bored. You’re the one who’s traveled all your life.”
“Traveling is overrated,” Moon said. Being hungry, cold, wet, lonely, stalked by predators, and hunted by groundlings hadn’t exactly been a good time, though he had seen a lot of interesting things.
Jade said, “Sometimes I’m a little bored.” She settled her spines and looked away.
Moon wasn’t surprised, but he hadn’t expected her to admit it. Jade had had more than a taste of travel herself, before the court had finally started to settle down. Because it was easier to make a joke, he said, “Queens aren’t supposed to get bored.”
Jade tilted her head. “Consorts aren’t supposed to accidentally drown in bathing pools but I’m told it happens.”
Moon tugged on one of her frills. If she wanted to drown him, he had given her much worse provocation than that. “Everyone’s always telling me what I’m supposed to feel.”
“Yes, and we both agreed how annoying that was.” Jade absently turned her empty teacup upside down. She said, “I can’t make the decision whether to go or not until after I speak to the groundlings.” She smiled a little dryly. “Or that’s when I’ll tell everyone I’ve made the decision.”
At least the court wouldn’t just sit here and do nothing. That was worse than the alternatives. “Do you think Pearl will let you go?”
Jade let her breath out, considering. “I don’t know. She didn’t see that thing in the underwater forerunner city. I’m not sure she understands how bad this could be. But she had the dream too, and since we got here she’s always been willing to do what was needed to protect the court.” She flicked her claws through the fur mat. “I mean, she always was before, at the old colony. Now she’s just willing to include the rest of us in her decisions. And listen to us.” Her mouth twisted. “I don’t want to ruin that.”
If someone had told Moon, back when he had first arrived at Indigo Cloud, that Pearl would become someone whose good opinion he was actually concerned about keeping, he would have thought they were out of their minds. Now he didn’t want to ruin the tentative progress he had made, either. He said, “You can talk to Pearl after we see what the groundlings have to say. There’s no point in worrying about it now.”
Jade made a derisive noise. “Just because there’s no point in worrying has never stopped you from it before.”
That was true. Moon leaned into her side and she wrapped an arm around his waist and tugged him closer. He said, “I thought of something we can do besides worrying.”
Jade nipped his ear. “I thought of that too.”
Afterward, Moon lay on the furs with Jade’s warm weight curled around him, her breathing deepening as she slid into sleep. It had been a long anxious day and the sex should have left him relaxed, but he couldn’t stop thinking, going over it all again until his head was about to split. Jade grumbled but didn’t wake as he eased out from under her. He pulled on his clothes again and left the bower.
He walked out to the edge of the queens’ hall to look down the central well. From what he could hear, the court was showing no signs of settling down the way it normally did at the end of the day. Every word that had been said during the conversation with Delin would have been repeated to everyone and would now be dissected by the Arbora, who would engage in increasingly fantastic speculation as the night wore on.
He turned back, shifted, and leapt up to the consorts’ level.
Moon scented an outdoor draft, cool and damp, and knew Stone was up here. There was no central consorts’ hall, but there were junctions between the bowers with hearth bowls set into the floor, meant as communal seating areas. The bowers in this section were just as finely decorated as the ones in the queens’ level below, but mostly untenanted. Eventually Thorn and Bitter, the consorts of the Sky Copper clutch, would leave the nurseries and move up here, and later Cloud and Rain, the consorts of Moon’s clutch. That would make the place livelier.
He found his way through the empty passages, to where a doorway in the outer trunk looked down on the garden platforms below. The door was open now, and Stone leaned in the opening, looking down.
Stone didn’t acknowledge Moon’s appearance, but Moon knew it hadn’t gone unnoticed. He wasn’t sure why he had sought Stone out, but found himself asking, “Would you go, if Pearl decides to let Jade follow the groundlings?”
Stone stepped away from the door, turning to face him. “I thought Jade already decided to go whether Pearl likes it or not.”
Moon bared his teeth briefly. “No, she didn’t decide that.” Maybe he had come up here to have an argument. “Answer the question.”
Stone’s brow furrowed, just a little, but with dangerous intent. Moon said, “Or we could have a fight. But I’ll still want you to answer the question.”
Stone eyed him, and then turned to the doorway and looked out again. The night insects were singing, in chorus and singly. They would reach a crescendo as the night wore on and then gradually subside. Moon was so used to it now he had to make himself notice it, though to a newcomer to the Reaches it would probably be a terrible din.
Stone said, “You think I’d stay here, and let Jade and a few warriors go to this place?”