It was a good way to make Moon feel bad for asking, which he was sure was intentional. He said, “I wouldn’t if this was last turn. But you’ve been gone so much.”
Stone turned with a grimace of exasperation. “I was bored.”
“Bored?” Moon stared. As a reason for Stone leaving the court, it seemed deeply inadequate. “I’m bored, Jade’s bored, and we stuck it out and stayed here doing what we’re supposed to do.”
“I’m not supposed to be doing anything,” Stone retorted. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m old.”
“That’s never stopped you before,” Moon countered. “We’d all be dead without you.”
Stone snapped, “And now you don’t need me.”
Moon pounced on that. “Hah, that’s it! You’re not bored, you’re just—Mad because you think we don’t appreciate you!”
Stone snarled, “That’s the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said, and we both know how tough the competition is.”
Moon snarled back. It might have escalated even further, but from the passage, Ember said, “What are you arguing about?”
Moon glanced back. Pearl’s young consort stood in the doorway, wrapped in a blanket, disheveled and beautiful and blinking like he had just woken up. Like Moon, Ember didn’t often spend the night in his own bower, but he might just have been napping. Moon snapped, “We’re arguing about—” He wasn’t sure anymore. The point of the argument had evolved dramatically.
Ember scratched a hand through his hair. “You’re arguing about whether Stone is bored or not?”
When you put it that way, it did sound stupid. He said, “Ember, why don’t you go see what Pearl is doing?”
“Just don’t hurt each other,” Ember grumbled, proving he did know exactly what the argument was about after all, and retreated back down the passage.
As Ember left, they stood there in silence. Moon said finally, “You know how the court feels about you. You’re—” These things were still horribly hard for him to say. He had spent most of his life watching every abortive attempt at a relationship fail. He knew how to start them and how to escape them, but he didn’t know anything about maintaining them. It was easier when the other person did all the work. And maybe he had taken Stone for granted. “I don’t want you to leave. Unless you’re leaving with Jade.”
Stone rubbed his face. “I am not leaving the court because I’m sulking over feeling unappreciated. That’s something one of our many idiot warriors would do, not something I would do.”
Moon shrugged. “Sure.”
Stone glared at him. “The court is settling down. I’m not ready to settle down yet.” He added, “And neither are you.”
“I’m not going, I’ve already decided.” Moon said it just to provoke Stone, but as soon as the words were out, he regretted it. He knew what a consort’s duty was in this situation: to stay with the court and his clutch. But that had never been his duty, and it had never been what was best for the court.
Stone stared at him, as if trying to see inside Moon’s skull. Stone finally said, “Because of the clutch? You think Blossom and the teachers won’t take care of them if you’re not here?”
Moon grimaced. Before he had become Jade’s consort, he remembered thinking that he would never want to father children in the court and then leave them, that they might suffer without him to protect them. Now, he knew that wouldn’t happen. That wasn’t how Raksura treated any offspring, especially royal Aeriat offspring. But in his head, leaving the clutch felt like abandoning them. As if leaving them in the protection of all of Indigo Cloud for a few months, in the safety of the colony tree, was the same as leaving them to fend for themselves in a forest forever. “Of course not.” He still didn’t want to die somewhere in the wilds of the Three Worlds and miss the important moments, like teaching the new clutch how to fly and hunt and fight, and the all-important task of making sure they ended up with the right mates, or at least the mates they actually wanted, whether they were right or not.
Then Stone said, “You think you can protect them if the Fell come here, if they’ve got help from some monstrosity imprisoned in a forerunner city, and this time it fulfills its part of the bargain?”
Moon snarled. “I know—I know that. I know it’s better to stop the Fell before they get anywhere near the Reaches—”
“If you know that, then why are you staying here?” Stone said. Then he turned and stepped out the doorway.
Moon let his breath out in a hiss. Now he knew why Stone was mad at him, at least. He went to the opening.
He heard one whoosh of big wings, and saw Stone’s shadow cut down toward the knothole and the court’s main entrance. He watched to make certain Stone was going in through the greeting hall entrance, then shoved the door shut and barred it.
The spot they had chosen for a meeting point was on the platform of a mountain-tree not far from where the flying ship was moored. It was a fairly large platform, with a pond and low mossy grass filled with the bright flicker of tiny flying lizards and the insects they fed on, and no heavy undergrowth or parasite trees that might provide cover for predators. The hunters used it occasionally as a resting spot during long trips. The dawn rain had ended and the green light filtering through the canopy was relatively bright; somewhere above the tree canopy, it was a clear day.
Moon and Stone accompanied Jade, who had also brought Chime, Balm, and Heart, as well as Root, Song, Floret, and Vine. Sage, with four other warriors, was positioned on an upper branch above them, in case anything went terribly wrong. They picked a patch of relatively clear ground near the pond, and the warriors took up positions around it. Root said, “Should we make a firepit? We didn’t bring any tea, I guess.”
“No.” Jade paced, flicking her spines in a preoccupied way. “This isn’t that kind of meeting.”
Song, who had taken a seat between Moon and Stone, leaned close to Moon and whispered, “We give Delin and the Golden Islanders tea when they visit.”
“They’re different,” Moon told her. “We know them.” Stone was doing the annoying thing where he was pretending they hadn’t had that conversation last night, so Moon was pretending too. He had the bad feeling he wasn’t as good at it as Stone.
Jade paced to where Heart sat near Balm. She asked, “Anything?”
“Not yet,” Heart told her. Sometimes mentors had visions at significant events, but it was rare.
The mentors had augured last night, but from what Moon had heard, nothing much had come of it. They usually had to be closer to the situation before they started to get genuinely useful visions. Merit was going to try while they were having this meeting, just to see if that influenced any answers. Hopefully the answers wouldn’t involve the Fell swarming the Reaches.
Jade nodded and paced away. Moon didn’t like to see her this edgy. But they were about to hear something that might make a huge difference to the fate of the court.
And their own fate. Moon shrugged uneasily, unconsciously settling his groundling form’s non-existent spines.
Floret, standing near the edge of the platform, reported, “They’re coming.”
The pointed bow of the flying boat came into view through the mountain-trees, moving with slow caution. The colors of it blended in well with the suspended forest; it made Moon wonder what it looked like in its native environment, if the groundlings who had constructed it used the moss for their homes and other buildings as well.
As the ship drew closer, Floret asked Jade, “Uh, do you want us to do anything or sit anywhere in particular?” She glanced at Moon. When formally greeting another Raksuran court, consorts sat behind queens, and everyone was introduced in a specific order. Violations of this etiquette when not forced by circumstance generally opened one up to mockery and disdain by other courts.