That night, Kalam invited them to sit in the common room after the Kishan had eaten, and Moon ended up in a corner with a few of the others, listening to Vendoin and Callumkal argue politely about the city.
Jade sat on the padded bench next to Stone, her tail curled up around her legs. Moon was on the floor, leaning against the bench, Chime next to him with Bramble sprawled on her stomach. Delin, Kalam, and Rorra sat nearby, listening too, though most of Delin’s attention was on the sketch he was making. Rorra’s scent wasn’t noticeable, and Moon suspected that the more relaxed she became around them, the less it would appear.
They were all drinking the clear liquid the Kishan preferred in the evening. It was supposed to be an intoxicant, but the only groundling drug Moon had encountered that had any effect on Raksura was Fell poison, and no one would ever consider drinking it for fun. But the Kishan liquor did have a pleasant taste, vaguely reminiscent of the big pomegranates that grew in the upper Abascene.
“I appreciate all your arguments but I still think we will find it is the foundation builders,” Vendoin was saying to Callumkal.
“If you would share your reasons for that, perhaps I would agree with you.” Callumkal’s tone was wry.
Vendoin made a throwaway gesture. “It is in the same style as the other ruins we have found. Even the tile with the image of the forerunner is similar.”
“Why do you want it to be forerunner?” Moon had to ask Callumkal. “What are you hoping to find?”
“Well. I hope not to find a tremendously dangerous trapped predator, as you did.” Callumkal paused to gather his thoughts. “There are many other species who have lived where we live now, over thousands of turns. This is clear to anyone who steps outside their own doorway. Many of them surely earned their own destruction, like the flying island races who destroyed each other in their wars, the Tsargaren tower people, and the Varirath to the west, or the island builders to the south. Many others have left behind little or nothing to tell us who they were or why they fought. Others are still here, in some other guise, with their origins forgotten. There are others who should still be here. Why are they gone? How could they fade away and leave no sign of the cause? Will their fate befall us? Those questions occupy me.”
“Those questions are why I study the present,” Delin said, not looking up from his drawing. “I hope to leave the knowledge to be passed down to others.”
Callumkal made a gesture of agreement. “This city may be a sign that the forerunners and the foundation builders existed at the same time, that they knew of each other and interacted. Which could provide clues to why each one disappeared.” He said to Moon, “If the forerunners truly are your ancestors, then perhaps the foundation builders have descendants as well. There are many who believe the Janderan and Janderi are descended from them.”
“Even with our flying ships, distances defeat us.” Vendoin stared absently at the floor, lost in thought. “There may be gatherings of scholars to the far west, or far around the ocean, who have these answers already.”
Chime had been listening intently, leaning forward to follow the discussion. “Or who have the missing pieces to answer your questions, and you have theirs,” he said.
“Just so,” Callumkal agreed. “Perhaps this city will provide some answers, perhaps it won’t. But I also feel it is worth seeing the interior for its own sake.” He eyed Vendoin. “To settle our debate about its origins, for one thing.”
Vendoin shook off her reverie and signaled agreement, her mouth folding up into an approximation of the Janderan’s smile.
Her head propped on her hand, Bramble said thoughtfully, “I think we need to carve our history into the colony tree, to make sure it’s still there even if something happens to the books. There are a lot of empty walls in the lower levels. I’ll get started on that when I get back.”
“And how long will the project take you?” Vendoin asked, intrigued.
Bramble shrugged. “If the others help, maybe about a month.”
“She isn’t joking,” Jade said, probably to stave off any comments that they might have to take offense to. “The Arbora are very . . . efficient.”
She was right. Moon thought the enthusiasm for a new major carving project would already be high; once Bramble explained why she wanted to do it, it would probably take over all the castes.
Stone, obviously thinking along the same lines as Moon, sighed. “It’ll be the damn drains all over again.”
Eyes narrowed as she planned the carving, Bramble said, “I’ll include a Raksuran-Altanic translation.”
Callumkal told Bramble seriously, “You should do this. Future generations of scholars will praise your name.”
Lithe sat bolt upright, her heart ice inside her chest and a scream trapped in her throat. She knew she was in her bower, that her body lay in the comforting shell of the hanging bed, the chamber softly lit by the flowers she had spelled to glow. But her mind was trapped in a battle with a Fell flight as it attacked the Reaches.
It wasn’t real, she told herself, her heart pounding. Curled next to her, eyes still closed, Reed’s throat worked as if she struggled to speak. Lithe pressed her hand to Reed’s forehead and concentrated briefly, the method used to rouse someone from a too-deep healing sleep. Reed snapped awake and blurted, “Fell. There were Fell—”
“You saw it?” Lithe demanded. “It wasn’t just me?”
“Fell attacking the Reaches.” Reed struggled to untangle herself from the blanket. “Where—Not here. The east?”
“I think so.” Lithe slung herself over the side of the bed and landed on the floor as Reed flung cushions aside. She found her shirt by tripping on it in her lunge to the doorway, stopped to drag it on, and ran out into the passage.
Sounds of disturbance echoed off the polished wood walls, worried voices and someone’s startled outcry. Lithe’s bower was deep in the old section of the colony tree, on a wide corridor with one end leading down into a spiral of teachers’ bowers and the other with an open balcony onto the central garden well. There was no Fell stench in the cool night air, no screams, no sound of fighting. Lithe’s heart unclenched a little. “It wasn’t an augury. It was a dream.”
The auguries within the past month had been frightening enough. All the portents hinted that Fell were moving somewhere, though nothing indicated that they were near the Western Reaches. The reigning queen Malachite had sent messages to their nearest allied courts, but their mentors had seen nothing similar yet. But this had been more painfully real than any augury.
“But we both had it,” Reed said, stepping out of the bower behind her. She tilted her head, listening to the voices echoing down the corridor, from the bowers above and below them. She met Lithe’s gaze, startled. “Everyone had it.”
Then Auburn ran past them down the passage, calling, “Come on!”
They bolted after the older mentor, following him through the winding passages, past the teachers’ and hunters’ bowers and down toward the main greeting hall. The large domed chamber was carved with warriors in flight, swirling around the image of a queen in the center, her body curled to follow the curve of the dome. It was already crowded with anxious warriors and Arbora, but one figure instantly commanded all the attention.
Malachite stood in the center of the room under that image, her scales so dark they didn’t show green until the light struck them, the gray tracery of her scars like silver gilt. She was a cold still presence, as formidable as the mountain-tree itself, and just seeing her calmed the frantic pounding of Lithe’s heart.