There hadn’t been much to do on the way back, except take turns scouting and listen to Chime, Jade, Balm, and even River speculate about the Fell’s plans and purpose. It wasn’t as bad as listening to the Arbora do it, but Moon found it annoying enough. Stone must have too, because he retired to the back of the boat to talk with Magrim.
Rorra felt well enough to stand up and finish dressing, and to get her boots back on. Then she fell asleep. Moon mostly answered Kalam’s worried questions and tried not to overthink everything. The fact that this flight had at least one Raksuran crossbreed with them was just more confirmation that their and Delin’s speculation had been right all along. The Fell must be certain it was a forerunner city, even if the Kishan weren’t.
Though the Fell who had managed to open the underwater forerunner city had specifically needed a half-Fell half-Raksuran consort, as close to what a forerunner looked like as they could come. The question that Moon most wanted the answer to was whether the reason the Fell hadn’t managed to get into this city yet was because they couldn’t find the doorway, or because the crossbreed queen wasn’t close enough to a forerunner to make it open.
“I wonder what court she’s related to,” Jade had said, frowning into the distance as the sky and sea darkened around them.
“Some eastern colony that was overwhelmed and destroyed.” Balm’s shoulders twitched in an involuntary shudder.
That thought was too close to home for Moon. But unlike Opal Night’s eastern court, there hadn’t been a Malachite to search for survivors and retrieve their half-Fell children. Moon didn’t want to think what life would have been like for Shade and Lithe and the others if they hadn’t been found and brought to the Reaches.
“You think there’s a progenitor, still? Back in that hive somewhere?” Chime asked uneasily.
“A progenitor voluntarily sharing power over the rulers with a part-Raksuran queen?” Stone snorted. “I doubt it.”
It was a relief when they came within range of the sunsailer, and one of its distance-lights crossed the bow. Rorra waved, and the Kishan on guard on the deck waved back. “Doesn’t look like there’s been another attack,” Balm said. She was in groundling form, and the cool wind lifted the curling strands of her hair. “They must be waiting until tonight.”
Chime said, “Merit said he was going to try scrying again, but I guess Bramble wouldn’t have much to do, unless the Kishan let her help with something.”
Stone made a “humpf” noise.
“What?” Jade asked him. “She didn’t have much to do on the flying boat, either.”
Stone said, “There’s a lot more trouble to get into here than there was on the flying boat.”
Magrim maneuvered their craft alongside the sunsailer’s hull, and Moon and the others caught the lines tossed down by the crew and tied them off at Rorra’s direction. Two ladders dropped down and everyone started to scramble up the side. Callumkal waited on deck, saying, “Were you successful? We’ve made a great discovery here.”
“A discovery?” Kalam asked, eyes alight with excitement. “The city?”
Moon swung over the railing, realizing Callumkal looked, and sounded, more excited than Moon had ever seen him. He hadn’t seemed this agitated when the Fell had attacked. Beside him, Chime muttered, “Uh oh.”
Callumkal said, “Delin discovered the location of the doorway!”
“Oh,” Jade managed, after what Moon was sure was a moment of stunned dismay, because that was what he was feeling. She added, “How?”
“Delin was able to interpret some clues, but it was Bramble who really made the breakthrough.” Callumkal was obviously proud to deliver this good news. “We couldn’t have done it without her.”
Balm, River, and Chime all looked at Jade, wide-eyed. Jade somehow kept her spines from lifting, and said, “I’m sure you couldn’t.”
Of course not, Moon thought. Stone said, “I told you so.”
“We didn’t mean to find it.” Bramble sat on the floor in the cabin they had been given. “Things . . . just got out of hand.”
Delin had been absently combing his beard. “It is not their fault. I had no idea we were so close. I meant to delay—”
Both Arbora looked tired, and Bramble in particular smelled strongly of saltwater and sea wrack. “He said to stop digging, but I had water in my ears, and I didn’t hear—”
Merit, who had withdrawn across the room and was pointedly sitting near Jade, said, “I told her not to do it.”
Moon buried his face in his hands. Briar, Root, and Song perched on the bench, all being very quiet. Balm and River had been told to go out on the top deck to watch for Fell and had seemed glad to do it.
Moon didn’t even think Jade was angry at the warriors. Warriors just weren’t used to telling Arbora what to do. Especially younger warriors like Briar, Root, and Song, when faced with a mature Arbora like Bramble. Moon would have been happy to tell her what to do, along with Stone, and also Balm, who was used to relaying Jade’s orders and anticipating what those orders were going to be. River probably wouldn’t have been bad at it either, and Chime, having been an Arbora himself, would have been even more effective. But none of them had been here.
Bramble, glaring at Merit, said, “That’s not helpful.”
Jade flicked her spines in a way that signaled everyone really needed to shut up now. She said, “Delin, tell us what happened.”
Delin sighed. “I had been thinking about the possibility that the entrance was underwater, placed there either as a protective measure, or because the sea did not yet reach the foot of the escarpment when it was built. This morning I proposed to Callumkal that I take a rowing boat back over to the ancient dock and look at the carvings again. Bramble was bored with idleness and Merit’s help was not needed with those wounded last night, so they came with me, along with two Kishan to manage the boat.”
Jade looked at the warriors. Song said, “We were guarding the boat, and we took turns flying over to the dock, to keep watch on them.” Briar and Root nodded, and Root added plaintively, “It’s the way we keep watch on the Arbora at home.”
Jade just gestured for Delin to continue.
He said, “As we examined the carvings at the base of the escarpment, the wind had died, and the water was much calmer. Bramble decided to try to explore the steps and the area below the dock that Stone had briefly examined.” He spread his hands. “I suggested it might be dangerous, but she was confident of her abilities.”
“I imagine she was,” Jade said, her voice dry. Bramble was finding something absolutely absorbing in the loose threads on the tail of her shirt.
“So she began to dive down to the sand at the base of the dock structure.” Delin added, “She can hold her breath for an inordinate amount of time. I knew her capabilities by that point, so I was unsurprised, but the Kishan were impressed.”
“And what did Merit do?” Moon had to ask. He didn’t want Bramble taking all the blame.
Merit bit his lip and squinched his eyes nearly shut, as if trying to recall. Delin said, “He took clumps of sea wrack and made them glow, to illuminate the area underwater where Bramble was searching.” He gestured to Bramble. “You should explain the rest.”
“It was these symbols in the carvings on four of the pillars,” Bramble said. “They weren’t anywhere else we had seen so far. They looked decorative, but maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were a symbol for ‘opening’ or ‘pathway.’
“I looked underwater, in the sand between each of those four pillars, and I found broken rock, like there was a causeway,” Bramble continued. “But whatever that causeway led to isn’t there anymore. But then I went back up onto the docks and I started to look on the wall of the escarpment, above the carvings the Kishan had already found. I saw a spot fairly far up, where just the shape of the rock looked curved. It looked like a larger version of that symbol was there, and that the rock was on top of it, somehow. So we swam over to the escarpment and climbed up about twenty paces toward the spot I saw—And then part of the rock came off in my hand.”