“The boats can’t outrun it, I suppose,” Jade said, still frowning.
“I doubt it,” Moon told her. The power to keep the ships aloft and moving came from the tiny fragment of sky-island, kept in the ship’s steering apparatus, that let them ride the lines of force that stretched across the Three Worlds. Their progress was steady, but not very fast, and a storm-wind would tear the sails apart. Moon sat up all the way and nudged Chime over. “I think we’ll have to stop and winch them down to the ground.”
Chime twitched awake and sat up, blinking. “Winch what to the— Oh.” He stared uneasily at the approaching clouds. “That’s not good. What do we do?”
“Don’t panic,” Jade said. The others were blearily awake now, looking into the wind. She prodded Song with her foot. “Song, go and find Pearl.”
Song nodded and pushed to her feet. She shifted and jumped off the cabin roof, to land on the railing and leap again, taking flight toward the Indala. Pearl was the reigning queen, and Jade’s mother, and while the situation between them was better than it had been, there were still ripples of tension. Since Moon had caused one big wave of tension by becoming Jade’s consort and not Pearl’s, it was a relief that Pearl had decided to spend much of her time on the other ship.
“I wasn’t panicking,” Chime said with dignity. He drew his legs up, wrapped his arms around his knees. “I just never liked storms, even in the colony. Do you know what happens if lightning hits you?”
Jade didn’t bother to answer that. Most of the Raksura, especially the Arbora, would be used to weathering storms safe inside a colony, not in the air on a fragile flying boat. Moon wasn’t happy about it either. Thunderstorms made him edgy. The day after his family had been killed, he had been caught in one, huddled high in the branches of a too-small tree. The Tath had still been hunting him so he couldn’t chance climbing any lower, and the storm had grown in intensity all day, as if it meant to tear the whole forest apart.
At least he wasn’t going to have to face this one alone.
Niran came out of the cabin again, dressed now in the clothes Islanders usually wore on their boats: white pants cropped at the knee and a loose shirt belted at the waist. He held a copper spyglass up to one eye, twisting the lenses to focus on the storm. He said, “We need to find a place to shelter, and we’ll have to lower both ships to the ground and tie them off— Wait, what’s that?”
A dark shape flew toward them out of the gray clouds. Moon squinted to identify it. “That’s Stone.”
Stone was the line-grandfather, the only other adult consort in the Indigo Cloud Court, the oldest person Moon had ever met, as far as he knew. Queens and consorts grew larger and stronger as they grew older, so Stone’s shifted form was nearly four times Moon’s size.
Consorts were already the fastest flyers among Raksura, so fast only queens could keep up with them. Stone’s approach was at nearly full speed, and he reached the ship in only a few moments. He cupped his wings to slow down at almost the last instant, then dropped down onto the stern deck. The ship dipped under his weight and Niran grabbed the railing to steady himself, cursing in the Islander language.
Stone shifted to his groundling form, and the boat righted. He caught hold of the edge of the cabin roof and slung himself up onto it, as the last two warriors scrambled away and jumped down to make room for him. He sat down on the planks, a tall lean man, his face lined and weathered, dressed in a gray shirt and pants. Everything about him had faded to gray, his hair, his skin, something that happened to the groundling forms of the oldest Raksura. The only spot of color was in his blue eyes, though the right one was dimmed and clouded. He jerked his chin toward the streaked sky. “You noticed?”
“Yes.” Jade settled her spines, which had bristled involuntarily at Stone’s rapid approach. “Niran says we’ll need to stop and lower both boats to the ground.”
“If we can find the ground,” Chime put in. “The forest has been getting deeper and there aren’t that many breaks in the canopy.”
“If we don’t lower the ships, the high winds will surely tear them apart,” Niran added, apparently braced for an argument.
Stone conceded that with a nod, but said, “We’re nearly to the new colony. We should make it before the storm reaches us.”
Startled, Chime said, “What? Really?”
Jade gave Stone a hard stare. “Are you certain?”
Stone shrugged. “Sure.”
Annoyed, Jade tapped her claws on the roof. “Were you going to share this information with anyone else?”
“Eventually.” Stone looked toward the bow and the endless sweep of the forest, as if gauging the distance. “I wasn’t sure until today. We’ve been making better time than I thought we would.”
Jade looked down at Niran. “Well?”
Niran set his jaw, but after a moment he said, “Very well. If you want to risk it.” Then he added grudgingly, “Chime is right. The forest beneath us seems too thick for a good landing spot. We’d have to search for a clearing anyway.”
Jade disentangled herself from Moon and pushed to her feet. She shook her frills out and shifted to her winged form. Moon rolled onto his back, just admiring her. She smiled down at him. “I’d better let Pearl know we’re nearly there, too.”
Jade leapt straight up, snapped her wings out to catch the air, then glided over to the Indala.
“I’ll find Flower,” Chime said, and threw a nervous look back at the distant clouds. He shifted to jump down to the deck.
Moon stretched out, taking advantage of having the roof nearly to himself, basking in the sun before the clouds covered it. Stone still sat on the edge, looking out over the mist-wreathed forest, his expression preoccupied. “So what’s this place like?” Moon asked him. “A tree.”
Moon swore under his breath. He had gotten that much from everybody else. They were all very enthusiastic about it, but nobody had been able to say how much work they were going to have to do to make it habitable. “Fine, don’t tell me.”
Stone snorted. “I just told you. A tree.”
Moon rolled onto his stomach, pillowed his head on his arms, and pretended to go to sleep, one of the only effective ways of dealing with Stone when he was in such a mood. He had been hoping for something not much different from the ruin where the court had lived before, except more defensible. He had lived in trees, and they weren’t comfortable. And he had seen how fast the Arbora could build temporary shelters, but they would have no time to do that before the rain hit.
He heard the wood creak as Stone moved around and stretched out on the other half of the roof. Then Stone said, “It’s a mountain-tree, the place our court originally came from.”
Moon opened his eyes a slit to see Stone lying on his back with one arm flung over his eyes. A mountain-tree. Moon turned the words over, searching for familiarity, hoping it stirred his memory. For all he knew, he had lived in one as a child, but he didn’t remember it. “I don’t know what that is.”
Stone’s voice was dry. “You will before nightfall.”
Moon was standing on the deck when Flower told Jade and Pearl, “I don’t need to augur to know we need to get to shelter.” She waved a hand toward the approaching storm. She was small even for an Arbora, her white-blonde hair wild as usual, and after the long journey her loose red smock was even more ragged. She was the oldest Arbora in the court, and age had leached the color from her skin so she looked far more delicate than she actually was. She was also the chief of the mentor caste, the Arbora who were shamen, augurs, and healers. “We’ll have to go below the tree canopy anyway, so Stone’s right: we might as well try to reach the new colony.”