The Siren Depths (12 page)

Apparently expecting more of a response, Tempest snorted in exasperation. “Are you planning to behave this way at Opal Night?”

Meaning she expected him to have to beg to be accepted. Moon knew how that would go. “I’ve lived in a Raksuran court for only six months out of more than forty turns. If you think I’m afraid to be alone, you’re wrong.”

Tempest frowned, the skepticism in her expression gradually giving way to something harder to read. “It’s your birthcourt. It’s the largest court of the far west Reaches. You don’t see this as an opportunity?”

An opportunity for what?
He didn’t know why Opal Night had demanded him, except that it was a way to exercise power over another court. If it was so large then it should have no need for extra consorts; if Moon was stuck there, the best he could expect was to be handed off to some unknown queen who was unlikely to consider a former feral solitary as any great prize. The worst…He didn’t know what the worst would be. Though Tempest might. Watching her intently, he said, “Maybe they don’t want a feral solitary in their bloodline.”

Tempest drew back, spines lifting in affront. “What do you mean?”

“They left me to die in a forest when I was a fledgling. How do I know they don’t want to finish what they started?”

Tempest hissed, surged to her feet in one fluid motion, spines rigid with contempt. “If you really believe that’s even remotely possible, you know little of us.”

Moon glared up at her. “I think I know too much of you.”

Tempest lashed her tail, crouched and leapt upward. Two strong flaps took her up to one of the mountain-tree’s lower branches. The gust of air stirred by her wings would have knocked Moon over, if he hadn’t braced himself.

From the shelter of the puffblossom trees, the warriors stared.

Moon let out his breath and flicked water over the snails. Apparently he had won; he didn’t feel proud of the victory.

Later, Tempest sent two of the warriors over to the grasseaters grazing on the platforms of the other mountain-tree to take a kill. They divided the meat up among the whole group, and Moon made himself eat, even though he wasn’t hungry. The light rain returned as full darkness fell, and the warriors put up a couple of thin stretches of fabric for a shelter. The cloth was treated with a kind of tree sap to keep the water from soaking through it.

Tempest and her female warriors Beacon and Prize took one tent, with Moon ordered to take the other, with two of the male warriors for company. The fifth warrior was set on watch, the others to trade out with him during the night.

It was full dark by the time Moon ducked into the tent, and the two warriors, Dart and Gust, were already occupying one end of the space. At least he didn’t have to look at them, though the scent of unfamiliar Aeriat put his nerves on edge. He had been too long in Indigo Cloud, where everyone was familiar, even if he didn’t like all of them.

As Moon crouched down and felt for a good sleeping spot in the moss and dirt, Dart said, “So this is the consort Halcyon was willing to kill for? I’m not impressed.”

Gust hissed a laugh. “Maybe he learned some tricks living with groundlings.”

Moon found a soft, not too wet place to lie down, and settled into it. He thought about how tormenting this behavior would be for a sheltered consort like Ember, and said, “If you touch me while I’m asleep, I’ll kill you both. I’ll tell Tempest a bowelripper got you.” He leaned forward, and said with hard emphasis, “You’ll look like a bowelripper got you.”

Dart and Gust froze into frightened silence. Moon curled up, using his pack as a pillow, and went to sleep.

* * *

That was how it went for the next three days of travel. The nights were wet and uncomfortable in the mostly inadequate shelter they found, and none of them got much rest. After the first night with Dart and Gust, the warriors tended to treat Moon with wary respect. They kept their distance, Moon ignored them, and Tempest didn’t speak to him except about the bare necessities of travel. Moon preferred it this way, but it left him with far too much time to think.

One topic that took up a lot of his time was the possibility of being alone again. If his pessimism proved accurate and Jade didn’t come for him, he would have to leave the Reaches as soon as possible. Raksura who were alone were assumed to be solitaries exiled from their courts for some intolerable act. A solitary consort would be assumed to be a murderer, groundling-eater, or worse. He would be better off in a groundling city, somewhere like the Golden Islands.

For a while he thought about that, about traveling east to the Yellow Sea, seeing if Delin and Niran needed a Raksura on their exploring and trading trips. But it was a long way to travel alone, and if he got there only to find there was no permanent place for him…It was a depressing prospect.

And Flower, with almost her last breath, had asked him not to give up on the Raksura. It was a promise he had made without any idea of how hard it would be to keep.

* * *

On the afternoon of the fourth day, they stopped to hunt big grasseaters on one of the platforms. At least the others did; they had made it plain that Moon’s help was not welcome. So he sprawled napping on a branch and didn’t see what happened until the shouts of alarm woke him.

He jerked upright to see the herd of grasseaters, furry rumps rolling as they ran, vanish into the trees at the far end of the platform. Near this end, Dart struggled frantically, one leg caught by a dark green creature, toad-like but nearly the size of the big grasseaters. It had risen out of a concealed dirt burrow in the heavy moss. Prize, the youngest female warrior, was on the ground, dodging clawed swipes from the creature’s free hand, trying to strike at its face. She misjudged and the creature slammed her across the platform. Moon snarled a curse and leapt off the branch, snapped his wings out to propel himself down as fast as possible. He thought,
This is what happens to idiot warriors who don’t know how to hunt safely.

Moon landed on the creature’s scaly back, all his claws extended. It roared in pain, stopped trying to drag Dart into its mouth, and dropped him to reach back for Moon. Moon jerked his wings up to shield his head, flared his spines and found the spot he was looking for, a soft vulnerable patch just under the lower edge of its skull. Ground predators who looked like this usually had one. It grabbed a handful of his spines just as he stabbed his claws through the softer patch of skin and cut through what he was fairly certain was an artery.

Its grip went loose and it shuddered under him, then slumped. Moon leapt backward off it, then warily circled around the body, watching for signs of life. When its eyes went dim, he turned to look for Dart and Prize.

Tempest and the others were just swooping in to land. Dart stood over Prize, who had shifted to groundling and huddled in the flattened grass, eyes closed and teeth gritted, her face twisted in pain. Moon hopped closer, realizing her right shoulder was dislocated. He hissed in sympathy; he knew more about wing join injuries than he wanted to. The shock of the impact must have sent her into groundling form, making the injury worse. It didn’t look like a break, but it looked bad enough.

“Are you hurt?” Tempest asked Dart.

He shook his head, clearly miserable. “Prize tried to help me and it got her. The consort—”

“I saw it,” Tempest interrupted. She gave Moon an opaque look. “You’re all right?”

Moon shook his spines out. “Yes.”

“She can’t go on,” Beacon said. She crouched hurriedly to hold Prize’s shoulders as Prize retched in pain. Beacon looked up at Tempest worriedly. “She needs a mentor.”

Tempest nodded, her spines flicking. “Viridian Sea is close enough that we can reach it by nightfall. We’ll go there.”

Moon offered, “I’ll carry her.” He was about to add that if he and Tempest went on ahead, leaving the others to follow, they could probably get Prize there in half the time.

But Tempest said sharply, “No. We take care of our own.”

Moon bit back a hiss, insulted. “Fine. Next time I’ll let the predator eat him.”

Tempest ignored him, though the male warriors exchanged sulky glances.

Tempest carried Prize herself as they flew toward Viridian Sea, and Moon had time to realize why she was angry. Tempest hadn’t taken care of her own, and Moon had. If Moon had been a warrior, even one from a foreign court, it wouldn’t have been an issue. But he was a consort technically under Tempest’s protection, who clearly didn’t need that protection.

Jade had never seemed to mind, or at least never showed it. Maybe it was different because he had been Jade’s consort, so everything he did was somehow to her credit, since she had chosen him.

It was nice to have finally figured that out, now that it was too late.

* * *

The heavy rain started about midway through the flight, and they arrived at Viridian Sea well after nightfall, guided in by the colony’s lights. It wasn’t in a mountain-tree, but was built out of some knobby bulbous growth of wood nestled in the branches of a mountain-thorn. It was smaller and less thorny than the one Emerald Twilight inhabited, but still tricky to fly through in the dark.

By the time they reached the landing platform built out from the colony’s main entrance, the court was aware of them, and warriors and Arbora had come out to investigate. Fortunately, Viridian Sea seemed to be fairly reasonable, as far as Raksuran courts went. As soon as the warriors realized there was an injury, the reigning queen herself came down to rush them through the greeting process, so within moments they were ushered out of the rain and into the large wooden chamber of the colony’s greeting hall. Prize was helped away by mentors, accompanied by Beacon.

Moon stood to the side while the Viridian Sea queen and Tempest finished the greeting. He thought this colony might be fairly new; the hall was modest, with only two high-ceilinged levels, four passages opening off it, and the carvings in the walls looked fresh under the glow of the spell-lights. There were some flowering vines trained to cross the ceiling but no fountains or falls of water.

This court might be small, but it seemed healthy. The warriors and Arbora crowding the passages to get a look at the visitors had groundling forms that weren’t much different from those at Indigo Cloud and Emerald Twilight, most with bronze or copper skin and dark hair, though there was a distinctive strain of red-blonde mixed into their bloodline.

Moon just hoped they got offered a meal, since they hadn’t eaten their fill for two days. He had shifted to groundling along with the warriors, his clothes were dripping wet, and he felt grubby and tired. Bored, he scuffed his heel on the smooth wood floor, then realized the others had stopped speaking. He looked up to see the Viridian Sea warriors and Arbora staring at him expectantly. Amaranth, the queen, had her head tilted toward him in inquiry. “Your consort?” she prompted Tempest.

“No.” Tempest stiffened slightly but managed not to sound horrified at the thought. “We’re conducting him to Opal Night.”

Amaranth, who was somewhat older and larger than Tempest, flicked a spine, and the atmosphere in the hall grew distinctly colder. Moon figured that with the injured warrior having been taken care of, both queens had remembered that they were Raksura and therefore hated each other on sight. Amaranth said, “I assume he has a name.”

Tempest flicked a spine back at her. “He’s Moon, of Indigo Cloud.”

Amaranth stepped toward him and Moon twitched back, ready to bolt for the exit. But she stopped and tasted the air. “He’s been taken.” She tilted her head toward Tempest again. “Not by you.”

Tempest grimaced. “It’s a long story.”

Amaranth settled her spines and clearly made the difficult decision not to take violent offense. She said, “Then we’ll sit down, and you’ll tell it.”

Moon groaned inwardly, resigned to a long evening of tension and stares.

They were led into another hall, this one a little smaller. It was less drafty and had a large bowl hearth with warming stones. The band of carved flowers and trees just below the curve of the ceiling looked older and more finished.

As Moon looked for a place to sit, a consort dropped out of the ceiling and landed at Amaranth’s side. He was almost as tall as she was. He kept his winged form long enough to make sure the visitors had registered his size, then he shifted to groundling. In this form he didn’t show any of the telltales of age: his bronze skin and dark hair hadn’t started to gray yet. But there was a weight of gold bracelets and bands on his wrists and arms, the outward signs of Amaranth’s regard. He caught Moon’s gaze, making it clear he was speaking only to him, and said, “I’m Flint, first consort to Amaranth. Will you come to our hall?”

Streak, standing nearest to Moon, actually put a hand on his arm as if to stop him. Moon pulled away, baring his teeth in warning when Streak tried to reach for him again. Tempest hissed at Streak in barely suppressed fury, of the “you are embarrassing me” variety. Streak stepped back, confused.

Given a choice between going off with an unfamiliar consort in a strange court, or sitting here with the others and watching Tempest and Amaranth provoke each other, Moon didn’t have to think twice. He stepped around Streak and followed Flint down the nearest passage.

They had only gone up two winding turns before Flint stopped and faced Moon. The passage wasn’t empty; they were surrounded by ten or so worried Arbora. “Are they stealing you?” Flint asked bluntly.

“What?” Moon stared, taken aback. Then he realized what this must look like; consorts never traveled without queens they had either been taken by or were related to. He wished he was being stolen; then he could just kill Tempest and the others in their sleep and go home.

It was tempting for a moment to say “yes,” just to see what would happen. But Moon thought it would cause more trouble for Viridian Sea in the end than it would for Tempest. “No,” he admitted.

It must have sounded reluctant, because Flint lifted his brows skeptically. “Are you sure?”

Unable to muster any convincing sincerity, Moon just said, “It’s a long story.”