the ship chugging along, a few paces above the gentle waves.
Karsis slumped, and her expression revealed relief and all the raw emotion she had been holding in check for all the months of her captivity. “I didn’t think we’d ever get away.”
“I didn’t either, and we were only there for four days,” Stone told her.
“It was a long four days,” Moon admitted. Jade swung under the railing on the deck above and dropped down next to him. The others were all lined up there, watching the mountainous leviathan grow slowly smaller in the distance. The ship turned and Moon could feel they were heading east, as promised, back to the coast of the forest Reaches.
Karsis pushed her hair back, her voice thick, as she got herself under control again. “If there’s anything else we can do for you…”
“Show us a place where we can sleep,” Jade said.
Karsis showed them to two small cabins, side by side, on the first deck above the water. Moon suspected they might have belonged to her and Esom, but he was too tired to care where the groundlings were going to sleep. Jade claimed the narrow bed in the first room, then divided the warriors up and made certain they would take turns on watch, just in case any groundlings decided to kill them. Moon was only dimly aware of most of that, since Jade had claimed the bed by dumping him in it, and as soon as his body was horizontal he had started to fall asleep.
He woke much later, with Jade in her Arbora form warm and heavy on top of him, her head pillowed on his chest, a knee pushed between his thighs. The room smelled of Raksura in groundling form who needed to bathe and wash their clothes. He was aware that the sun was now rising over the sea, that they had slept from the late afternoon through the night. Flower’s dead, he remembered suddenly, with a spark of pain that brought him fully alert.
He could feel the ship still heading east, pulling a little toward the south, but that was probably the wind. The Klodifore vibrated in a way that the Valendera hadn’t, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Soon they would be close enough to the coast to fly the rest of the way. There was something he needed to take care of first.
He nudged Jade gently, and she tightened her hold on him. “I have to get up,” he whispered, and tugged on one of her head frills. She hummed low in her throat and rolled onto her side without really waking. He sat up and then had to spend a moment just looking at her. You’re lucky, he told himself. He didn’t think there were many young sister queens who would have willingly shouldered this responsibility, or who would have let their consorts take the risks he had. I hope we’re done with that now. He was more than willing to get back to the colony and try living the normal Raksuran way.
Moon climbed out of the bunk and picked his way across the floor, where Chime, Balm, Song, and Vine were curled up on the spare cushions and blankets they had found in a cabinet. He opened the door quietly and stepped out into the corridor.
Floret sat on a cushion on the floor, leaning back against the wall. “Are you hungry?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “We saved you some food.”
“Not yet.” Moon sat on his heels and glanced through the partly open doorway of the other room. Stone was sprawled in the bed, with River, Drift, and Root in a comfortable pile on one side of the room, and Rift on the other. “Has Rift tried to leave?”
“No. Everyone’s been quiet.” Floret sat forward, stretching her back. “Most of us woke up in the middle of the night to eat. The dried fish wasn’t as bad as Drift said it was. Karsis and the older one, the leader, came by once to see if we needed anything, but that’s it.”
“Good.” Moon pushed to his feet. “I’ll be back.”
The ship was quiet, but Moon could smell cooking odors, some kind of grain porridge. He followed the scent down a corridor and then a set of stairs, to a sitting area. There were couches against the walls, and Esom sat on one reading a leather-bound book. He was dressed in fresh clothes, and had replaced his broken spectacles with a different set. In the far wall