into the room. More broken pottery was strewn across the floor, pieces with the same blue glaze as the tall jars stacked near the doorway. Several wooden bins, covered with delicately incised images of flowering grasses, stood against the far wall, and the lids had all been smashed. But dust had collected on the splintered debris. He stepped into the room to look into the bins, but they were all empty, except for mold. “This wasn’t one of us. It’s old.”
“I suppose they were broken when the old court left.” Jade dismissed it, turning away.
They moved on and took the next stairs down to the level below. At the bottom, they met Pearl, trailed by River, Drift, Coil, and a few other Aeriat, all in groundling form. Pearl flicked her spines at Jade and said, “Where’s Stone? We have decisions to make.”
Jade flicked her spines back. “He’s in the greeting hall, still asleep.”
The other warriors avoided Moon’s gaze, but River gave him a look of pure contempt. Pretending to ignore him, Moon folded his arms, so the sleeve of his shirt tugged up, revealing the gold bracelet. River looked away, seething.
Pearl said, “Then come with me.” And as if she couldn’t bear to leave the encounter on a mostly neutral note, jerked her head toward Moon and added, “Leave that.” She started up the stairs and her obedient warriors trailed behind.
Jade hissed at her retreating back, then turned to Moon. “Go on,” he told her, before she could speak. During the Fell attack, Pearl had had no choice about including Jade in governing the court, or what had been left of the court. If she was continuing that now, without Stone or Flower or anyone else to cajole her, it had to be a good thing.
Jade hesitated, lashing her tail. “I suppose I’d better.” She caught his shirt, pulled him close, and rubbed her cheek against his. “I’ll tell you what we talk about.”
Jade stepped back, jumped up to catch the wall of the stairwell, and Moon went to look for something to do. Pearl’s attitude didn’t bite as much as it might have. A real consort would probably have been bitterly offended at the slight.
Of course, it probably wasn’t good that he didn’t think of himself as a real consort.
He followed the sounds of activity to the passage outside and the platform where the flying boats were anchored. The door stood open, and he shifted to make the jump from it down to the wet grass. The sunlight falling through the canopy was bright and tinged with green, and the air was fresh from the rain, heavy with the intriguing scents of the damp forest. A few Arbora were unloading the last supplies from the Indala’s hold, while others tramped around in the mud of the platform, digging and looking for roots among the trailing vines. Niran, Blossom, and Chime stood on the Valendera’s deck, talking and looking up at the mast. Both boats seemed to have come through the storm with no serious damage, which must have been a relief to Niran.
Moon saw Flower standing knee-deep in the muddy grass, the only Arbora out here in groundling form, and went over to her. “They’re having a meeting in the greeting hall.”
She nodded absently. “I know. I’ve already had my say with Pearl. I think we should all live in the teachers’ levels for now. It’ll do everyone good to be all jumbled together.”
At the old colony, the Aeriat had lived slightly apart from the Arbora, and the hunters and soldiers had had separate bowers from the teachers and the small group of mentors. And the tree’s living quarters seemed to be designed for that same system. Moon flexed his claws and prodded thoughtfully at a root buried in the grass. “That’s not normal, is it?”
“No, but in thriving courts, living by caste doesn’t seem to create problems.” Leaning down to pull up the root, Flower added, “At the old colony, it just caused more trouble. We’d all been moving apart, separating into factions, losing our sense of each other.”
Moon had seen some of that, when one of the hunters had told him he should be sleeping in the upper levels with the Aeriat instead of down in the teachers’ bowers. Since by that point Moon had been ordered out of the court by both Arbora and Aeriat, he hadn’t seen much difference between them. And he had liked Petal, who had been the leader of the teachers before