skin and red-brown hair that was common in Indigo Cloud to both Aeriat and Arbora, and she seemed to get along with the others. Song was young, but Jade trusted her and she had visited Sky Copper when it was Indigo Cloud’s closest ally. Moon had always thought her groundling form looked enough like Balm’s for the two to be related; they both had warm, dark skin and curling, honey-colored hair.
Moon wasn’t sure how Jade’s talk with Balm had gone, but Balm had shown up in the greeting hall before dawn, ready to leave. She was tense and quiet whenever they landed to rest, but at least Chime and Song were treating her as they always had, as if nothing had ever happened. Hopefully that would help her feel more at ease.
Just before dawn, when they were nearly ready to leave, Moon had gone down to the nurseries to see Bitter, Thorn, and Frost. Most of the younger kids were still asleep or just stirring, so Bark had shooed them into one of the smaller rooms off the main area so they could talk without disturbing the others. Moon had told them he was going to be away for a while, and why. Considering how unconcerned they had been about the possibility of leaving the colony tree, he thought they would take it well. He was wrong.
Thorn huddled in a bristling unhappy heap, refusing to shift to groundling, and Bitter just stared at Moon with big hopeless eyes. Frost threw an actual fit, flared her wings, and snarled that he had no right to go and railed against Jade for taking him.
“Frost, stop.” Moon had seen groundlings spank their young before and had no idea how that would work with a Raksuran fledgling queen. But he was ready to give it a try.
That must have shown in his expression, because Frost stopped in mid-word, eyed him a moment, and settled into a sulk. She said, “We don’t want you to go. Who’ll take care of us?”
“Bell and Bark and the other Arbora.” Moon hadn’t been taking care of them anyway, not the way the teachers were, with all the real work of feeding, bathing, and making them behave. On the boat, while his back and shoulder healed, he hadn’t been able to do much of anything except watch them play.
“They can’t fight like you can,” Thorn said, his voice deeper and raspy in his other form.
“Pearl will be here.” Pearl might be moody and pessimistic, but she could rip a Fell ruler apart like a straw doll and wouldn’t hesitate when it came to physically defending the court.
Bitter leaned over to Thorn and whispered inaudibly. Thorn translated, “Bitter says we want you.”
That one went right to the heart and Moon winced. He wasn’t even sure why they felt that way about him. He had barely gotten them out of the Dwei hive before Ranea had caught him. It had been Jade and Pearl who had saved them all. But he had been the first Raksura they had seen since the destruction of Sky Copper, the death of everyone they knew, the end of their world. “I have to go. But when I come back, I’ll teach you all how to hunt.”
Bitter blinked. Thorn’s spines flicked and the two exchanged a look. Frost’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. She said, “Bitter can’t fly yet. He’s too small.”
Sorrow had started teaching Moon to hunt when he was barely big enough to leap from branch to branch, a precaution that had allowed him to survive after she was killed. “He can still learn.”
Frost had considered that, consulted with the two consorts, then finally agreed, grudgingly. “All right. But don’t be away long.”
Moon managed not to let her maneuver him into any promises as to how soon he would be back.
The scenery made the journey pass quickly. The variety of grasseaters and predators living on the platforms of the mountain-trees seemed endless; Moon saw tree frogs nearly as big as he was, mottled gray-green to blend into the bark, clinging to the broad branches and thoughtfully watching the Raksura fly past. And the trees themselves often took on fantastic shapes. They passed one that was covered with giant gray nodules, each as big around as the Valendera, and another that was hung with curtains of moss, thousands of paces long, draped like fabric. They had no difficulty finding the way; Raksura always knew which direction was south, an ability which Chime had described as a natural