you think it’s getting too dangerous, we can stop.”
Niran looked up at the treetops again to gauge the strength of the wind. He didn’t look entirely happy, but he nodded. “Very well.”
Stone headed toward the bow, where Jade and Pearl waited. Niran threw a thoughtful look at Moon. “It surprises me that he listens to my objections.”
Stone was used to taking advice from the Arbora, and he had traveled further and dealt with more different peoples than anyone else in the court, even Moon. It had been Stone’s idea to go to the Yellow Sea to trade with the Islanders for the use of their boats. But Moon only said, “He likes groundlings.”
With a skeptical shake of his head, Niran went back to the steering cabin.
As the Valendera began to move again, Moon left the railing and followed Stone toward the bow, making his way through the Arbora and Aeriat. They crowded along the railings, clung to the mast, perched on every available space that gave a view. The fear of being caught in the storm had given way to excitement and anticipation, and uneasiness, since not everyone was as sure of their situation as Stone. Moon couldn’t imagine the confidence it took to bring these people all this way, to live in a new place that only you had seen. Not that they had anywhere to go back to if they didn’t like it, but still.
Jade stood against the railing in the bow with Flower. Pearl was there with River, Drift, Vine, Floret, and some other warriors. River flicked a resentful look at Moon, but even he was too preoccupied to provoke a fight.
Moon stepped up to the railing next to Jade, and she absently put an arm around his waist. He leaned against her, trying not to feel selfconscious in front of Pearl.
It grew darker, the green-tinted sunlight muted as clouds closed in high above the treetops. The drizzle turned into a light rain that pattered on the deck. The platforms of the suspended forest grew wider and more extensive. Many of them overlapped, or were connected by broad branches, with ponds or streams. Waterfalls fell from holes in some of the mountain-sized trees. Moon wondered if the water was drawn up from the forest floor through the roots. It was like a whole multi-layered second forest hanging between the tree canopy and the ground, somewhere far below.
Then the trunks of the mountain-trees fell away, though the canopy overhead seemed even thicker. Moon realized they were sailing toward a shadowy shape directly ahead, a single great tree.
Jade looked back at Stone. There was tension in her voice as she asked, “Is that it?”
He nodded. There were nervous murmurs from the others, a shiver of movement that reverberated back through the crowded deck.
The multiple layers of branches reached up like giants’ arms, and the trunk was enormous, wider around than the base of the ruined step pyramid that had formed the old Indigo Cloud colony. From the lower part of the trunk, greenery platforms extended out, multiple levels of them, some more than five hundred paces across. A waterfall fell out of a knothole nearly big enough to sail the Valendera through, plunged down to collect in a pool on one of the platforms, then fell to the next, and the next, until it disappeared into the shadows below.
The platforms held only flowers, mossy grass, and stands of smaller trees, but many showed signs of once being worked into beds for crops, with the remnants of raised areas for planting and dry ponds and channels that must have been for irrigation.
Everyone was silent. Then Pearl twitched and settled her spines. She said, “Stone, lead us in.”
The warriors moved back, and Stone took two long steps forward, caught hold of the railing, and vaulted it. He shifted in midair, his big form momentarily blotting out the view of the tree as he snapped his wings out.
Pearl hissed a command and went over the railing. The warriors followed, and Vine paused to pick up Flower. Moon leapt after Jade.
They flew through the light rain, and Stone led the way toward the huge knothole, which was more than big enough for him to comfortably land in. He moved further in, around the edge of the pool, and shifted to groundling. Moon landed beside him, folded his wings, and turned to look around. Jade and the others landed, and Vine set Flower on her feet. Chime and a few other Aeriat caught up