The Harbors of the Sun

CHAPTER TWELVE

As Moon and Stone flew, the cloudwall still didn’t seem to change, except with the play of light and shadow. The rolling hills of the forest under them began to grow wider and deeper, like the swells of a sea of trees.

Then Stone abruptly turned, slipped sideways, and dropped down toward the ground. It was so abrupt, Moon’s heart went tight with dismay. Stone had said he was recovered from his injuries, but Stone lied a lot.

Moon followed him down, already mentally scrambling for alternative plans, and dropped down onto the rocky ground beside him as Stone shifted to groundling. “What is it?” Moon demanded. “What’s wrong?”

Instead of answering, Stone climbed the nearest outcrop. A large tree with fringed leaves perched atop it and birds clacked angrily at them from the branches. Stone tasted the air and said, “Fell and death, from upwind.”

Moon furled his wings and bounced up onto the rock beside him. “I can’t scent it yet.”

“It’s coming from the south.” Stone shifted and leapt, his wings brushing the tree branches as he flapped upward. Moon shook the stirred moss out of his frills and leapt after him.

After some hard flying, Moon started to catch the scent too. Stone was right, it was Fell stench, a taint on the clean wind, and growing steadily heavier. But it was accompanied by the growing sweet-sour stink of rot. So much that it almost overpowered the Fell stench. It was odd. In Moon’s experience, the strength of the scents should be reversed. Fell ate most of their kills. The remnants they would have left behind wouldn’t have an odor this strong.

The sky was mostly clear, with some clouds gathered toward the west where a small rainstorm fell. Moon scented wood smoke before the rising trails of it became visible. They were approaching a groundling settlement. Or what was left of one.

Finally he caught sight of it, built atop a series of steep hills overlooking the wide bends of a shallow river. Two different trade roads wound through the forested hills toward it. The roads had been elevated some twenty to thirty paces off the ground, supported by large carved stone blocks, similar to those Moon had been familiar with in the east. It meant this spot had been a major nexus of travel for more turns than anyone could remember.

Stone leading the way, they dropped out of the air while they still had a hill and tall forest for cover. Approaching on foot and in groundling form was a frustratingly slow necessity, though at least when they reached the first raised, stone-paved trade road they were able to run without wading through brush and high grass. The stench of Fell and death-rot was almost choking the air now, and scavenger birds circled overhead.

The road took them over two bends of the river toward the settlement. Tall, evenly rounded hills dotted the river valley, the slopes covered with low buildings, the pathways and staircases winding upward shaded by trees. On the valley floor between the hills it was all tents and light wooden structures. Flags and other symbols, some variants of ones that Moon was familiar with from the east, hung from poles along the road and near the river docks, telling travelers everything they needed to know, from what shelter and food were available to which kinds of goods trading was done here.

The wind brought the faint sound of agitated voices and Moon saw groundlings still moving among the tent pathways and up the stairs on the hills. Most were short, hairless, with a dull green skin tone. There were far too many groundlings still alive for the aftermath of a Fell attack. This doesn’t make sense, Moon thought.

Then Stone stopped, staring at something. Moon caught up and looked down to see a black scaled arm lying in the dust on the ancient paving stones. His first horrified thought was that it was Raksura, but the scales and claws were wrong. “It’s a Fell ruler’s arm,” he said.

Stone’s brow was furrowed. “Right.” He looked up and tasted the air again. “Come on.”

Next it was a join with a leathery dakti wing still attached, then a ruler’s torso, then more dakti limbs, then a kethel’s foot, and more, all rotting in their own congealed blood, surrounded by buzzing insects and the small ground-scavenging lizards. It was impossible to tell what had killed them. Some groundlings had weapons that could cause things to explode, but it was usually accompanied by fire, and Moon couldn’t scent any burned flesh. There was no sign of damage from Kishan-style fire weapons.

“A little more than a day,” Stone said, judging the time the bodies lay on the road by the carrion insects and the smell of rot. “Maybe yesterday morning. Must be the flight that was ahead of us.”

Moon hadn’t seen any remnants that suggested this was the flight controlled by the Fell-born queen. He felt a little relief about that. Seeing dismembered Fell was puzzling but not horrific. He didn’t want to see dismembered Fell-Raksuran crossbreeds, no matter how mad he was at them.

They reached a place where a ramp had been constructed to allow travelers to leave the trade road. As they climbed down, it was clear the exploding Fell phenomenon was not confined to the old road. Groundlings gathered dead Fell pieces and dumped them in piles in the city’s outskirts, clearly making ready to burn them. Many of the groundlings stumbled with exhaustion, and others carried jugs of water for the workers. Everyone was busy and no one paid attention to the two astonished travelers. Moon said, “What did . . . How did . . .” That was all he could manage.

Stone shook his head, and started away from the burial piles toward the nearest tents.

Moon followed, noting signs that a battle had taken place. Some tents closer in had collapsed, and one had caught fire, its canvas and poles now a smoking heap. Everywhere there was disarray, broken pottery, smashed carts, confused herdbeasts wandering the streets, groundlings who were injured or in obvious distress. There was also some damage to the structures on the hills. The greenery and trees made it hard to see, but Moon spotted a collapsed terrace on the nearest, and on another bricks and roof tiles had spilled down, blocking a stairway.

But most of the groundlings are alive and the Fell are dead, Moon thought. There were Kishan fire weapon emplacements on the hills, but the Fell hadn’t been burned. That was the part that didn’t make sense.

Stone wound his way through the tents with his usual lack of concern in strange groundling places, heading for an open plaza. More groundlings gathered there, some of the stocky green-skinned ones and some who were skinny and light blue-gray and looked as if they were wearing their skeletons on the outside. They were clearly distressed, talking to each other in a high-pitched language Moon didn’t understand, and letting out occasional wails. The cause was obvious: groundling bodies had been laid out on the hard-packed earth of the plaza. The motionless forms had been covered by blankets to protect them from the carrion birds and lizards.

Stone stopped beside a green-skinned groundling, and asked in Kedaic, “What happened?”

The groundling looked up at him. Her head was narrow and almost square, and her eyes large and lidless. She said, “The Fell came here before the last sunset, and attacked, but then they died in the sky. They dropped.” She gestured toward the rows of bodies. “But when we came out of hiding, we found all the Jandera traders dead, with no mark upon them. The Viatl think they’re next.” She wiped at her face, conveying exhaustion and anger. “They panic.”

The Jandera, Moon thought, startled. You thought it didn’t make sense before.

Stone stepped toward the bodies and Moon couldn’t help a hiss of caution. Stone ignored it. He knelt by the first motionless form and pulled the blanket back.

It was a Janderan woman, her dark leathery skin unmarked, eyes open and staring, sunken and clouded with death. The skeletal Viatl and the others all went quiet, watching Stone. Moon eyed them but it was clear they were hoping the stranger had answers.

Stone leaned close to study her, to sniff and examine her mouth and eyes. Then he shook his head and tugged the blanket back over her. Stone pushed to his feet and said, “Tell the Viatl that if it hasn’t happened by now, it probably won’t happen.”

There was a startled murmur from the green-skinned groundlings. “It’s sickness?” one asked.

Stone said, “No, I think it’s something the Fell did.”

Another turned to speak to the Viatl, who greeted the information with confusion. Some wailed in relief, while others seemed understandably unwilling to put much trust in the word of some random person from the trade road.

Stone came back to Moon. In Raksuran, Moon said, “You know what this is?”

“No. But it’s not doing them any good to panic.” Stone looked across the plaza. “We need to find out if the Hians were here.”

He was right; this was a puzzle, and it was too much of a coincidence that it had happened on the route they thought the Hians followed. “Somebody would have noticed their flying boat.”

Stone frowned. “How do you know that?”

Moon sighed. How Stone had traveled all over the east without picking up on these things continually irritated him. He said, “The trading flags. They have two sets, one near the ground, and one on those tall poles. The ones on the poles have to be for flying boats.”

The caravanserai that maintained the trading flags was in as much disarray as the rest of the town. It was carved in the base of the hill nearest the river docks, on the side facing toward the water. There were pens for draft beasts and tents on the flat ground below it, and a wide set of stairs led up to the entrance. Big windows and a balcony overlooked the river, and it was full of traders and locals, sitting on carpets made of woven reeds and trying to ease their shattered nerves with intoxicants and talk. The place stank of fear and the inhabitants were jumpy and suspicious, far more so than the locals outside who were hauling bodies and trying to calm the Viatl.

From picking up snatches of conversation, Moon managed to glean the information that the green-skinned locals were called the Bikuru. This town was an important rest stop for traders, with the nearest cities being some distance away, and the country not being much inhabited.

Asking after the proprietor of the caravanserai led Moon and Stone back outside and around the base of the hill, where a collection of tents forming the better part of the grain trading market had collapsed under the weight of a very dead kethel torso. The Bikuru proprietor was helping to drag it free of the debris and seemed to welcome the distraction of answering questions.

Stone asked her, “There were Hian traders at the last place we stopped, meaning to meet a flying boat somewhere along here. Was there a flying boat here before the Fell attack?”

The proprietor said, “No traders like that came to the caravanserai. But there was a ship of the air of Kish. It fled when the Fell appeared.”

One of the groundlings sitting beside the debris looked a little like the slender Coastals of Than-Serest. It said, “No, the airship stayed. I was trapped under a collapsed tent in the market, and I saw it was there when we crawled out. We were all looking up to see if the Fell were really gone.”

The proprietor made an arms wide gesture, her equivalent of a shrug. “There were no mails for a ship to take, so it was here for trade or passengers.”

“Mails?” Moon asked.

“Messages. For ships.” The proprietor pointed up at the trade flag poles standing high above the river docks. “They take and leave from the poles.”

Moon shaded his eyes. Now that he looked, he saw there were baskets atop the poles, just below the flags, with ropes attached so they could be hauled up and down.

“Were the Fell chasing the boat?” Stone asked. Moon thought that question was a little too pointed, and nudged him in the back. Stone ignored him.

“Chasing it here?” The Coastal made a neutral gesture. “Maybe? But the craft gave no warning. It stopped, like it meant to take on or drop passengers. I didn’t see it go.”

“Did it use its fire weapons on the Fell?” Stone asked.

“Not that we saw,” the proprietor said. She gestured at the kethel. “But in the end it wasn’t needed, I suppose.”

Moon pulled Stone away a few steps, and said in Raksuran, “Why didn’t they use their weapons?”

Stone said, “Somebody used something. The Fell didn’t fall out of the sky for no reason.”

“And the Jandera—” Moon stopped. He had a terrible thought. Hians had reason to fear Jandera, since they had stolen Callumkal. “You don’t think . . . this was the artifact. This is what it can do. This is why Vendoin wanted it.”

From Stone’s expression he had already thought of that. “It would make sense. The Fell heard it was a weapon, but they got that from the Hians. They didn’t know what kind of weapon it was.”

“Vendoin said it would be cruel to tell us what it was.” Cold settled in Moon’s stomach as all the wider implications hit him. “If it could do this to a Fell flight, it could do it to a Raksuran court.”

Stone’s jaw tightened, as he tried to hold back a hiss or growl that would frighten the nearby groundlings. “That would explain a lot.”

“This is our fault.” Moon looked down and wiped the grit from his eyes to give himself time to think. It didn’t help. Song, Magrim, Kellimdar, the three others on the sunsailer who hadn’t survived the poison. It had been bad enough before the Hians had killed a group of harmless Jandera traders for fear of pursuit. “We brought the shitting thing out of the city for them.” Now the Hians could do anything with it.

Stone ruffled his hair sympathetically, then said, “Stop it.”

Moon twitched, an urge to self-consciously settle the spines of his other form. “We’re only barely more than a day behind them and we don’t know if they’re still going south. Or why they stopped here.”

Stone didn’t answer, until Moon looked up. Stone’s expression was somewhere between resigned and grimly amused. He said, “I’ve got nothing else to do.”

Past the smashed tent a voice rose in anguish, speaking in Altanic, “But how were killed the Jandera? Why dead them?”

The Coastal shook its head, its crest shivering with the motion. “And who is next?”

Stone turned back to the proprietor and said, “Are there any Kish living here who weren’t Jandera traders? Any Hians?”

Following the proprietor’s directions, they climbed the stairs that wound up one of the hills, past the stone houses and the twining limbs of small determined shade trees and flowering bushes. There was less confusion up here, most of the inhabitants still huddling inside the sturdy structures. An array of small colorful birds sang and called as if nothing had happened.

They followed the staircase around and up, past an open terrace where potted garden plants had been toppled when dead dakti limbs had fallen on them, and up again. The houses had little archways marking the paths that led to their doors, most wound with vines or other greenery. They found the one with the symbol on it that the caravanserai proprietor had told them to look for. It led to a square doorway in a chunky stone façade, sheltered by the branches of a leaning fringe tree. Moon heard movement inside as they approached, and cautiously stopped short of the door. “Hello?”

A small Bikuru emerged, her large eyes curious. Stone said, “We’re looking for the Hian scholar.”

She lifted her hands helplessly. “All dead.”

Moon hadn’t expected that. He glanced at Stone, and asked the Bikuru, “It was the Fell?”

“Just dead,” the Bikuru said. She motioned for them to come in, and they passed through a cool stone foyer and into a larger room. Windows were carved in the rock but shaded by the greenery outside, letting in a cool breeze. Pieces of wooden furniture and a woven rug had been pushed aside so the Bikuru could lay out four bodies.

All four were Hians, three small enough to be children. Their clothes weren’t torn and there was no blood; it looked as if they had just fallen down dead, exactly like the Jandera.

Another groundling sat on the far side of the room, a willowy one with white hair and blue-gray skin, very thin, with long boney ridges along its arms and hands. It was shaking, making distressed noises. “We came to see the scholar,” Stone said. “What happened? Was it the Fell?”

“I don’t know.” It looked up at them with gray eyes. Its Kedaic was much better than the Bikuru’s. “She was outside when the Fell came, but there are no wounds! And the younglings were in here.”

Moon wasn’t sure what to ask. “Was she expecting visitors from the flying boat? Other Hians, maybe?”

It buried its face in its hands, made a distressed noise, then pushed to its feet and ran out of the room.

Stone hissed under his breath. The others were staring at them and Moon said in Raksuran, “We better go.”

Stone grimaced agreement. But as they turned for the door, one of the Bikuru said, “Why are you here?”

On impulse Moon decided on a version close to the truth. It had worked for Stone in the swampling city. “We’re looking for the Hians who were on the flying boat. We thought they wanted to meet with the scholar who lived here.”

The Bikuru stepped out into the foyer with them. “The ship of Kish left after the Fell died. They had devices that allowed them to lift up and down. Kish have these. You have seen?”

She meant the flying packs. Moon said, “Yes, with the harnesses?”

“Yes. Some came from the ship in that fashion. I did not see them, but Ile-res said she saw them leave the house, and now the scholar’s writings are gone.” The Bikuru watched them carefully, critically. “Do you know why they did this?”

That one Moon could answer honestly. “No.”

Stone added, “They stole from us, too. They’re thieves.”

The Bikuru watched them a moment more, but Moon got the feeling she believed them. “Most of the scholar’s writings are not here. They are at the scriptorium on the tier below.”

Stone lifted his brows. “Her writings about what?”

“Her ancestors. The ancestors of all of Kish. They had a city out that way somewhere, near the sea.” She made a vague gesture toward the south. “Under the cloudwall, in poetic terms.”

“Are the writings in Kedaic?” Moon asked, though he wasn’t hopeful. Kedaic was primarily a trade language, made up of words from other Kishan languages. He didn’t think it was something most scholars would use.

The Bikuru seemed bemused by the question, but answered, “Not Kedaic. I have not seen myself, but the scholar was partial to Kish-Kenar, and would write in High Isra, or Kenarae, perhaps.”

Someone in the house wailed again, and the Bikuru gestured a hurried farewell and went inside.

Stone made a thoughtful noise and started back down the path. Moon said, “So we know what they were here for. We just don’t know if they got it.” It didn’t sound like the Hians had had much time to go through the scholar’s papers after they killed her and her family. If the writings they wanted were stored in the scriptorium, they hadn’t realized it.

Stone said, “I don’t suppose you read High Isra or Kenarae, because I don’t.”

“No.” Moon doubted they would be able to figure it out, whatever it was, even if they could read the scholar’s books. That was a job for a mentor, or for Delin and Callumkal . . . Moon stopped on the steps. “You think that’s why they took Delin and Callumkal? Because Vendoin knew they were going to have to come here, and get something from this scholar that she needed help to understand?”

Stone hadn’t stopped, and Moon had to hurry to catch up with him. Stone said, “That, or she didn’t want them with us when we followed her and found this place. We’ve wasted enough time here. We need to get in the air again.”

“There’s one more thing we can do,” Moon said. “I want to leave a mail.”

They stopped at the caravanserai on their way out of town. Stone wrote a message and Moon added a bit of the tracking moss to it to guide Kalam’s horticultural here. Then one of the proprietor’s assistants folded it up in a waterproofed cloth packet, labeled it with Niran’s and Diar’s names and hauled it to the top of a mail pole with a flag indicating urgency.

Once that was done, they walked out of town toward the road. Moon looked up at the forest, wondering if there were any loose herd-beasts there or if they should wait until they spotted some wild grasseaters. Someone else was on the road now, another traveler standing on the raised stone surface and staring toward the town. Staring toward them . . . Moon stopped abruptly. “That’s a kethel.”

“That’s our kethel,” Stone said after a moment.

Moon had had time to spot the kilt and the braided hair. He suppressed the urge to shift. They couldn’t do it here, not in front of this shocked and reeling town. He started for the road. “It’s not ours, I don’t want a kethel.”

But by the time they reached the ramp up to the elevated road, the kethel had vanished. Moon balanced on the nearest pylon, staring into the sandy hills and the tall fringed trees, alert for any sign of movement.

“Moon, come here.” Stone was looking at something on the road’s weather beaten surface. Reluctantly, Moon stepped down and went to join him.

It was an arrow, scratched into the dust of the pavement, pointing south.

Moon and Stone flew the rest of the day, crossing low hills dotted with large serene umbrella trees, shading little colonies of what Moon had first thought were small mammals. When they landed at dusk, the little creatures turned out to be plants, able to uproot themselves and walk slowly away from the Raksuran intruders. Between the trees were small ponds and streams, lit by iridescent water grass, and Moon was able to catch a few fish.

While Stone was eating, Moon stood in the shallows of a stream, staring at the glowing grass between his foot claws, lost in thought, until the walking plants decided he was harmless and returned. He missed his clutch so much it felt like a physical ache.

Then he felt something change, something different in the shadows under the tall umbrella trees. His spines lifted and he tilted his head to listen. Behind him, Stone was suddenly on his feet.

Then Moon caught the scent and swallowed a growl. Stone stepped up beside him and snarled, then said, “Come out of there.”

There was a silent pause, then Moon sensed something moving in the shadows. The kethel stepped out of the dark onto the iridescent grass near the stream.

Moon hissed. “Stop following us, or we’ll kill you.”

It said, “If I didn’t follow you, you’d be dead in the flying trees.”

It had a point, which just made Moon that much more frustrated. Stone took a casual step toward it. It ducked its head and looked at the ground, but didn’t back away. “What do you want?” Stone said, frustration under the growl in his voice.

“I told you, to help you,” it said. In the dimming light, it was hard to read its expression. Reading a Fell ruler’s expression was useless, since Moon thought it was rare that they used facial expressions to communicate with each other. Mostly they used them to fool and entrap groundlings. The kethel, which didn’t interact with groundlings, might be different, but with the shadows concealing its deep-set eyes, it was hard to tell.

Stone hissed out a breath and said, “Where are the others?”

The kethel said, “No others. I sent the dakti back to her long ago. To tell her that I followed you.”

“Her” had to be the half-Fell queen. Moon asked, “Where is she?”

The kethel turned its face up to the sunset sky, and Moon had a moment of trepidation that it was about to say “here.” The kethel said, “With the others. On the plain, nearer to the sea.”

Stone eyed him thoughtfully. “But what is she doing now? Why did she send you ahead?”

The kethel looked down, its lips pursing stubbornly.

“The rulers won’t let you tell us,” Moon said.

It made a noise of contempt. “Rulers.”

Moon turned to look incredulously at Stone and found Stone looking incredulously at him. Moon said, “I know your flight has rulers. I saw them at the island.”

“The rulers are young. She—” It faced them suddenly. Moon hissed and flinched back. Stone’s growl made the tree beside them tremble and release a shower of puffy white seed pods.

The kethel took a hasty step back. It said, “She killed the progenitor.”

The half-Fell queen had said that too, and Moon believed it. He just wasn’t certain he could believe this kethel was operating under its own will, with nothing to tell it what to do but its own judgment. “There’s no voice in your head. Nothing making you talk.”

The kethel said only, “No,” but something in its voice suggested controlled irritation.

“Since when?” Stone said, “When did she kill the progenitor?”

“Long ago.” The kethel watched them, as if trying to gauge their reaction. It took all of Moon’s concentration not to let his scales twitch uncontrollably. Stone was staring at it with a concentrated intensity that finally made the kethel look away. Then it said, “You tell stories?”

Moon let himself twitch. It was a relief. Stone cocked his head and said, “What?”

The kethel slid a careful glance at him. “The other consort told stories.”

Stone hissed out a breath, and Moon belatedly realized what the kethel meant. He snarled, “We don’t want to hear about how the consort your flight captured and forced to mate with your progenitor passed the time while being tortured.”

The kethel looked away again. If it had been a Raksura, Moon would have said it was disappointed. “I just thought you have stories.”

Stone considered it for a long time. Then he said, “Tell us your story, and we’ll tell you a story.”

Moon’s jaw tightened. He said to Stone, “By we, you mean you.”

Stone ignored him. “Tell us about her, your Queen.”

The kethel seemed to struggle with itself, the emotion almost hidden under what must be a deliberate effort at expressional stoicism. Moon had thought it might be young, though he had no idea how kethel aged. Now he was certain it was young. It said, reluctantly, “I was too small. But she wouldn’t let the others kill me. I was hers. There was us, and the dakti that were born with her. Some other dakti that were too small, or too different. And our consort. He called her Consolation.”

“He named her,” Stone said, his voice giving away nothing. Moon felt his spines ripple uneasily.

The kethel hesitated, as if uncertain how to react, then it continued, “Then our consort died and she said that some time she would be big enough to kill the progenitor. The progenitor didn’t fear her. The rulers were there, they protect the progenitor. But the progenitor forgot me, and I grew big too. I killed the rulers, and she killed the progenitor. Our dakti helped.”

Moon looked away, watching the sparkling water weeds move with the current. Stone said, “What about the others?”

“We killed some, but the others are friends now.” The kethel added, “Now you tell a story.” It tilted its head toward them, clearly hopeful.

Stone rubbed his face. Then he turned and took a couple of paces away to sit down on a thick tree root.

The kethel threw a wary look at Moon, then sat where it was on the iridescent grass. Moon moved a few paces down the stream, where he would be in a good position to attack if the kethel flung itself at Stone. As he sat on his heels on the bank, Stone began, “This is a story of Solace and Sable, when they went to trade with cloud people in the far east valleys . . .”

Later, Moon and Stone went to rest in the curving bowl-shape of a parasol tree’s crown. It was high and difficult to reach, so a predator would be unable to approach without shaking the whole tree.

They were both in their groundling forms, sheltered by the inward-curving leaves. Moon curled up and tucked himself in under Stone’s arm, and Stone didn’t comment. His face pressed against Stone’s ribcage, Moon said, “We can’t believe anything it says. That’s not a half-Fell. That’s a shitting kethel.”

Stone made a noise of agreement. After a time, he said, “That’s the third Fell flight we’ve heard of that was destroyed because it made Fell-Raksuran crossbreeds. Plus a couple more, if you count the flights that were destroyed because another flight made Fell-Raksuran crossbreeds.”

“I noticed that.” Moon was tracking the presence of the kethel by scent and sound, knowing it was about thirty paces from the base of their tree. It was sleeping next to the stream where they had talked. “You’d think the Fell would pass the word around and stop doing it.”

“I think it’s a little late for that.” Stone scratched his chest. The insects left them alone but the tree pollen was thick in here. “Lithe and Shade said they and the others at Opal Night couldn’t hear the Fell. Shade couldn’t hear that thing in the forerunner city that was speaking to the Fell.”

Moon saw where that thought was going. “So maybe some Fell-Raksuran crossbreeds can’t hear the progenitor, even when they’re raised as Fell, so the progenitor can’t control them. The progenitors are so used to having absolute control over the flight, they don’t realize it until it’s too late.”

“And something happened when the Fellborn queen took in that baby kethel,” Stone added. “The progenitor lost control over it.”

Consolation, Moon thought. The captive consort who had sired her must have had very few choices, but Moon couldn’t imagine the progenitor had forced him to name his offspring. “Don’t call it a baby,” he said. He had enough problems handling all of this. Stone didn’t reply, and after a moment Moon added, “The Fellborn queen is maybe more queen than Fell. Maybe . . . It sounds like what Malachite did to destroy the flight that attacked Opal Night’s eastern colony. She took control of the progenitor.”

Stone let out a frustrated sigh. “Go to sleep.”

Jade stood in the hold of the wind-ship, contemplating the meal of dried fruit and grain that the Golden Islanders were preparing. The sun was setting and she was going to have to try to sleep, though it was the last thing she wanted to do. She was so tense it took effort just to keep her spines from flaring.

Most of the others were already asleep, except for the warriors outside on watch. Or at least she hoped they were asleep. Since Malachite had left with Consolation and the half-Fell flight, they had all had nothing to do but worry about what might be happening in the Reaches. It almost overwhelmed her worry for Moon and Stone. Almost. But she wasn’t angry at the Reaches for racing off alone into unknown territory knowing it was being followed by Fell, which added a whole different level to the emotion.

Along with Shade and Lithe, Malachite had left them with five of her warriors, Flicker, Saffron, Flash, Spark, and Deft. Jade had sent the whole bunch hunting early this morning, and then made them and her own warriors eat their fill. They had to stay fed and rested, ready for flight at any moment, in case they came upon the Hians or the Fell found them. Now she needed to take her own advice. She grimaced to herself, admitting it was unlikely.

Diar had warned them that the maps indicated a nearby groundling trading town in the forested hills, so Jade couldn’t even do a fast flight around the wind-ship to work off some of her nerves. Dranam had said the tracking moss for Moon and Stone had split again, so they must have left another message somewhere in the town. Jade just hoped the horticultural could locate it quickly; if they were delayed by a long search, her last nerve would snap.

Lithe wandered in from the corridor, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, but she looked wide awake. “Anything?” Jade asked her.

Lithe shook her head, frustrated and weary. “I keep seeing the sea breaking on a beach, and having the feeling that we should hurry. And I can’t tell if the latter part is from the vision or just common sense.” They both spoke Altanic, for the benefit of the Golden Islanders in the cabin, but the groundlings were more interested in preparing the meal than listening. Probably because Jade and Lithe had been having this same conversation for the past few days. “I’m still not getting anything about the Reaches, either.”

That might be good news, Jade thought. It might mean Malachite still had time to beat the Fell there.

Lithe added, “I was going to make tea. Would you like some?”

“You should try to get some rest,” Jade said. She didn’t expect Lithe to listen. It felt like she had been telling mentors to rest all her life and none of them ever listened. They were as bad as feral consorts and line-grandfathers.

“So should you.” Lithe smothered a yawn. “And I need to be awake, so I can have more useless visions.”

Those words pricked a memory, and Jade said, “You know, Merit kept getting visions of the sea, when we were close to the foundation builder city and he had trouble scrying—”

Then River leaned in the doorway and said, “Jade? Something’s wrong ahead. Rorra said to get you.”

Jade hissed and whipped out of the cabin. She passed River on the steps up to the deck.

Outside the breeze carried the scent of running water, greenery, and wood smoke with something foul under it. Rotting flesh, Jade realized, startled. The fires were consuming dead bodies. She went first to the rail and saw they approached a groundling settlement built across a series of tall hills or mounds, set between the curve of a river and two raised stone trade roads. The sun was sinking past the horizon, turning the clouds cloaking the huge flying island formation to the south every shade of gold.

The flicker of fire seemed to be mostly on the outskirts of the town, but it was in orderly rows. Lights gleamed in windows and doorways in the hills and in the tents below. Boats and barges were tied up at the river docks. Jade tasted the air deeply. There might be some Fell stench, but it was too faint to be nearby, or buried under the harsh wood smoke.

She reached the steering cabin and found Rorra and Niran. Diar was in the bow, focusing a distance-glass on the town. “Was it a Fell attack?” Niran asked her. “Can you smell them?”

“A little, maybe. They’re not here now,” Jade said, concentrating on the scents, trying to sort them out. “And if they were here, I don’t know why so many groundlings are still alive.”

Rorra’s expression was tight with worry. “Maybe Moon and Stone drove the Fell away.”

Jade imagined the two of them taking on a whole Fell flight and suppressed a growl of unease. If they had fought the flight and one of them had been captured, and that was why the moss showed a split again . . .

Diar turned away from the bow. “We’ll know soon. There are trade flags for a caravanserai, and I think I see message poles.” She explained to Jade, “We saw these in Kish. Messages are tied to the tops of the poles to make it easy for flying craft to collect them. If the consorts left us a message, it may be there.”

“Yes, it’s a handy system,” Rorra added.

“I will recommend it for ports in the east, if we survive long enough to return there,” Niran said.

Diar sighed. “My sibling the optimist.”

Jade turned at a faint sound. Lithe had followed her to the steering cabin. The mentor stood, one hand on the wall, and the dying sunlight made her eyes into white reflective pools. No, that wasn’t the light, that was a mentor caught in a vision. Jade said softly, “Lithe? What do you see?”

Lithe hissed out a slow breath. “Fast,” she said. Then she shook herself and blinked, her eyes a soft brown again. “We need to move fast. We have to get to the coast before—Before something happens.” She grimaced. “I don’t know what.”

Niran turned the steering device and the wind-ship angled down to the message poles.