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The fledglings were the first to spot the bird.
Chime was on one of the garden platforms with Moon, who was supervising flying practice with - of all people - Pearl. The two of them were engaged in a silent truce that was nevertheless so filled with tension, Chime hadn’t been able to stop talking nervously the entire time.
“—could ask for rubbings, but if we want to see we’ll need to visit, and since they haven’t…what’s that?”
‘That’ was a spot of color, bright yellow against the greens and brown of the forest. As soon as the words left his mouth, Chime saw that he wasn’t the only one with that question—the fledglings from Jade and Moon’s clutch were all flapping toward the thing.
It was an unnecessary question, anyway; in the next moment, Moon had hurled himself from the platform into a steep dive. Pearl was right behind him, angled to stoop on the thing from above while Moon arrowed toward the fledglings.
There was a chorus of squeaked protests as Moon cut the fledglings off and scooped them up, catching three in his arms and twisting so the other two could latch onto his neck. He dropped into a glide down to the next platform below, and Chime scrambled to jump down after him.
He missed the collision of yellow and gold in the air, but he saw when Pearl banked sharply and winged back to them. She hadn’t called an alarm, so Chime just shifted nervously and flicked his tail. The fledglings, robbed of their original target, made a new game of trying to catch the spade-shaped tip of it without leaving the shelter of Moon’s spread wings.
Pearl landed with a light thump and spat out a mouthful of yellow. Attention roused by their reigning queen and first consort, two of the warriors on patrol, Root and Serene, were also gliding down to meet them.
Root looked in confusion at the ball of crumpled feathers on the platform “It’s a bird?”
Pearl’s tail lashed dangerously. “Have you seen a bird like this before?”
That was an interesting question, actually. Chime shook off the tiny claws latched onto his tail and moved to get a better look. The bird was fat and round, yellow all over with brown bands on its legs, and had a tiny head with a long beak. With its feathers fluffed out, it looked like one of the puffblossom flowers whose seeds blew apart in the wind.
“Not around here,” he admitted. “Moon?”
Moon had traveled more widely than anyone in the Indigo Cloud court apart from their line-grandfather Stone, and he knew a lot of things about strange people and creatures. His wings had lowered now that Pearl had quite obviously removed the threat, but he still kept the fledglings behind him. “No.”
“We didn’t think it was a threat,” Serene said apologetically.
Pearl’s voice was silky. “What a good thing there was a consort on hand to risk himself so you could be sure.”
Root looked even more confused. “Yes, but that’s Moon.”
Pearl’s spines flicked. Serene grabbed Root by the wrist and hauled him back with her toward the edge of the platform. “We’ll make sure there aren’t any more.”
Moon’s spines were half-raised defensively. Chime guessed he was embarrassed about being used to chastise the warriors, and had taken it as a rebuke himself. Chime didn’t think Pearl had meant it that way, but he couldn’t bring it up in front of her without making it worse.
Fern finally wriggled free of the barricade formed by Moon’s tail and pounced on the dead bird.
“Well,” Moon said drily, clearly making an effort to flatten his spines, “at least it will be good for something.”
❦
The patrols didn’t find any other birds that morning, but two days later they spotted another one. Root killed it, clearly not about to take any chances with Pearl, and Chime went down to see if any of the books in their library mentioned similar birds.
“We could have learned more if it wasn’t just a heap of feathers,” Heart pointed out.
“What are we going to learn?” Merit asked, baffled but gamely helping Chime in his search. “It’s a bird.”
“It’s bothering Moon,” Chime explained, because it was, even if he wouldn’t say anything. Moon didn’t like changes or surprises, and anything new was inherently suspicious. That everyone else in the colony, with the possible exception of Pearl, thought he’d overreacted was only making him self-conscious.
Another bird turned up three days later, and this time the sentries caught it alive and brought it down for the Arbora to study.
“Maybe they’re migrating?” Heart suggested.
“Alone?” Chime replied, dubious. He prodded the bird, which hopped nervously away from his claw.
“They might be solitary,” Merit pointed out.
“It’s not a seasonal migration, or we’d have seen them before,” Heart said. “They haven’t traveled anywhere near our territory.”
Chime hadn’t realized that Jade was standing in the entryway until she said, “If they are migrating in a new direction, then the question is whether they’re heading toward something, or running away from it.”
All three of them looked at her in dismay. Jade stood with her arms folded over her chest in Arbora form, dressed in some of her carved lapis jewelry. She appeared calm, but her tail was restless. Chime guessed she was here for the same reason he was. He knew how she reacted to anything she saw as a real threat.
“You don’t really believe that, though,” Chime guessed, and Jade looked away.
“No,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t. But it doesn’t hurt to be sure.”
“Then we’ll keep looking,” Heart assured her. “And we’ll see if there are any more.”
There were. They showed up every few days, to the delight of the fledglings, who now had permission to use them for hunting practice. Ember tried diplomatically to point out that the consorts shouldn’t need to learn how to hunt, which Moon would normally have responded to by pointing out that ‘shouldn’t’ wasn’t a guarantee.
This time he didn’t say anything, and the absence of a wry comment where they all expected one made the silence hang awkwardly.
Chime found him later in the consorts’ bower, curled up in the hanging bower-bed and gazing at the warming stones in the metal hearth basin. Chime slithered into the basket and crawled over him, curling around his back. Someone stirred nearby and Chime realized that Ember was here too, sleeping in a cozy nest of blankets and cushions by the hearth basin, staying close to Moon rather than in Pearl’s bower.
Moon didn’t talk for a long time, but Chime was used to that. He nuzzled Moon's neck and breathed in the comforting scent of him. Finally Moon twisted around, like he could only say the words if they were hidden against Chime’s shoulder. “They’re only birds.”
Chime hummed. “Maybe. That doesn’t mean they can’t bother you.”
Moon bit his throat, and Chime wrapped around him more securely, the way he knew Moon felt safest when he was with Jade.
He was on the edge of sleep when the basket shifted and Jade rolled over the side, clearly grumpy at having had to track down her errant consort. She growled and nipped Moon, who hissed at her. Then she tried to wriggle into the warm spot currently occupied by Chime.
“Move,” Jade said, and growled at him.
“No,” Chime said stubbornly, and clung to Moon for leverage, earning an exasperated hiss in response. Jade bit Chime this time, teeth sharp against his groundling skin. Her warm, soft scales were a blanket over them.
Chime couldn’t bite a queen, so he bit Moon instead. Then Moon woke up enough to growl and bite both of them, and Chime gave up on sleeping.
He was vaguely aware of Ember sitting up in his nest of blankets, staring at them in horror and amazement, but by then he was too busy to worry about it.
❦
The mountain-tree had a knothole facing west that didn’t connect to any of the passages or halls. It was just big enough for three Raksura to fit in if they were close together, and the inside was smooth.
Knell and Bell were already there when Chime landed awkwardly against the tree, accepting Bell’s hand to haul him over the lip and into the snug, hollowed-out space.
“How did you manage to get away?” Chime asked. It was nearly time for dinner, and the fledglings could be even more of a handful when they were hungry. The three of them tried to meet at least a few times each season, but Bell was late more often than not these days, now that the court had so many new clutches.
“Ember’s in the nurseries,” Bell answered, settling back into the hollow against Knell’s side. “He’s teaching Thorn and Bitter how to perform tea ceremonies.”
That was enough of a novelty to keep many of the fledglings occupied. Chime imagined that Frost had plenty of opinions on her clutchmates’ efforts, and that she’d be joining them once Ember decided they were ready for a queen.
“They wouldn’t go for it without Moon there,” Bell continued drily. “So now everyone’s involved.”
Knell hissed softly in surprise. “Does Moon know how to perform a tea ceremony?”
Bell and Chime exchanged a look. “He will soon,” Chime guessed, and left it at that. Small wonder Bell was able to leave the nurseries for a while. Moon was probably covered in babies, and none of the fledglings would want to be left out with two consorts on hand for entertainment.
A bright streak of yellow caught Chime’s eye, and he watched as one of the little yellow birds flew up toward the tree canopy, heading past their lookout.
Knell noticed where Chime’s attention had gone. “That’s where they’ve been coming from, the northwest. They come as far as the tree, where we’ve been catching them. And when we release them, northwest is where they go.”
“They’re not migrating,” Chime said, understanding. “But why are they coming here?”
Knell spread his hands. “There’s no message on them, no rings or bands or cloth, nothing painted that we can see. But they all come from the same direction, and they all head back the same way.”
Bell tilted his head thoughtfully. “They haven’t wanted anything from us. The fledglings have caught a few alive and kept them for a day or two to play with, and it’s not as if they’ve been trying to get to the seed, or the water-flowers in the pools.”
Knell nodded, as though he’d expected that confirmation. “I wondered. And I wonder, if we leave them be, if they’ll do exactly the same as they have been. Flying in, hanging around the tree, and leaving again.”
That certainly sounded like a messenger bird, though Chime wasn’t very familiar with them. Had they been singing their message, or carrying it in some other way? And if the court had never seen these birds before, who could be reaching out to them?
“I should tell Moon,” Chime said, already rising to leave the knothole.
“Tea ceremony,” Bell reminded him, then addressed Knell. “We should call a meeting of the Arbora, to see what everyone knows. Maybe there’s something we’ve missed.”
“The mentors might be able to help,” Knell agreed. “We can ask them for an augury.”
Chime sank back down beside them, feeling useless and unnecessary.
Being a consort’s favorite was an important position at the court, one that he knew Ember exercised judiciously with his own favorites, but Chime had never been looking for the ear of a consort. He’d just liked Moon, and wanted him—Moon was beautiful, even those who disliked him couldn’t argue with that. He was interesting, and fearless, and he trusted Chime enough to show him vulnerability, which Moon didn’t like to do with anyone.
And when he’d first come to Indigo Cloud, Moon hadn’t fit in either, so they could be lost and out of place together. Chime had been expected to inherit Flower’s position as leader of the mentors, before he’d changed; it would have been him, Knell, and Bell, leading three of the Arbora factions, depending on one another and making decisions together.
Now it was Knell and Bell, arranging a meeting Chime had no place at, while Moon learned from Ember how to be a proper consort. Moon didn’t even need the instruction, really; since he and Jade had clutched, he’d been settling more and more into his role as the dutiful consort, spending time in the nurseries and making more clutches with the Arbora.
For a while, Chime had felt useful—being close to Moon, and therefore close to Jade, traveling to far-off places and meeting new people. He’d had a purpose, and something he could do for the colony.
Now he was once again the only one who didn’t fit in.
Knell must have seen his despondency, because he leaned in toward Chime, pressing all three of them together. “You could come tonight. You’ve been reading all the texts.”
He had, but so had Heart and Merit, and they were the ones who belonged there. “You can tell me after,” he said, and pretended he didn’t mind being left out when they agreed.
❦
Jade led some of the warriors up into the tree canopy the next day, to see where the birds were going. Chime would have gone, but Moon, looking conflicted about it, decided to stay, so Chime stayed too. The mentors’ augury had revealed the birds were a message - from whom, they didn’t know - and that someone was in need and asking for help.
Pearl had reservations, but Jade pointed out that finding out why someone wanted their help wasn’t the same as agreeing to give it, and that they hadn’t been up above the canopy for a long time. If there really was trouble, the colony should know about it before it reached them.
Moon declined Jade’s offer to accompany her, but he did manage to be outside at exactly the right time to intercept Jade when she and the warriors returned just before sunset.
“They’re disappearing into a cloud,” Jade reported, transforming and shaking out her spines to settle them. “It was the same all day.”
“So we’re losing them when they get too high up?” Chime asked.
“No, I mean they all flew into the same cloud. It hasn’t changed shape, and it didn’t move with the wind the whole time we watched it.”
Chime exchanged startled looks with several of the Arbora who’d been outside with them and were now listening in with interest.
“A sky island?” Moon asked.
Jade flicked her spines. “Maybe.”
“They could have been sent by skylings,” Chime suggested. “We don’t know a lot about skylings.”
“We know hardly anything about skylings,” said Stone, badly startling everyone who hadn’t realized he was sitting above them, listening to the conversation. Chime jumped closer to Moon, who hadn’t even twitched. Jade just looked exasperated.
“Not as much as you know about sealings, anyway,” Moon commented, earning a glare from Stone.
Jade turned the exasperated look from Stone to Moon, then grabbed his wrist and towed him inside, collecting Chime with a look along the way. They met Stone in Jade’s bower and arranged themselves around the hearth bowl with its warming stones. Jade stretched out on her belly to soak up some of the heat from the floor, and eyed Stone. “Well?”
He rumbled thoughtfully. “You should tell Pearl. I don’t like the idea of unknown trouble hanging over our heads, and neither will she. Someone should go and see what the skylings want, if they’re really up there.”
“I already sent Balm to Pearl,” Jade answered absently. “I’m going to talk with her myself after we’re done here. I wanted to know what you thought first.”
Chime wasn’t sure why he’d been included in this conference. Maybe just because he’d been there, and Jade was used to him following Moon around inside the colony.
That question was answered a moment later, when Jade asked him, “Have you sensed anything…strange?”
She didn’t mean it as a rebuke, but that didn’t keep Chime from hunching down guiltily. “No. Not about the birds or the cloud.”
Jade only nodded. “If we go, I think Moon should lead the warriors.”
Moon clearly hadn’t expected that. “You or Stone should lead them.” He shifted uncomfortably. “My place is here.”
“It’s not that far,” Jade pointed out. “We can see the cloud from the colony tree. And you’ve been bored.”
Moon looked caught out, and remained silent. Chime put in helpfully, “You have been bored. And if this isn’t that dangerous…”
“Probably,” Stone grumbled.
“...probably isn’t that dangerous,” Chime amended, “it could be good for some of the younger warriors, as well. That’s kind of like looking after fledglings.”
Moon’s expression was dubious, but Jade stood up as if that had been settled. “I’ll go talk to Pearl.”
❦
Pearl, surprising everyone, agreed to let Jade and Moon lead some of the younger warriors to investigate the cloud. It probably helped that the birds were still coming to the colony tree, and showed no sign of stopping.
Stone hadn’t seemed as interested as everyone else. “Tell me if you find anything interesting,” he had said during Moon and Jade’s discussion of which warriors should accompany them, and wandered off elsewhere.
Everyone seemed to assume that Chime was going, which gave him something useful to do instead of hanging around the colony trying to be helpful.
The cloud was less than a half-day’s flight for the warriors by Jade’s estimate, but Chime wasn’t sure what they’d need when they got there. They weren’t expecting a formal meeting, but without knowing what awaited them, Chime thought it best to prepare for a little of everything.
He was in the consorts’ level folding a few nice tunics and wrapping up some of Moon’s jewelry to pack when Ember found him.
Ember still made Moon skittish, and was most often with Pearl, so Chime didn’t speak with him often. He never knew exactly how to interact with Ember; Indigo Cloud hadn’t had any young consorts for turns before Stone had shown up with Moon, and when Chime was younger he’d interacted with them as a mentor rather than a warrior. He spent a lot of time with Moon and Stone, of course, but that didn’t really count.
“Chime,” said Ember, gliding into the room to greet him. “I was hoping to talk with you.”
Chime, who’d been assuming Ember was here to politely kick him out of the bower, was caught off-guard. “With me?”
Ember bit his lip and looked down. “About Moon.”
Oh. Oh. Chime hadn’t expected anything like this conversation, but he could understand Ember’s interest. Moon was lovely. He was strong and mysterious, and a little dangerous in an exciting way, and when Chime thought about it, he was surprised that Ember hadn’t approached Moon before now.
Chime supposed that he would be acting as an intermediary for this first stage of a proposed courtship. Ember was shy and diplomatic when it came to colony politics, and approaching another queen’s consort could be a delicate proposition. Chime guessed so, anyway. He didn’t actually know. Ember was the one they asked about that sort of thing.
“Yes?” he prompted, schooling his expression into something attentive. Maybe Ember wanted this to be a clandestine affair, to avoid upsetting Pearl, and Chime would be passing messages and arranging assignations in tucked-away bowers. He wondered if they should agree on a signaling system, or if they’d need a sentry, and if Stone should be in on it—he wouldn’t care if Ember and Moon became lovers, and he’d probably help if they asked nicely…
Chime had never really stopped thinking like an Arbora. He forced himself to stop concocting wild schemes before Ember had even asked anything, and tried to pay attention.
Ember’s expression twisted into a lovely sort of anguish that no one else at the court could pull off. “I want him to know how I feel, but I don’t know that I’m ready to…”
Chime made a sympathetic sound. Moon wasn’t what many people would consider ‘approachable’, and it was hard to tell whether he was interested. He wasn’t, mostly, as far as Chime knew; he and Jade were Moon’s only regular lovers, though he’d clutched now with a few of the Arbora.
His thoughts turned from secret meetings to a lengthy, heartfelt courtship, complete with gifts and hidden messages, and longing looks across crowded rooms. Ember would be good at that, he thought, and Chime could help. Moon deserved to be courted properly; he hadn’t really let Jade do it, but Ember would know exactly the right way to make overtures.
“It frightens me,” Ember admitted quietly. “I’m not very bold.”
Chime wasn’t sure whether Ember was afraid of his own feelings or of being with Moon; he didn’t really understand being afraid of either, but he’d seen Moon shiver and melt when Jade bit him and led him off to her bower, and maybe it was different for consorts. He could be overwhelmed sometimes when he was with Moon, too.
“You should just tell him,” Chime insisted. “Moon’s not very subtle. He’s getting better, but he still misses a lot of signals. Or I could tell him for you, but I’m sure he’d say yes if you asked.”
Ember looked confused. “So you think I should go?”
Now Chime was the one confused. “Go where?”
“To the skyling cloud,” Ember explained, which was so far from what Chime had been thinking that he had to take a moment to recover the thread of conversation. Ember continued as if he hadn’t noticed, because that was the sort of polite thing Ember did. “Moon wants to go and feels guilty about it, so I thought if I went, too, he wouldn’t worry so much.”
That wasn’t entirely true; with Ember in his charge, Moon would likely worry even more. It was a brave thought, though, especially considering how sheltered Ember was, and how rarely he’d ever been outside of a colony.
Pearl would never allow it, of course. Moon might appreciate the gesture, but Pearl would probably blame him for being a bad influence on her gentle, sweet-natured consort. Chime honestly had no idea what to say.
“I thought you wanted to sleep with him,” he exclaimed, rather than anything useful.
Ember blinked, and immediately looked flustered. “That’s not why…I mean…”
“You shouldn’t feel like you have to go to meet the skylings,” Chime assured him, finally collecting himself to rescue a stammering Ember. “Moon wouldn’t want you to be afraid or uncomfortable. Pearl will want you to stay here, anyway, just in case anything happens.”
Ember’s expression turned worried. “Is something likely to happen?”
This was why Ember had all the diplomatic duties, while Chime flew places and got into trouble. He kept saying all the wrong things.
“No,” he said, which was only half a lie. “But you still don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
Then Ember, who’d apparently been reviewing their conversation in a new light the same way Chime had, said, “You said…you think he’d say yes, if I asked?”
Considering how tongue-tied and stupid Moon could get around refined consorts - Ember included - Chime didn’t really have any doubts on that front. “Yes,” he answered immediately. That was a much better plan for showing support for Moon than flying to a skyling cloud anyway. Chime felt relieved that he’d finally got something right. “But you’ll have to be very clear, or he won’t realize. Just tell him you want to have sex.”
Ember blushed very prettily all the way down his throat.
❦
The flash of bright green scales in the sunlight warned Chime that their expedition had acquired another member, even before he heard Frost’s voice raised in argument with Jade.
“You said this trip is for young warriors,” Frost declared. “It should be led by a young queen.”
“It’s being led by me,” Jade said mildly. “I decide who comes along.”
It wasn’t a ‘no, you can’t come along’, Chime noticed. Frost apparently did too, because she hesitated, then switched tactics. “I’m fast and strong. I could help.”
Chime wasn’t sure how much help Frost would be, but as missions went, this wasn’t the worst one to bring her along on. They weren’t expecting trouble; they wouldn’t be going far from the colony; they wouldn’t need to be diplomatic or follow court protocols; and Jade and Moon would both be there to keep Frost in line.
“Moon would bite off my face if I let anything happen to you,” Jade pointed out, still calm.
Moon, wisely, had removed himself from the debate and was hanging by his tail from a tree branch above them, talking to Stone.
“Moon would want me to be strong and brave and learn to fight,” Frost argued. Moon’s wings twitched, but he continued to pretend not to hear the very loud conversation happening just below him.
“Do you think you could follow orders, like the warriors?” Jade asked thoughtfully. Chime guessed she’d already decided to let Frost accompany them, and that it was only a matter of securing Frost’s promise of good behavior before they embarked.
The warriors were restless but ready, each carrying a small pack like the ones Chime had prepared for himself and Moon. Chime didn’t think any of them would be too much trouble—Bran was the least mature, not as steady as his clutchmate Tassel, but he was nervous and flighty rather than brash. Gaze was disciplined, and Cowrie and Abalone had been out a few times with the older warriors on scouting missions. All five of them would follow Jade without question.
Frost insisted that she would as well, so after a little more milling around, Jade leapt into the air and the others followed her up into the canopy. It was an easy flight, kept at a slow pace for the young warriors and aided by the wind currents in their favor.
Jade had been right; even when the wind picked up at a higher altitude, the cloud in the distance never moved farther away. They would reach it easily before midday, and hopefully learn what - or who - was hidden inside.
They slowed just before they reached the edge of the cloud, and then - after a brief difference of opinion on who would enter first - Moon and Chime slipped into the misty white shroud.
It was colder than Chime had expected. The water that made up the cloud was frozen into delicate crystals of ice, which chilled his wings and made each breath sharp in his lungs. It was soon impossible to see anything, and Chime had a moment of panic at the thought that he might become lost in here, flying in circles and unable to find his way out.
Before he could work himself up too badly, he caught a glimpse of something solid and dark looming ahead. Then Moon’s clawed hand wrapped around his ankle and tugged, and Chime pulled in his wings, letting gravity drop him after Moon until they fell free of the cloud.
Vivid blue and green scales glinted in the sunlight overhead, and a moment later they were surrounded by the others, the warriors fanning out to guard them while Jade and Frost converged on Moon.
“There’s some kind of tree inside,” Moon reported. “We were near the roots. I can’t tell how far it stretches up.”
Jade looked up thoughtfully at the cloud, which had considerable mass. “Could we land?”
“It’s hard to see,” Moon warned. “Someone might foul a wing.”
“We can’t stay out here,” Chime pointed out. He was flapping his wings to dry them, and hovering like this would take more energy out of all of them than flying or gliding. “If we want to know what’s in there, we’ll have to try.”
Jade looked back at the cloud, then nodded. “Stay close,” she ordered, raising her voice to be heard by everyone. “Behind me. Frost, guard the rear. Try to fly in a straight line. We’ll want to end up in the same place.”
“Light-stones,” Frost chirped at the warriors, and rolled to present the pack slung across her belly and hip. Chime was impressed; he hadn’t thought to bring any of the stones or shells that mentors spelled to give off soft, heatless light, but it would help them to see each other inside the foggy cloud.
They set off cautiously behind Jade. Chime was just ahead of Frost, and kept his eye on the warriors until their forms disappeared from sight, only the string of bobbing lights visible in the murky white.
Chime was braced to slam into the unforgiving trunk of a tree, but instead the poor visibility cleared into thin wisps, and he could see a thick green stalk rising through the sky. Jade landed on the stalk, with Moon a wing-beat behind her. After a brief consultation, Jade called back to the others, “Climb!”
The stalk was spongy and moist, slippery to get a grip on, but not rough or studded with thorns. Chime climbed after the others and eventually saw what Jade was aiming for—a broad leaf sprouted from the side of the stalk, wide enough for all of them to rest on.
While the warriors caught their breath, Moon and Chime climbed farther up to scout ahead.
“I don’t think this is a tree,” Chime said when they’d passed another three leaves, and a paler green tendril that ended in a small, furled bud. “It looks more like a flower.”
“Definitely a plant,” Moon agreed. He had the disemboweling claws on his heels hooked into the stalk and was digging under the tough surface, investigating the stickier flesh and sap beneath.
Sudden rapid flapping from above startled them both into flaring out their wings, but it was only one of the birds that had been coming to the colony tree, heading past them in that direction. Moon looked up, toward where it had come from.
“Keep climbing?” Chime guessed.
Moon hesitated for a long moment. “Tell Jade,” he decided. “Then keep climbing.”
❦
The warriors were alone when they returned to the first leaf. “Jade and Frost went down the stalk to scout that way,” Tassel reported. Bran was huddled beneath her wing, shivering, but all of them looked alert and attentive.
Chime looked at Moon. “Maybe we should climb down as well,” he suggested. “Toward the sky island.”
The leaf swayed very slightly as Jade hauled herself back onto it, Frost jumping on behind her. “There is no sky island,” Jade said, shaking ice crystals from her wings. “It’s all this plant.”
“But there are roots,” Frost piped up, nearly vibrating with excitement. “Lots and lots of roots.”
“They’re all tangled together,” Jade explained. “That’s the closest thing there is to an island. All kinds of things are caught in them—dirt and feathers and droppings, but no real land.”
“And there’s another one!” Frost announced. “We saw it below us, a big purple flower, and there’s a long root that stretches over to it.”
Moon exchanged looks with Jade, then Chime. “Any sign of skylings?”
Jade shook her head. “We could fly down to the other plant,” she suggested. “Or try to reach the top of this one. Is the stalk hollow? Could they be inside?”
Moon cocked his head. “I don’t think so.” He looked down, then around them. “If there’s no ground, that means nothing to eat.”
“For the plants, either,” Chime put in. “Where are they getting nutrients, if there’s no soil?”
“And what about the birds?” Frost insisted.
Bran stirred a little, but Gaze was the one to speak. “We found some nuts at the root of the leaf. Or seeds, maybe. They’re in tough shells, but they’re enormous. All together we could probably crack one open and eat it.”
“Not when we don’t know if they’re poisonous,” Moon said. He stretched out his wings and looked to Jade. “You’ve already been to the roots. If there’s a way into this plant, it must be through the flowers. Which is closer; the one you saw, or whatever’s at the top of this one?”
Jade considered. “We can glide down from here. It will be easier than climbing up.”
The purple flower was hard to miss, once Jade started them in the right direction; it was easily the size of one of the garden platforms on the mountain-tree, a pale lilac color with dark rose-pink spots at the base of its petals. There wasn’t a good place to land, so they caught themselves along the stem. It swayed under their weight, more fragile at the top than farther down the stalk.
“We found the birds,” Chime pointed out. They were fluttering in and out of the flower, busily sipping nectar from the thin spines that grew at intervals along the petals.
“There were more of them among the roots,” Jade said. “We saw their nests.”
“Do you think whoever sent them to us is inside the flower?” Chime asked. From this close, it was obvious that the petals were only unfurled at the tips; most of the flower’s length formed a deep, cylindrical tube. Chime could make out a second layer of petals as well, much smaller and closer to the hollow center.
“Only one way to find out,” Moon said, and jumped up onto one of the petals.
Jade cursed and leapt after him, startling the birds that hadn’t already burst into flight at Moon’s sudden landing. Chime hesitated, then followed them, picking another petal so their combined weight wouldn’t damage the flower too badly. It was hard to balance, even using his wings and tail; the petals were soft and yielding, and he sunk into them with every step.
“Abalone, Cowrie, stay there and keep watch,” Jade ordered. Frost was already investigating the flower; Gaze hovered in the air nearby, not looking eager to land. With the way he, Jade, and Moon were all barely keeping their footing, Chime didn’t blame her.
Chime made his way awkwardly over to Frost, who was also hovering, leaning over to peer down into the dark bowels of the flower. “We could drop a light-stone,” Frost suggested, glancing at Chime. Her expression was a combination of defiance and the hope of approval.
“We don’t want to surprise anything that lives down there too badly,” Chime considered. He did want to see the inside, but he thought the tube of the flower was too large for them to glimpse much if the stone fell all the way to the bottom. “We could climb down one of these, maybe?”
He pointed to the tendrils that extended from the center of the flower, their tips thick with pollen. They didn’t look sturdy, but if someone held onto a tendril at the top, perhaps one of them could use it as a climbing rope.
On the other hand, they might be too fragile for that. The tendrils moved with the slightest disturbance in the air, swaying even when Chime couldn’t feel the wind. They were responding to the vibration of Jade and Moon’s steps on the petal, Chime realized, drifting slightly toward them.
One of the tendrils brushed up against him, and Chime took a hasty step back, flailing for balance on the soft inner petal. The tendril seemed to be caught on him, and when Chime tried to tug away, he found the pollen-covered end of it stuck like a burr to his waist. It seemed to be curling a little, the tendril trying to wind around him.
“Frost,” Chime began in warning, and then several things happened very quickly.
The tendril retracted, pulling back into the flower and yanking Chime with it. It coiled itself like a serpent, rolling Chime further into itself until he was dizzy from being spun. In brief flashes he saw the inner row of petals fold over, like sealing a pouch. A green blur shot in after him just as the petals closed, and he heard Jade’s shout of alarm, already sounding distant.
The tendril jerked to a stop as quickly as it had begun to move, and Chime fought the urge to be sick. Air buffeted against him from beating wings, and Frost called frantically, “Chime?”
He tried to answer, and it came out as a groan. The tendril was wrapped securely around him, many times over now; it must have wound him up in a half-dozen coils at least. He struggled to free himself, and the coils tightened until he was gasping for breath. The burr that had stuck to him felt like it was digging in, scratching his scales. It was spikier than it had looked, under the pollen.
Frost soared down to him, following his hiss of pain, and held up her glowing stone. Far above them, Chime could see cracks of daylight between the closed petals, but they looked too small for a Raksura to get through.
Dark shadows fluttered across the shafts of light, fat round shapes with stubby wings. Of course, Chime thought; the little birds could fit through those gaps. They must come down here to feed on the flower’s nectar.
“Uh,” Frost said. It wasn’t a reassuring tone. She sounded nervous, and uncertain, and maybe a little afraid. Chime lifted his head to see if she was making that noise over his predicament, or something else.
It was something else. Chime swallowed, and had to remind himself again not to be sick. Heaving his stomach empty would only make the tendril constrict more tightly around him, and it already hurt to draw a full breath.
He wasn’t the only one who’d been caught by this plant. Around them, illuminated by Frost’s spelled stone, were the silhouettes of large predatory birds, flying mammals from the lakeshore caves, and the broken body of a giant forest moth. All of them were caught in tendrils like the one that held Chime, and all of them were very clearly dead.
The smell of it wasn’t as bad as it should have been; Chime didn’t know whether his senses were dulled by shock, or if the flower’s scent was just overpowering the stench of death. The bodies were in varying stages of decomposition, and Chime guessed they’d just figured out the source of nutrients for the flower.
Frost hovered over him, undecided, then landed as lightly as she could on the tendril. Chime hissed in both pain and warning, and got enough breath to say, “Don’t. It’ll catch you too.”
“It would have to let go of you to get me,” Frost pointed out.
She began to tug at the tendril, trying to free him, but its grip around his torso didn’t loosen at all. Chime felt the tendril begin to tighten again and gasped, “Stop!” just as the coils squeezed uncomfortably around his ribs.
Frost leapt off, hissing in frustration. She tried hacking at the vine with her disemboweling claws, but the tendril only contracted in response, rolling Chime up in another coil. He yelled in surprise and Frost immediately darted away, careful not to collide with any of the other tendrils and their grisly prizes.
Chime panted until he’d caught his breath, then let his wings droop. He was glad they’d flared out when he’d been caught, or they might be pinned against him now, and possibly broken. “You shouldn’t have come after me,” he sighed. “Now we’re both stuck in here.”
“I’m a queen. I’m going to save you,” Frost announced. She looked up at the sealed mouth of the flower and hesitated. “I’m going up to see if I can get the petals open. I’ll be back.”
She flew upward, taking the light with her and leaving Chime in claustrophobic gloom. He’d lost his stone when the tendril had caught him, and the weak shafts of light from above seemed smaller than before. All of the little birds had fled; the petals might be strengthening their seal, cutting off all air.
Chime couldn’t see the bodies anymore, but that didn’t help when he still knew they were there. It felt like they might be closer, in the dark; he was worried that when the light returned, there would be one looming just in front of him.
When the light returned. Chime held onto that thought, holding still and breathing shallowly, and waited for rescue.
❦
“Chime?” Frost’s voice sounded distant, but when he opened his eyes, he saw her swooping down in front of him, the light-stone still clutched in her claws. “Jade wants to know if you’re hurt.”
Chime started to stretch before remembering that he shouldn’t move. “Just bruised.” He couldn’t feel anything broken, and he hadn’t slammed into anything when he’d been pulled in. “You talked to the others?”
“They can’t get the petals open either.” Frost’s tail lashed in irritation. “I tried pushing while they pulled, but they’re too strong. They’re trying to find things in the packs to wedge them open so they won’t close all the way.”
Frost lifted her head, scenting the air—probably trying to scent him, but all Chime could smell was the thick, musty perfume of the flower. “Are you sure you aren’t hurt?”
“I—” Chime moved gingerly, and a sharp stab in his side made his breath catch. He swallowed and tried to lean away from it, but that only pulled at the skin. “I don’t think so,” he tried, and didn’t sound convincing even to himself.
Frost had dipped down to examine the tendril. “There are spikes on these,” she said after a moment. “Like the ones on the petals, but sharper.”
Chime wondered if one had found its way between his scales. It seemed likely; the pain in his side was an itch now, like an insect’s sting. “Thorns,” he guessed.
He didn’t think he’d blinked, but Frost was suddenly there in front of him again, peering at him worriedly. “You don’t sound right,” she said uneasily. “Like you’re falling asleep. Don’t fall asleep.”
“‘Mnot,” Chime assured her, and distantly realized that she was right, and he was slurring his words. He made an effort to wake himself up. It must be the darkness and the stale air, the heavy perfume.
Or, he thought, a sinking feeling in his gut, those thorns were hollow like the ones on the petals, and he was being poisoned.
“Chime!” Frost’s voice was sharp and agitated, and Chime realized he might have lost some time. Only a moment, surely, but it didn’t bode well. “Don’t shift,” Frost said urgently. “And don’t fall asleep.”
If he shifted now, the plant would only kill him faster. If he didn’t freeze first. The flower was sheltering them from the wind and ice outside, but it was still cold.
“I think I’ve been poisoned,” he tried to say, and thought that he got at least part of it out. ‘Poisoned’, at least, seemed to make it out all right. “The plant,” he clarified, and didn’t add that he was pretty sure it was trying to kill him so that it could get on with digesting him. That was too gruesome a thought to share.
Frost flew around him in a dizzy, agitated circle. “I’m going back up to the others,” she told him. “Don’t move.”
It was a good thing that the world was dimming again, or Chime might have tried to laugh.
He listened in case he could catch the others’ voices, but it was quiet, sounds muffled by the soft, spongy petals that enclosed them. Chime caught his attention slipping, and struggled against the inexorable pull of unconsciousness.
He could feel the tendril around him, each length and loop of it pressing against him with every breath. He could feel the thorn in his side, and another, now, higher on his chest. One, maybe two, in his back. The poison on them might be softening his scales, letting the sharp thorn-tips slide in.
He could feel…
Roots extending down, tangled and strong, anchoring him to those around him. Sunlight on petals, on slick young leaves, and water droplets melting onto a long, woody stem. Pollen bursting in clumps, drifting away on the wind, carried to far-off places in search of somewhere to land.
The web of others, interconnected and communing, the worried hum of a collective mind. Thoughts carried along roots, the sense of something wrong, the need to call for help.
The magic in his blood, like the nectar was in his blood now; sharing those fears, recognizing a kindred soul. The understanding between them, the sense that finally, someone had come.
The tendril relaxed and loosened around him, and Chime took a shuddering breath.
Frost was back. He didn’t know how long he’d been…the plant, or some part of it, but her expression was pinched tight with fear. She was holding his head in her hand, trying to coax him into drinking some water.
He coughed, choking on it, and the tendril unfurled a little more. Then he was sliding and Frost’s arms were around him, clutching him to her chest and pulling him free with a determined yank. The thorns ripped at his scales, tearing gouges in his flesh, but he only wrapped his arms around Frost’s neck and held on.
She surged upward, carrying him toward the petals that were opening for them, letting in the light. A chorus of exclamations and shouts greeted them as she erupted from the flower, and then he was being set down gently on the cool, smooth surface of a leaf, with everyone clustered around him.
“I know what to do,” Chime tried to say, over the urgent babble of young voices. “To help.”
“—have to get away from here, it’s not safe—”
“—can’t fly like this—”
“—Moon can carry him—”
“—can’t just wait here for it to eat us—”
“Quiet!” Jade snapped, and everyone else fell silent. She crouched down beside him, her hands gentle on his shoulders. “Chime,” she said, holding his gaze with hers, steady and calm. “What should we do?”
❦
Chime spent most of the journey back from the cloud half-conscious, cradled securely against Jade’s chest. It wasn’t comfortable, and he wanted to shift, but there was too much of the poison nectar still in his system to risk it.
Heart and Merit met them at the entrance to the colony tree, alerted by the sentries and one of the young warriors who’d flown ahead. “I’m going to put you into a healing sleep,” Heart told him, her hands on his face. “Don’t shift, but you can sleep now. Sleep.”
Chime lost quite a bit of time after that, and had to get the whole story from Stone several days later, with all five of the warriors who’d accompanied them hanging around behind him.
“They’ve been watching over you in shifts,” Stone told him, with a wry look at Bran, who’d crept closer for a better look. “How much do you remember?”
“I remember the flowers,” Chime said after a moment, still feeling slow and muddled. “And the roots.”
“You told Jade they’d been calling for help by sending the birds. You said they were a kind of colony, sharing their thoughts through their roots. One of them had sent a danger signal because too many of the roots had been damaged by a storm, and it was in danger of breaking off.”
Chime remembered now. He remembered the fear, the urgency that the flowers had impressed on him. Their anguish at the thought of that loss.
“You wouldn’t let us leave,” said Tassel, looking over Stone’s shoulder. “Even when Moon snarled at you.”
Chime didn’t remember that specifically, but it sounded right. “They couldn’t leave,” he remembered. “They couldn’t stay still forever or they’d starve, but they couldn’t leave one of their own behind.”
“Sky hunters,” Stone mused. “They’re lucky it was you we sent.” He eyed Chime and added, “You, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky.”
Chime groaned quietly and tried to curl up, but that awoke bruises and aches on what felt like most of his body. “What happened?” he asked groggily. He wondered if Heart had drugged him, or if he was still sluggish from the poison.
“Jade pulled roots free and we tied them around the loose plant,” Gaze reported, now craning around Stone to look over Chime as well. “We found some vines and things that were caught in the roots, and used those too, until the plants can grow more. Frost thinks it will hold. Then the cloud started moving again, and we flew back to the colony.”
Chime started a little at the mention of Frost. He needed to thank her for everything she’d done while trying to save him. He didn’t like to think of how afraid he would have been, trapped in there alone.
“Don’t move,” Stone rumbled. “You only shifted a few hours ago, and you’re all black and blue.”
Chime subsided, his head spinning. That was partly the healing, he thought, and partly the memory of being a drifting web of roots and stems. “Moon?” he asked, and winced at how plaintively it came out.
Stone rose to his feet. “I’ll tell him you’re awake.”
Chime must have fallen asleep again, because when he next opened his eyes, it was dark in the room and the warriors were gone. There was a warm, solid body wrapped around his, and Chime relaxed back into it with a sigh, turning his head to nuzzle Moon’s cheek.
Moon rumbled at him, but he relented and nipped below Chime’s jaw, so Chime thought he was probably forgiven for nearly being eaten by a plant.
“Everybody’s safe?” Chime slurred, still half-asleep. He’d meant to ask Stone earlier, but had missed his chance.
“Everyone except you,” Moon grumbled, and nipped him again.
“Sorry,” Chime said, although he wasn’t, really. Moon knew it too, because he snorted.
Chime thought back to his experience in the communion of the flowers, and sighed quietly. Moon squeezed his hip when he didn’t speak, silently encouraging him.
“It’s nothing. Only…I still feel like I don’t fit in, sometimes—like I’m the only one left here who doesn’t have a place. And when I was…part of the plants—it was so strange, but I still… I felt like I belonged.”
Moon was quiet for a moment. Finally he said, “Flower told me once that Raksura don’t use magic; they’re made of magic. She said there was no running away from that.”
Surprise and the ache of old grief hit Chime like a physical blow. He curled in on himself, like that could protect him from the pain of memories and loss. Even long gone, Chime thought, Flower always knew the right thing to say. It made the ache a little sweeter.
Moon gently bit the back of his neck. His voice was low and certain when he spoke. “You do belong. And you have a place here. It’s just not like anyone else’s, because no one else can fill it.”
Chime gingerly twisted to nuzzle his face into Moon’s neck, and Moon growled deep in his chest, a soothing sound that washed over Chime’s tired, aching body like a balm. He breathed in Moon's scent and pressed closer hopefully.
“No sex until you’re not poisoned,” Moon informed him, although he also wrapped himself more securely around Chime, holding him against his chest.
Chime hummed agreement, and then remembered there was something he hadn’t had time to share with Moon.
“Just in case it comes up…” he said carefully. “There’s something I should tell you about Ember.”