by Martha Wells
Fell always spoke in the language of their prey, and the progenitor’s attention made Heart’s skin creep.
“Proof I don’t lie,” Consolation said. The kethel behind Heart stirred restlessly. Consolation added, “Don’t come any closer.”
The progenitor’s gaze fixed on Consolation. “Stupid to take an Arbora. They will know you are close.”
“They know you’re close,” Consolation retorted. “You’re all over the fields.”
There was a moment of silence. Heart realized the progenitor was trying to impose herself on Consolation’s mind, the way the rulers could on groundlings and unlucky Raksura. Consolation didn’t look away, but she let out a bored hiss. “Satisfied?”
The progenitor drew back as if repulsed. “Abomination.”
Consolation’s spines moved and she made a noise that might have been a laugh. “That’s what my mother said before I killed her.”
Heart bit the inside of her cheek and thought Careful. They didn’t want the progenitor’s mind to go to traps. Beside Heart, First’s claws sunk into the moss, a gesture of anxiety that Heart fully sympathized with.
The progenitor apparently decided there was no point in more games. “Tell us where the colony is.”
Consolation shook her mane of frills. “You haven’t heard what I want. You agree first.”
“I don’t bargain with an abomination.”
Consolation stared at her, her spines trembling. She turned abruptly. “We’re going.” First reached for Heart’s arm. She twitched away from him in startled reflex.
The progenitor didn’t betray any anger. “You play with us like prey.”
Consolation snarled, “I want what I want. You give it to me or I don’t give you what I have.”
The silence stretched. Two of the progenitor’s rulers moved forward to flank her, the dakti and kethel drawing closer. The kethel behind Heart reared up. She felt it towering over her and quailed convincingly, though she was mostly relieved. The Fell had finally been lured into the right positions.
The progenitor said, “Then bargain.”
Consolation seemed to brace herself. “The tree. When they’re the dead, the tree. And a consort, alive.”
“No.”
Consolation did a convincing imitation of mortal offense. “What, no? Why not?”
“You wish to breed, breed with your rulers.”
Where is she? Heart wondered. What is she waiting for—
That was when she realized one of the rulers was on the ground and Malachite stood beside the progenitor.
First and the other dakti near Heart squeaked in unfeigned terror and the kethel jerked back. The breath caught in Heart’s throat as she stared. I knew she was there, and I forgot. She made us all forget. Heart concentrated, reaching for the memory of the last few moments, the way she did for sudden visions. She realized she had seen Malachite come up from between the rocks that blocked the view of the pool. That Malachite had walked between Consolation’s dakti without alerting them, up to the progenitor’s ruler and slashed his throat.
Consolation flinched and dropped into a crouch. The remaining rulers keened in startled fear and leapt backward. Consolation’s kethel moved closer, within pouncing distance of Malachite but also near to the progenitor’s kethel.
The progenitor snarled, “We know you, Malachite of Opal Night. Have you come to join us?”
Malachite flared her spines with predatory deliberation as she circled to the left, delicately stepping around the choking ruler. “Always the same offers, always the same mistakes.”
The progenitor drew back, gathering herself. “You were foolish to come here alone.”
Malachite stopped. She bared her fangs in amusement. “There is a question you should ask yourself.”
The progenitor braced to leap. “We know the abomination aids you. We expected a trap. Others come and you cannot kill us all.”
Unperturbed, Malachite continued, “The question is: was this mound here yesterday?”
The progenitor went still. She started to turn and Malachite leapt forward.
And the other side of the mound exploded. Dirt rained down as the kethel hidden inside stood up and surged over the progenitor’s kethel. A gold form flashed out as Pearl appeared and a storm of Indigo Cloud and Opal Night warriors followed her into the air. Then the half-Fell leapt on the progenitor’s dakti and kethel and everything collapsed into claws and fangs and growling.
In the hours of darkness, the Arbora had crept out here and transformed this spot, removing the turf, digging the hiding chamber and the shafts to allow in air for the warriors, Pearl, and the single kethel, then replanting the grass and weeds. Malachite must have dug in somewhere too, though Heart wasn’t sure where.
Heart should have stayed out of the battle as Pearl had ordered but she lunged into the center of it, bloodlust whiting out conscious thought. A dakti raced for Malachite and Heart shifted in mid-leap and landed on it. It tore at her chest but her heavier claws ripped through its throat as she rolled. She shoved upright and shook the mutilated body off her.
Pearl’s golden form flashed overhead, the warriors fought the dakti in snarling knots. Kethel battled in the air and a struggling cluster of them bounced off the edge of the pool. Malachite and the progenitor slammed across the hilltop, a fury of scales and claws that rammed through a scatter of dakti. Consolation wrestled with a ruler but Pearl hit them both from above, peeled the ruler away from Consolation and ripped his head off.
Consolation staggered free, then leapt to land on the progenitor’s back. But the progenitor was too big, too strong. She rolled and crushed Consolation under her weight combined with Malachite’s. As the combatants rolled away they left Consolation in the flattened grass, stunned. Heart leapt toward her to guard her from the progenitor’s dakti.
The progenitor broke away from Malachite and they faced each other. Malachite’s scales bore slashes and streaks of blood, hers mingled with the progenitor’s. Malachite bared bloody fangs in a predator’s smile and said, “Finish it.”
The progenitor snarled back, “I intend to.”
Heart crouched, watching wide-eyed.
Malachite said, “I wasn’t talking to you,” just as Pearl leapt atop the progenitor’s head.
Consolation shoved unsteadily to her feet, but a ruler leapt at her. Heart lunged forward to help her but staggered sideways as another dakti slammed into her. Heart swung it around, bit into its throat. A ruler grabbed her from behind and she clawed at its arms, too enraged to feel terror.
Then First and a swarm of half-Fell dakti landed on them. Heart bit into the ruler’s arm, aware of the strange sensation of a half-Fell dakti prying the ruler’s claws out of her frills. The ruler wrenched away, snarling. Heart staggered to her feet and saw Pearl with her foot claws buried deep in the progenitor’s neck and Malachite tearing at her stomach and chest. The progenitor tried to extend her jaw, then Malachite widened her own and bit down into the progenitor’s face.
Then a dakti grabbed Heart’s arm and she nearly shredded it before she recognized it as First. It pointed toward the east. “There! There!”
Heart squinted into the distance. A dozen kethel and a cloud of dakti shot through the sky, coming this way. “Pearl!” she shouted. They had to go, now, the progenitor was dying and . . . The kethel weren’t coming. They were falling. Falling out of the sky.
Vision struck again and Heart saw a cold wave from somewhere out of the southeast, moving over the plain like a wall of ice, destroying everything in its wake. She felt the pressure of it already, in the places in her head that sensed direction, that controlled her mentor’s skills, that allowed her to shift. She shouted, “Pearl, Pearl, we have to go! It’s coming!”
The progenitor flung Malachite away, and staggered back. The other Fell screamed at her and she stared toward the east and the dark shapes dropping out of the sky. The quiet spread like a pool as the others felt it, Fell and half-Fell and Raksura alike, everyone starin
g into the east. Pearl landed beside Heart and snarled, “What is it?”
“Death.” Heart shook the vision off. “We have to run, it’s almost too late!”
Pearl grabbed Heart and whirled around. “Go! To the trees!”
The nearest warriors were all Indigo Cloud. They snatched up their wounded and dying and bounded away to leap into flight. Floret, Aura, and Sand landed beside Pearl. The Opal Night warriors waited, watching Malachite.
Malachite shoved to her feet but the progenitor snarled and leapt away. She landed further down the mound, then sprung into flight. Rulers, dakti, and kethel curved up to follow her.
The half-Fell were left behind, confused and hesitating. Consolation stumbled to her feet, blood dripping down her side. First keened in fear to see her hurt, but Consolation shouted and leapt upward. First and the rest of the half-Fell flight launched themselves after her.
Malachite took a step forward as if she meant to follow the progenitor. Loud enough to make Heart’s ears ring, Pearl bellowed, “Malachite, tell your warriors to run for the trees if you don’t want them all to die!”
That got through to her. Malachite turned back, flicked her spines, and all the Opal Night warriors were suddenly alight. The jolt when Pearl flung herself into the air after them took Heart’s breath. She managed to wrench her head around to get a look back.
The wave of death crossed the wetlands toward them. In the distance another flight of Fell exploded up into the air, a cloud of frantic black dots, then slowed, and dropped like stones. “Hurry,” Heart hissed, “faster.” She felt Pearl’s wingbeats in her own chest as they shot into the green shadow of the mountain-trees. Their path became erratic as Pearl dodged branches and kept flying. All around them were warriors, the half-Fell dakti and kethel.
Then a wave of pain took Heart’s senses, and she saw—
—red light on a dark slate surface, fire washing against it, cracking, splintering, dissolving, falling—
Heart gasped in a breath. “It’s stopped, it’s stopped,” she managed.
“Are you sure?” Pearl’s voice said in her ear.
It had stopped and there was death behind them, across the plain. “Yes. They did it.” She had a clear image of Jade and Balm, falling back from an opening, and someone else, a strange groundling woman.
Pearl’s body jerked as she adjusted her course, and she called out to the warriors to stop. Floret and Sand and the others echoed her, then the unfamiliar voices of the Opal Night warriors.
Pearl landed and Heart lifted her head to find them crouched on the broad branch of a stunted mountain-tree. The birdsong and hum of insects and other life, silenced by their wild flight, was just starting to return. Pain coursed through Heart’s legs, her arms, her back, but it was fading. Their own warriors had landed on branches above and below, and near Pearl was Consolation and First. The Opal Night warriors and the half-Fell dakti and kethel were scattered through the group.
Pearl rose up a little, and said, “Floret? Is anyone hurt?”
On the next branch Floret pushed upright. She shook out her frills unsteadily, her claws gripping the bark. “Aura, Sand, Spring, Drift, Band, Coil, Fair . . . Who has Serene, I know she was hurt . . .”
“Coil’s dead,” Aura reported, her voice rough with shock.
Pearl hissed and Heart winced. Answering calls came as Rise tumbled down from the branch above and began collecting Opal Night warriors. The dakti chittered above them and a kethel rumbled.
Malachite dropped down onto the branch on the far side of Consolation. Consolation twitched and First flinched right off the branch, falling down to the one below. Pearl said, “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” Malachite’s spines didn’t move.
Pearl snarled, “You do know.”
Consolation looked from Pearl to Malachite and back, spines flicking.
“I have a suspicion,” Malachite admitted. “I need to see.” She jumped straight up to the branch above, then took flight up through the mountain-tree’s canopy.
“I hate you,” Pearl muttered, and followed her.
Heart shut her eyes as they hit the curtains of leaves in the upper canopy, then blinked as they came out into sunlight. Malachite lit on a bare curving limb stump that spiraled up out of the green sea of mountain-tree crowns. Pearl landed on the branch collar just below her. The blue sky curved over them and they had a view of the wetlands.
Malachite stared toward the east and Heart followed her gaze as Consolation belatedly scrambled up below them.
All over the wetlands, the dark shapes of Fell, some single and some in groups, were taking to the air and flying away. They moved slowly, like they were in pain. Like their joints and gut ached like Heart’s did. It wasn’t a coordinated effort, their courses were scattered, some directly east, some northeast, some south along the edge of the Reaches. They were fleeing in confusion.
Heart said, “Some of the Fell are dead. Maybe a lot of them.” The vision still lingered in her thoughts, and she could see bodies strewn in the weed-choked ponds and reed-grass. Her brow furrowed as she turned over a stray image, another body lying in a different field, the dry grass more yellow than green . . .
“But not the progenitor,” Malachite said. “She got away.”
“She’s just one progenitor,” Pearl said. “I’m sure we can find some dead ones for you out in the marshes—”
Malachite turned on her with a hiss. “She was the one who brought the others together. You don’t think she’ll blame us for this? She will regroup, with even more power now that other progenitors are dead. She will do this again.”
Pearl hissed. But below, Consolation said, “She’s right. I don’t want her to be right, but she’s right.”
Heart felt Pearl’s throat move in a soundless snarl. Pearl said flatly, “You want to follow her?”
“Yes.”
“And what if that happens again?” Pearl demanded. “Whatever it was?”
Heart touched the last image of the vision, the details scattering into dust as she tried to gather them. But the sense of finality was still there. “I don’t think it will. I’ll have to consult with the other mentors, but . . . I think it’s over.”
Pearl said, “Heart, keep your visions to yourself for the moment,” but her tone was more disgruntled than angry. She sounded exactly like herself. Shaken to her core by what had just happened, Heart hugged her in relief.
Pearl absently patted Heart’s head. She said to Malachite, “I can’t stop you from going. And I admit it’s exactly the sort of mad exploit you excel at.”
Malachite still stared toward the east. She looked down at Pearl. “I don’t need anyone to tell me to go. But perhaps I need you to tell me when to stop.”
Silence hung in the air, just the wind in the leaves and the distant cry of a cloud-walker. Consolation had climbed up far enough to watch them with more fascination than wariness. Heart suspected progenitors didn’t talk to each other like this. She was a little astonished to hear Pearl spoken to like this.
Pearl hissed out a breath of mingled exasperation and weariness. “Back to the colony first. We have wounded.”
Jade couldn’t stand to be near anyone but Balm.
The storm caused by the ruin’s fall had thrown the wind-ship some distance from the site of the structure’s final collapse. Now it was late afternoon and the sun warm on the deck as the clouds cleared and a column of smoke rose on the horizon. Jade stood at the rail, Balm beside her, a hand around her wrist as if Balm thought she needed to tie Jade to the deck. Maybe it was needed; Jade might have flown away, except her back muscles were strained from the effort to reach the wind-ship. She had shifted to her Arbora form, but it still felt like spikes had been jammed into her back.
This is what happened to Pearl, Jade thought. Even her secondhand experience with that devastation through Pearl’s connection to the court, even her own grief for Rain, was nothing to this. She suddenly understood Malachite all too well.
>
The warriors were exhausted, sick, injured when they had struggled out of the debris, and their two mentors weren’t in much better shape. She could hear muffled wailing from one of the belowdecks cabins. Jade should be taking care of them, instead of letting Bramble take charge. An Arbora, a hunter, who should never have been in this situation in the first place.
But she couldn’t make herself leave the rail. She was going to have to return to the Reaches and look at her clutch, at the three baby consorts that might grow up to have Moon’s eyes.
Behind her she heard soft steps on the deck, then Delin said, “Balm, can you tell Jade that Stone is flying ahead?”
That shocked Jade into movement. She turned. “Stone’s hurt.” He had had to dig their way out of the collapsing passage.
Delin’s brow was furrowed with concern. “Rorra cleaned and bandaged his hands. He said he doesn’t need them to fly.”
He shouldn’t go alone, Jade thought. She should go with him; she couldn’t fly but he could carry her. No, she couldn’t leave the warriors and Arbora now. Before she could think who to send with him, who wasn’t injured or exhausted, she felt the wind-ship tremble and Stone’s dark form dropped off the stern. He slid sideways and caught the wind, flapped for altitude and shot off toward the column of smoke in the distance.
Jade started to hiss but lost the will for it midway through drawing breath. If Stone wanted to fly ahead, let him. Her gaze fell on Balm, who was in her groundling form. The sleeves of her borrowed Kishan jacket were ripped and her arms were scratched and bruised. Her cheeks were hollow and a bruise darkened on her temple. Jade said, “Balm needs some tea.”
Balm’s nod was serious. “So do you.”
Delin lifted a hand and one of the young Islanders hurried forward with two cups. Delin took them and handed them to Jade and Balm. Jade drank hers, barely noticing that it was an Islander tea and already cool. It had been a mistake to speak, since once Jade had started, she couldn’t just stop again. She handed Delin back the cup and said, “Who’s that below?”
