Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) Read Free Page B

curling up in a ball. Moon arranged Solace, Sapphire, and Rain next to Thorn. It calmed abraded nerves just to come down here and touch their little soft-scaled bodies. He felt better able to think about this logically now. “I need to get back to Jade.” She was going to want to know the nurseries weren’t in chaos, for one thing. “Frost, keep an eye on everyone, all right?”
    When the Sky Copper clutch had first come to the court, Frost had been, off and on, an incorrigible terror. Over the past couple of turns, Frost had gradually been getting better, either from growing more secure at Indigo Cloud or just getting a little older.
    Moon had expected her, and maybe the two fledgling consorts, to be jealous of his new clutch, but it had just seemed to make all three of them happier and easier to deal with. Bitter, who had refused to speak to anyone but his clutchmates, had even started to talk to the new babies. Maybe a new royal Aeriat clutch, along with the clutches that the Arbora had produced, had been another sign of security in their new court and colony.
    Frost hesitated, clearly torn between wanting to watch over the other clutches and wanting to be a part of whatever was going on. She said, grudgingly, “Someday I’ll be big, and I can fight the monsters.”
    “It’s not a monster.” Moon pushed to his feet, and thought, Probably not a monster . In the Reaches, anything was possible.
    Blossom followed him out to the doorway. Keeping his voice low, Moon said, “So whoever did it, didn’t want to upset the clutches.”
    “Which means it was one of us. Unintentionally, I mean.” Blossom eyed him a moment. “Could it be Chime?”
    Moon hesitated. Before Moon had come to Indigo Cloud, Chime had been an Arbora and a mentor. The Fell influence at the old colony had caused disease and a drop in warrior births, and one day, Chime had shifted and found himself a warrior. This was apparently a natural process that happened in courts on the decline, but that hadn’t made it any easier for Chime to cope with. Warriors never had mentor powers, and so Chime had also lost his ability to heal, to augur, and to manipulate rocks and flora to produce heat and light. But the change had affected him in odd ways, and he had gained the ability to hear things he shouldn’t be able to, and to get odd insights about groundling magic.
    Those insights had warned them of traps, but had also lured Chime into dangerous situations. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that something had made Chime do this. But while Chime could hear strange things, he had never shown any ability to make anyone, including other Raksura, hear him. Moon said, “Maybe, but I doubt it. I think he’d know if he did.”
    Blossom nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true. He always does seem to know.”
    Another consort whipped through the passage down from the teachers’ hall, not quite with the speed Moon had. Ember jolted to a halt and shifted to his groundling form. He said, “They said you were already here. Is everything all right?”
    “They didn’t have the dream,” Moon told him. “Did you?” Ember was Pearl’s consort, given to Indigo Cloud by the court of Emerald Twilight. His skin was a lighter bronze than usual for the Aeriat of Indigo Cloud or Emerald Twilight, and his hair was a light gold-brown. He was young and had been gently raised, but had a comprehensive knowledge of court politics in the Reaches, which made him nearly the opposite of Moon in every respect. Moon liked him, but Ember made him feel large, awkward, and like the feral disaster that most of Indigo Cloud had considered him when he had first arrived.
    Ember nodded, stepping past Moon and Blossom to look worriedly into the nurseries. “So did Pearl. I saw Floret on the way down and she said she did too.” He told Blossom, “I’ll help you get the babies settled.” Like a real consort, Ember was good with clutches. Pearl was probably only waiting another turn