27. The Sky Copper Clutch at Indigo Cloud

"I'm going to do it," Frost said.

"It's a bad idea," Thorn told her. Bitter nodded solemnly.

Frost felt her spines lift. She had expected them to support her. They always supported her. "You're just jealous you can't do it," she snapped.

Thorn was unimpressed. Bitter tilted his head in a way that conveyed both rebuke and irony. Thorn said, "You're just mad that we think you're being stupid."

Frost braced to leap on them. They both glared at her, not the least bit intimidated. They were in the nurseries, in one of the sleeping rooms off the main area, and all the teachers were busy bathing the babies, the splashing and shrieking covering their voices. Anything like a real fight would still draw their attention, and Blossom and Bell would be furious if someone got hurt. And Thorn and Bitter knew they could beat her by working together, and she knew it too. When Moon played wrestling games with the fledglings and Arbora babies, he taught them lots of tricks. She growled, "Why am I stupid?"

"The queens are going to be furious if you go up there," Thorn said. He gave her a push to the shoulder and Frost batted his hand away, but it was a half-hearted gesture. "You're too little."

"I'm not too little." Frost was so angry she added, "If we were home, I'd be a daughter queen."

Thorn froze for a heartbeat, then he hissed at her. He shifted and whipped away, vanishing around the corner.

Bitter regarded her with grim disappointment. Frost tried to keep her spines up, but she was all too aware that she had violated their agreement.

On the flying boat on the way to the Reaches, Stone, Rill, and Bell had explained that they couldn't go home, because there was no home to go to.  Frost knew it was true, they all knew it was true. They had seen their birthqueen killed, torn to pieces trying to defend the nurseries.  But it was easier not to talk about it. If they didn't talk about it, the Sky Copper court was still alive somewhere. They had lived at Sky Copper, they had been captured by the Fell, they had been rescued and now they were Moon's clutch. It was better to not acknowledge the reason why.

Frost had broken their unspoken rule, and she fought not to look guilty.

Bitter glared at her. He stepped close and whispered, "You are a daughter queen."

"I know. But not..." Not her birthqueen's daughter queen. Frost hissed out a breath and abruptly wanted to keen like a baby. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and said, "It's not something consorts understand."

Bitter's eyeroll was eloquent. He grabbed her wrist and towed her out of the room and around to their sleeping cubby. Thorn sat there on the cushions with Pebble in his lap. The young Arbora looked up at Frost and said, "Frost is bad."

"I am not." Exasperated, Frost plopped down on the cushions and pulled Pebble into her own lap. Bitter sat next to her. Frost untangled Pebble's frills, still damp from her bath, and said, reluctantly, "I'm sorry."

Thorn didn't look any less angry. "This isn't a game. You just want to feel important."

She knew it looked like that. Like Frost wanted attention at any price. But it wasn't that. She said, "Queens fight a lot, but they have to support each other. Pearl needs somebody to support her. We have to make sure the other queens know that." It was hard to put it into words, but it was something she knew in her bones. When the court was threatened, the queens had to stand together. And Frost knew she wasn't old enough, but she felt like she was almost old enough. Like she was reaching for something that was only a finger's width beyond her grasp. She didn't know how to say any of that.

Bitter nudged Thorn. Thorn looked at him, and made a face. Bitter, implacable, continued to stare. Thorn sighed and turned to Frost. He said, "If you go to the meeting, they'll get mad, and waste time being mad at you instead of the Fell."

Frost flicked her spines and looked away. She didn't think that was what would happen. The meeting was too important, no one would disrupt it because a daughter queen wanted to attend. Pebble leaned against her chest and shifted, her scent changing as she lost her scales. Frost thought of the Arbora babies in the Sky Copper nurseries and said, "All right, I won't go."

She would go.