10. Jade in the Golden Isles: In the Time of Indigo Cloud's Eastern Colony

Jade took one last look at Moon. He lay sprawled face-down on a low couch in the center of the open court, his hair still wet with saltwater. The white clay walls reflected the sun and made the court baking hot, perfect for half-drowned Raksura. Jade hissed to herself and stepped back into the adjoining room.

The palace of the Gerent and the trading guilds on the Golden Isles was the first groundling habitation Jade had ever seen the inside of, and she knew they had to be careful. The Islanders seemed friendly and grateful, but the Fell had followed them here from Indigo Cloud, and any safety this place had was temporary. And one didn't leave consorts unguarded in strange territory.

Even if they were feral consorts who had just helped her take down a Fell ruler. "Keep an eye on him," she told Chime. "I'll send Branch, Song, and Root to help you."

Chime looked back out into the court.  "I will," he assured her.  "It would be more helpful if you kept Root."

Jade would be negotiating with the Gerent, the leader of the Islander groundlings, and she didn't need Root tagging along. If she had realized how far he was into the awkward, overly aggressive stage young male warriors experienced, she wouldn't have brought him. "Probably, but I'm sending him anyway."

She went on through to the main room, where Balm and the others waited. She sent the other warriors off to take up guard positions around the court, then lowered her voice to say to Balm, "This was my fault, I shouldn't have told him to go after the cloud-walker."

Balm was in her groundling form, and shrugged a little. "I don't know. The two of you together got that ruler faster than we could have.  If it had gotten away--"

"I know, but--  I almost got a consort killed."  An unattached consort.  An unattached consort who was supposed to be Jade's consort, except so far she hadn't done a very good job of making that happen. She honestly couldn't tell if he was completely repulsed by her or just indifferent.

"He knew what he was doing," Balm said, her expression thoughtful. "He knows how to fight, Jade, and he wasn't afraid to take that ruler to the ground. If you hadn't killed it, he would have dragged it under and drowned with it."

Jade hissed in frustration. "Don't say that like it's a good thing." It wasn't, not for a consort.

"I know, but it was..." Balm made a helpless gesture. "You thought so too."

Yes, it was hard not to admire Moon's skill at flying and fighting. Maybe Jade hadn't really believed the story until now, however unlikely it was that Stone could be fooled. It was just hard to imagine a consort living on his own, hunting to survive, protecting himself from predators. Let alone going after a Fell ruler like it was a grasseater, with that naked determination to tear it apart, with so little concern for personal survival. Consorts were predators, too, just like all Aeriat, and to a lesser extent the Arbora. But you never expected to see consorts fight, unless they had to defend the court in an emergency. Of course, Indigo Cloud had been prone to those kinds of emergencies, at least in the past couple of decades.

Jade thought about what it would be like to have a consort who didn't need to be protected. Or at least thought he didn't need to be protected.  She wasn't certain if that would be a benefit.

It wasn't necessary to like your consort, and maybe in this situation where the court's survival was at stake and there was no choice, that would be best. Jade had felt the echo of Pearl's devastation when Rain had died, intertwined with her own pain, and that sense of loss had never gone away. She didn't know what it would be like to feel that much. She didn't know that she wanted to.

But pulling him out of the sea had been the first time she had touched him. Not that hauling a nearly inert body out of a mass of weed nets was exciting. But there was something about the feel of his groundling skin against her scales that was completely different from anyone else Jade had ever touched. She suspected this was one of those things she should have learned from another queen, but Amber had died and then Pearl had been in too much distress and the time for that sort of talking had passed. "He flinches every time I get near him," she said, irrelevantly. "I feel like a monster."

Balm hissed out a breath and rubbed her face tiredly. "I want to tell you not to rush, but there's no time."

"I know."  Jade flicked her spines absently.  "I know."