8. Jade and Balm: In the Time of Indigo Cloud's Eastern Colony

Jade climbed down the wall toward the garden of the teachers' court. She stopped above the doorway, clinging to the stones of the vine-covered lintel. She could hear the Arbora inside talking in confusion, excitement, dismay.

Jade knew how they felt.  She just didn't know how she felt.

Below, Balm stepped out of the hall.  Jade hissed quietly.  Balm glanced up and spotted her, then looked over her shoulder to make sure no one in the hall had noticed. Jade was glad of it; the last thing she wanted to do right now was face the Arbora's concern and questions.

Balm leapt up to catch the wall beside her and they climbed the pyramid hastily. They ducked into the cubby around the opening to one of the airshafts.  It was sheltered from above and below, so they had privacy to talk.

Balm settled in the corner, curling her tail around, watching Jade expectantly. Keeping her voice low, Jade said, "So, I saw him. Just for an instant."

Balm nodded. "I didn't, I was hiding in the passage, listening. Well, Bell and Bark saw me, but they didn't say anything." Her brow was furrowed in worry. "Jade, he didn't know he was a consort."

Jade groaned.  "I know, Stone just told me.  He had to trick him to get him here."   Her head was still reeling from that revelation. She couldn't even imagine what that was like, not to just grow up outside a court, but to have no idea courts even existed. She squinted up at the sky. "I hope he's coming back." She could have gone after him herself, but unattached queens didn't chase unattached consorts. Especially unattached consorts who were running away from the whole idea that queens existed. And it wasn't as if Jade had any idea what she was going to say to him at this point, anyway.  

"Chime and Flower went after him.  I think that's best, they're better at..."   Balm waved a hand helplessly.  "This kind of thing."  She hissed in frustration.  "What was Stone thinking?"

Jade was certain the last three or four generations of the court had asked themselves that same question periodically. "I think it was a test." Solitaries were exiled for terrible crimes, they couldn't afford to let one into Indigo Cloud, no matter how desperate they were. "That's the only rational explanation I can think of."

Balm's expression was still dubious. "He had to make sure he really wasn't a solitary, I see that. But..."

 "Right. It's not going to make things any easier." Jade slumped against the roughly textured wall. Before this, she had had little idea how to approach a consort she had never met before. Now she had to think how to approach a consort who didn't know what a consort was.

She and Balm sat in glum silence for a moment. Then Balm said, "Are you disappointed? That he's not from Star Aster?"

Joining the court's bloodline to the prestigious Star Aster would have been an achievement, but the need to move the court was more important than anything else right now.   Jade twitched her spines in a negative.  She had been nervous about what a consort from a big powerful court would be like anyway, especially one willing to leave it to come to Indigo Cloud. In every scenario she had imagined they were lucky to end up with awkward disappointment and not anything worse. This was different. And just a little intriguing. "No...not really."

Something in Jade's tone made Balm lift her brows. "So... What did he look like?"

"He's...not what you'd expect." Jade found her throat was a little dry, thinking about that brief meeting.  "His conformation is...good.  Really good."   Dust and Burn hadn't been idle or weak, flying all around the colony's valley with Jade and Balm and the other young warriors, playing hard and racing the wind. Rain had been strong and a good fighter, like all the consorts of his generation and the one before, who had had to help defend the court against the predator species who had tried to move into the valley. It wasn't as if Jade had never seen an attractive consort before.

But he was all lean muscle, so lean he might have been on the edge of being underfed. Like someone who had had to fight not just to defend his court, but for survival. He had the broad shoulders that meant strong wings, and a thick mane of frills tangled in his spines. The rich black of his scales had a bronze undersheen catching the light. She had just caught his scent before he had fled, just a taste of it. Jade cleared her throat.

Balm, watching her carefully, nodded.  "Good. Did he react to you?  Could you tell?"

Jade had been too busy reacting to him to notice much, but she didn't think he had really seen her. "I don't think he knew I was a queen." For any other Raksura, that would have been a bizarre notion. Jade would have liked to see it as an advantage, but she didn't think it would work out that way.

Balm frowned slowly.  "That's a problem.  I mean, at least one of you should know what you're doing."

Jade agreed.  "So what should I do now?"

Balm took a deep breath.  "Well... He didn't know he was a consort, but he is one, so...  Nothing's changed.  You should court him.  Start with the gifts."

"Right.  That's right."  At least choosing what to give him would be easier now, since the Arbora had reported that he didn't have anything with him except the clothes he was wearing. Indigo Cloud wouldn't be trying to compete with Star Aster's wealth and artistry.

"It'll be fine," Balm said, and drew her away down the air shaft. "Let's get started."

end

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I also wanted to let everyone know the next Raksura novel, The Edge of Worlds, is up for preorder in hardcover and ebook (it isn't on Kobo or iTunes yet, but it should be there by mid March or so). It'll be released on April 5. (I haven't heard about the audiobook yet, but hopefully there will be one. It just depends on how well the previous audiobooks in the series sell.)