Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below by Martha Wells

Author:Martha Wells [Wells, Martha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781597805803
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Published: 2015-06-01T21:00:00+00:00

Moon found Balm in her bower, a few levels down in the warriors’ living area. Balm had a very nice bower, with a balcony looking out on the central well, next to a room with a hot bathing pool. This whole cluster of bowers had been claimed by female warriors and the older males like Vine and Sage. From what Moon could tell, they had all sensibly forced the younger males to go live somewhere else.

He knew Balm had gone down here earlier to sleep, but she was sitting on the furs near her hearth bowl, holding a book but not reading it. She looked up when he ducked in.

He said quickly, “Jade wants you to sit with her,” so she wouldn’t think anything was wrong.

Balm rolled the book up and tucked it back into its cover. “How is she?” She was in her groundling form, her build slim but strong, with her skin a dark bronze and her hair curly and honey-colored. Jade and Balm had come from the same clutch, and it had taken Moon a while to see it, but Balm’s sharp features bore a distinct resemblance to Jade’s. In her winged form she had gold scales, close to Pearl’s shade.

“About the same,” Moon told her. “Mad. Stone said he could still hear the babies, and everyone is acting like everything is fine.”

Balm nodded. “How are you?”

Moon shrugged, and said, honestly, “I have no idea. How are you?”

“I didn’t think it would be this … nerve-racking,” Balm admitted. “The Arbora make it look so easy, even when it’s their first time.” She frowned as she got to her feet. “Part of me is excited and can’t wait to see the babies. Another part of me is terrified something will go wrong and I feel like if I have to wait any longer, the top of my head will split. I can’t think about anything else.”

That was a good description of it. Moon didn’t know why everyone didn’t feel that way.

Balm took the direct route up the central well to the queens’ hall, but Moon knew he did need a break. Flying to expend some nervous energy would make him feel better, but he had no intention of leaving the vicinity of the colony, and a few fast loops around the outside of the mountain-tree weren’t very fulfilling. So he went down to the nurseries.

They were deep into the trunk of the mountain-tree, near the teachers’ hall. A maze of well-lit, low-ceilinged chambers, with several shallow fountain pools, now comfortably noisy with Aeriat fledglings and young Arbora and the teachers who took care of them. Moon lay on his back on the floor in the main area and let the babies sit on his chest. It helped a little.

Most of his life had been spent in a state of painful anxiety and tension while trying to appear normal—or whatever passed for normal wherever he currently was—on the surface. Waiting for the clutch to arrive should have been easy, or at least no more nerve-racking than he was normally used to.

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