Free Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) by Martha Wells

other’s bowers all the time. Whoever it belonged to probably wouldn’t mind the line-grandfather and the first consort having a fight in it, as long as nobody broke anything.
    As Stone turned to face him, Moon said, “If you hit me, I’ll bite your face off.”
    Stone ignored the threat, probably because he didn’t feel very threatened by it. “What do you think we’re going to do? Follow the groundlings to this city and drive off the Fell?”
    Moon hadn’t been expecting Stone to cut through to the heart of the situation that way, and it silenced any retorts he had ready. He didn’t want to go to some far-off place to fight Fell. He didn’t want to leave his clutch. But that didn’t change the situation. “We can’t just ignore this.” He didn’t know what Jade would want, or how she felt about this. Or how angry she would be at the idea. “What if there is something in there that gives the Fell what the other one promised them?”
    Stone groaned and rubbed his face tiredly. “Good question.”
    That was the point when Moon understood that Stone had dragged him down here not to yell at him, but so they could decide what to do. That wasn’t reassuring, since he had been hoping Stone already knew what they should do. One thing Moon had figured out since joining the court was that being the one who pointed out what things were wrong was relatively easy compared to being the one who had to decide what to do about them.
    Moon turned away, pacing absently until he reached the bowl hearth. The stones in it were only giving off a faint warmth and needed to be renewed. “If this isn’t a forerunner city and the Fell just think it is for some reason, then . . . But how else would they know about it?” The being in the other city had drawn the Fell to itself through turns of effort, with a mental call that Raksura couldn’t hear.
    “The Fell could have heard about the city in Kish,” Stone said.
    Moon turned to frown at him. “You mean, Fell rulers in Kish? I thought they couldn’t get into the cities because of the Kish shamen.” Like Delin had mentioned, Kish shamen had special magic that allowed them to spot Fell rulers, and it also made the shamen immune to the Fell’s ability to confuse and deceive. Moon had always believed it was the main reason why the Fell avoided Kish territory, not fear of the Kishan weapons.
    “Not rulers.” Stone lifted his brows at Moon’s expression. “What? You know they can make groundlings do whatever they want. You think they’ve never caught some groundlings and sent them into Kish to spy?”
    That was a thought. Fell could plant suggestions in groundling minds, make them forget they had ever encountered Fell in the first place, make them remember events that had never happened. If they could send a groundling into a place to see and hear things, and come back to the Fell to report, it would avoid the shamen altogether. The groundlings wouldn’t even know they were spies, and the Fell would probably eat them when they were done with them, destroying any evidence. “So if one of the scholars involved talked about this map where others could hear, and the Fell found out about it, they could find a groundling who could get close to the explorers—”
    “Who could still be with them.” Jade leaned in the bower’s doorway.
    Moon twitched in automatic guilt. He supposed it was unlikely that his and Stone’s sudden exit had gone unnoticed. Jade spotted the guilt and demanded, “What? What are you planning?”
    “Nothing,” Moon said. He added honestly, “Yet.”
    She sighed and stepped into the bower. “I suppose you both realize we have to send someone to that city to see what’s really going on.”
    It was a relief that Jade was willing to admit it, too. Moon felt some of the tension drain out of his chest. He didn’t want to go against Jade on this.
    Stone said pointedly, “We realize it, and you realize it. Will Pearl realize it?”
    Jade didn’t answer