The moths did not look for a dry road when they came down. They looked for dinner.
Below the dark granite wall of the northern ridge, a broad basin of steaming pools, gravel hummocks, and waist-high brown sedge stretched for miles across the plateau. Every fifty paces, geothermal vents bubbled up through beds of chalky white marl, and around their warm rims grew dense thickets of night-blooming mineral flowers—tall, fleshy stalks hung with pale bells that smelled like warm wet slate and wild anise.
As soon as that scent rose into the twilight, all twelve giant moths tipped their wings and spiraled down through the mist.
The old female landed first on a broad hummock of warm shingle, her six foot claws skidding through the wet pebbles before she braked with a wide sweep of her patched wings. Ysabet slid down over the moth’s shoulder, catching herself with her left hand against the gravel so she would not jar her sore ribs, and lifted Pip down onto the shingle. Ashaun unhooked her stone forearm from the hemp girth, cut the cord free with her belt knife so no loop remained on the moth’s chest, and stepped clear.
Thirty yards away, the russet male set Osha down in ankle-deep warm water, and Lilt glided in low over the reeds to land beside a bank of steaming moss.
