With his free hand, Jax snapped his whip against Mistrider's flank. "Hai!" he shouted. "Be still!"
The stag came down and danced furiously to the side, invading the area around four other animals.
They skitted away, stamping their feet and keening in quieter versions of the scream Mistrider had used to challenge the clouds.
The call of a flight-horn winged into the sky. Another horn answered, then a third. Moving together, the group headed into the forest, the animals falling into the intricate, complex rhythm of their six-legged trot. The riders took the traditional formation, half in front of Jax, half in back. Ever restless with tradition, Jax prodded Mistrider to the head of the company.
As they penetrated deeper into the woods, the noises of the camp faded. The mist suffocated sound, curling around the ancient trees. Drops of water clung to the needles. Scale dust glittered everywhere, in the air, in the mist, on the plants. Vines hung in great loops, draped over branches and twisted around trunks and fallen logs. Scaled ferns grew among the trees, their lacy heads nodding under the shifting weight of the bud-lizards that clung to the underside of their leaves, a motion all the more eerie because no wind disturbed the woods.
Kamoj saw the other riders before she heard them. She caught glimpses of stags and diskmail among the trees. Jax called out and the Ironbridge company halted, fanning out in a semi-circle several rows deep, with Jax at its center.
The Lionstar company emerged from the mist and stopped twenty paces away, greenglass stags mingled with prismatic scale-trees. Vyrl's two bodyguards flanked him, clad in black, from their boots to their heavy jackets. Both Jagernauts rode stags, huge animals big enough to support their bulk.
They sat on their mounts with an ease that unsettled Kamoj, another indication of how Vyrl's people so easily bent her way of life to theirs. Dazza and Azander rode on either side of the bodyguards, and the rest of Vyrl's stagmen fanned out from them in a much smaller semicircle than the one formed by Jax's men.
Neither Vyrl nor his people wore breathing masks. Light sheathed their bodies instead, like the shimmer curtains. Vyrl's clothes were gray with soot and his hair fell in disordered curls to his shoulders.
Kamoj's vision blurred in a haze born of fatigue, hunger, exposure, and lack of breath. She clenched her teeth against the cold. Vyrl was watching her, his face strained as if he were struggling to hear a distant song in the trees. She tried to make her thoughts placid so he wouldn't feel them.
Azander spoke. "Lionstar acknowledges Ironbridge."
The stagman on Jax's right answered. "Ironbridge acknowledges Lionstar."
"Lionstar invokes the Right of Inquiry," Azander said.
Behind Kamoj, Jax's hair rustled as he nodded his agreement to the Inquiry. His arm tightened around her waist and he shifted the quirt until its tip rested on her thigh. She understood the warning.
"Proceed with the Inquiry," Jax's stagman said.
Vyrl spoke directly to her. "Kamoj, was it really your choice to go with Ironbridge?"
Her choice? Like ice water on her face, she realized how it must look: at the first chance, she returned to the people who had been at her side for most of her life.
"Do not presume to speak to my wife," Jax said.
"She isn't your wife," Vyrl said.
"The papers were signed this afternoon," Jax said. "Your contract is annulled."
Vyrl stared at him. "You can't annul an Imperial contract."
"Perhaps you should read your own laws. A merger made through coercion is not legally binding."
"She wants to stay with me," Vyrl said. "She told me."
"You have witnesses to this?" Jax asked.
Vyrl looked at her. "Tell them."
Kamoj wanted to disappear. She tried to take a deep breath, but the boning of her underdress cut into her ribs.
"You have your answer," Jax said.
Anger sparked in Vyrl's voice. "That's because you have her too terrified to speak."
"If you came to this Inquiry to throw insults," Jax said, "I don't see much point in continuing."
Dazza spoke quietly. "Vyrl, perhaps we should-"
"I won't leave without her," Vyrl said.
"We can discuss this more privately."
"No.
"Vyrl-"
"I said no."
Dazza exhaled. "All right. Kamoj told me herself. Her marriage to you puts her in an almost impossible position. If she signed an annulment, then given her history with Ironbridge and the circumstances surrounding your merger with her, no Imperial court in its right mind will honor your claim to Argali."
He clenched Greypoint's reins. "I'm not 'claiming Argali,' damn it. I want my wife back."
"Legal won't see it that way," Dazza said.
"They'll do whatever I tell them."
Her voice cooled. "Yes, you could use your titles to take what you want. But you would be forcing the courts into breaking laws meant to protect cultures such as this from exactly this sort of mistreatment. I suggest you think long and hard about the consequences. Once it's done you can't reverse the damage. And believe me, Vyrl, the political fallout of abusing your position that way would be ugly."
Vyrl stared at her. "I'm not the one breaking laws." He turned back to Kamoj. "I know you don't want to stay with him. Tell them, Kamoj. Tell them."
She could still hear Jax's words: I will do more than burn Argali to the ground. You will watch Maxard and Lyode die. She struggled to project feelings of contentment, but her mind kept replaying the nightmare of the previous night, the roughness of Jax's hands on her ribcage, or kneading her thighs the way a cat prepares a place to sleep, or clenched on her arms as he pinned them to the mattress.
"You bastard!" Vyrl's voice exploded at Jax, and Greypoint danced under him, on the verge of rearing.
Jax spoke mildly. "Is something wrong with you, Lionstar?"
Greypoint tried to move toward Kamoj, but one of Vyrl's bodyguards grabbed the reins, his hands a blur. Kamoj hadn't believed a person could move that fast. Vyrl swore at the man, and the guard's hand dropped to a tube hanging from his belt, one of the weapons that put people to sleep.
Kamoj saw several Ironbridge stagmen exchange glances. If Vyrl kept acting this way, Jax wouldn't need to discredit him. Vyrl would do it all by himself.
Dazza, however, was focused on him. "What did you think you picked up?"
Vyrl spoke tightly. "He comes from the same stock that produced the Traders. Think about it."
She glanced at the Jagernauts. "Did you get anything?"
The man said, "There's so much hostility between Prince Havyrl and Governor Ironbridge, it's swamped everything else."
The woman nodded. "Governor Argali is frightened. But I'm not sure who she fears, us or Ironbridge."
Jax spoke in a cool voice. "As strangers here, you may not realize the insult you give with this discussion." He stopped for a well-timed pause, then touched Kamoj's hair in a show of reassurance. "Of course this causes my wife concern, particularly given what she has recently endured."
Vyrl ignored him. "You don't have to stay with him, Kamoj. We'll protect you."
The way he had protected Argali? She kept her mind numb.
"Damn it," Vyrl said. "You aren't bound to him. You have free will."
"I want you to stop harassing my wife." Jax took a breath, like a man provoked past reason, yet struggling to remain calm. Then he used his soft voice, lowering it as if he spoke only for Kamoj, yet still loud enough for the others to hear. "I am sorry. But there seems only one way to resolve this. I must ask you to speak." He paused. "To the Ascendant woman."
That startled Kamoj. He wanted her to talk to Dazza? It made no sense.
The colonel spoke in a gentle voice. "Kamoj, did you sign the Ironbridge contract of your own free will?"
"I can't write," Kamoj said. "Jax signed it for me."
"That's not legally binding," Vyrl said.
"Did you understand the documents?" Dazza asked her.
"Yes," Kamoj said. The shorter she made her answers, the less chance she had of provoking Jax.
"Did you object to the signing?"
"No."
"Were you coerced?" Dazza asked. "Threatened? Did you at any time express the wish to return to Prince Havyrl?"
"No." Kamoj answered only the last question. Did they actually believe she would acknowledge being threatened in front of the person who had done it and sixty of his armed soldiers?
"She's too frightened to say anything," Vyrl said.
Jax spoke coldly. "Lionstar, if you persist in violating the procedures of this Inquiry, Ironbridge will withdraw."
Suddenly Kamoj understood why Jax wanted her to talk to Dazza. Although she knew the colonel outranked everyone, the others must see her as an enigma. Women with authority rode with bodyguards. If a woman formed a merger with an incorporated man, he usually offered the services of his honor guard as part of his dowry, but only after they were married. Nor was Dazza an Archer. By coming alone with Vyrl and his stagmen, Dazza put herself on the level of a bondsgirl.
When Jax let her question Kamoj, he undermined Vyrl's authority by taking the Right of Inquiry away from him and giving it to someone perceived as having no authority at all.
"Kamoj can speak to whoever she wants," Vyrl said. "You don't own her."
"Of course I own her," Jax said. "The contracts are signed, and this time for a dowry beyond the ability of Argali to match."
As soon as Jax spoke, Kamoj knew he had finally made a mistake. It wasn't only Vyrl who reacted: Dazza and the Jagernauts also stiffened.
"This world is a member of the Skolian Imperialate," Vyrl said. "We may not have instituted formal assimilation procedures yet, but you are still under our umbrella. Slavery in any form is illegal according to our laws. If you signed a contract that makes Kamoj your property, you're in trouble."
Jax's hand clenched on his quirt. "You can't ride in here and demand we change customs thousands of years old because it suits your purposes. According to your own people, your laws require your government to work with ours to find resolutions to societal clashes without destroying our cultural sovereignty. Perhaps it has escaped your notice, Lionstar, but I am the government here."
Malice touched his voice. "Besides, the moment you married Kamoj in one of our temples, according to our ceremonies, with that obscene dowry you sent her, you became her owner. It would appear you too are 'in trouble.'"
"She isn't anyone's property," Vyrl said.
Kamoj couldn't bear to listen any longer. She knew Jax. Beneath his control, his rage was growing.
She was the one who would bear the brunt of it.
"Jax, I want to leave," she said.
His voice softened. "Of course." In a louder voice he said, "Ironbridge invokes a Close."
"I'm not leaving without Kamoj," Vyrl said.
Dazza spoke quietly. "If she doesn't want to go with you, do you really intend to force it?"
Vyrl stared at Kamoj. "We can protect you from him. Just say the word." His voice caught. "I can offer you the stars. All he can offer you is a lifetime of fear and pain."
Jax spoke evenly. "Answer him, Kamoj."
"I am the dutiful and willing wife of Ironbridge," she said. Was that enough? Would they leave her alone now? Did the people she loved have to die before they would listen?
"We can protect you," Vyrl said. "All you have to do is ask."
Kamoj felt Jax move the quirt. "I want to stay with my husband," she said. "Governor Ironbridge."
"No." Vyrl clenched Greypoint's reins. "No."
"She gave you your answer," Jax said. "What else did you expect? That being forced to spend a few days with a complete stranger, a man whose only interest was in assaulting her, would supersede a lifetime of dedicated companionship?"
"She never wanted to marry you," Vyrl said.
"Are you stupid?" Jax asked. "She told you what you wanted to hear. It is you that she fears, Lionstar."
Vyrl watched Kamoj. "Is that true?"
Jax stroked her hair as if to comfort her. "It's all right. Answer him. Then we can go home."
"Yes," she lied. "It's true."
Vyrl stared at her. Then his expression closed on itself. Quietly he said, "Good-bye, Kamoj."
Good-bye. The word echoed in her mind. Good-bye.
Vyrl motioned and his party reformed around him. When he pulled on Greypoint's reins, the stag danced toward Kamoj. It shook its head, once, twice, three times. She recognized the pattern. Many a greenglass went through that same dance with his young, herding them to where he thought it best they go.
Vyrl rubbed Greypoint's shoulders and pulled the reins. The stag kept trying to dance toward Kamoj. The third time Vyrl pulled, Greypoint relented and turned with the rest of the company, heading into the woods.
Good-bye. He was going. Forever. As Greypoint receded into the mist, dismay broke through Kamoj's deadened thoughts.
Behind her, Jax's muscles relaxed. He leaned his forehead against the back of her head and whispered, "It's over, pretty rose. We can go home now. Finally." Then he straightened up and pulled on Mistrider's reins, bringing the stag around.
Kamoj swallowed. Home. It was done. She and Vyrl had bounced off each other and hurtled away.
That was when she snapped. She had no idea if it was her first true act of free will or a mental breakdown born of her depleted condition. She only knew that she broke inside. Leaning to the side, she strained to see around Jax. Her body protested every move: bile rose in her throat, pinpricks danced on her skin, pain thrummed in her head.
Then she shouted, "Vyrl! Don't go!"
XI
THE BURROW
Resonance Lifetime
Jax swore and yanked her back in front of him. A roaring filled her head, produced by her act of rebellion. Spurred by Jax's quirt, Mistrider ran through the trees like fog blown by the wind. Jax called to Lector and the stagman pulled alongside, their mounts running side by side.
"Take her to the burrow," Jax said. He passed Kamoj over to Lector's stag without even slowing down. Seated in front of Lector, Kamoj felt numb. Jax wheeled Mistrider around and took off, disappearing into the mist and the darkening night.