Guards.
Two stagmen stood posted on the landing, Azander by the door and another man several paces away by the wall. She had seen the arrangement before, with Jax’s bodyguards outside his room when he stayed at Argali House.
Azander looked down at her. “Be there a problem, Gov’ner?” Although his accent wasn’t as thick as an Ironbridge dialect, it wasn’t pure Argali either.
“Nothing, thank you.” She closed the door, uncertain herself what she had wanted. Why did they guard Vyrl in his own bedroom? To ensure she did him no harm? That seemed rather silly, given his size and strength compared to hers, especially now that he didn’t need his mask. Besides, they were outside and she was in here. Perhaps they were there to keep her from leaving.
She returned to her room and undid her dress, letting it fall in a heap of satin around her feet. It left her standing in her wedding silks, a translucent pink underdress that came to her knees and pink stockings held up by lace garters. Lyode had claimed such underclothes would evoke pleasant reactions from her groom. Kamoj didn’t see why, but she had figured it was worth a try.
She scooped up her dress—and nearly passed out when she stood up. Black spots floated in her vision. The air was too thick, so rich it made her giddy. She swayed, waiting until her head cleared. Then she put away her clothes in the rose cabinet.
Feeling self-conscious, she sat on the bed and sank into its billowy comforter. It… it was hard to keep her eyes open. She lay down and let them close, just for a moment.
IV. Stained Glass Moons. Eigenstate Interactions
A crash woke Kamoj. She sat bolt upright, trying to fathom her surroundings. As she came more fully awake, she remembered. She was at the Quartz Palace.
Groggy from sleep, she got up, went to the window, and pushed open the stained glass panes, hoping the night air would clear her head. Outside, the East Sky Mountains slumbered under their carpet of trees.
Three of Balumil’s six moons were visible. The Elder Brother shone high in the sky, almost full, casting blue light over the world. The Wild Stag made a ragged green shape just above the trees, lagging behind his brother. For every four times the Elder Brother crossed the heavens, the Wild Stag only managed three. The Brother always presented a serene face to Balumil, passing with regular precision through his phases. The Wild Stag knew no such civilized behavior. Chaotic and unpredictable, he changed both shape and size as he tumbled through the heavens, varying from an uneven disk to a squashed sausage.
The auroras were quiescent, making it one of the rare times Balumil’s faint ring showed in the sky. Kamoj could just make out the gold thread curving up from the horizon in the southeast and back down in the southwest. The gibbous disk of the Shepherd Moon glistened pink above the ring. From the positions of the moons, she guessed she had slept seven hours. Dawn was still a long time away: in mid-autumn the days split evenly, thirty hours of darkness and thirty of light. During this season, she usually slept twice at night, once during the hours after sunset and then again in the hours before dawn.
A puffbug flew against the shimmer curtain in the window and stuck. With a frenzied beating of its scaled wings, it freed itself and trilled off into the night, its golden puff vibrating as it sang. Curious, Kamoj pushed her hand through the shimmer. The curtain stretched along her arm like a film. When she pulled her arm back inside, the shimmer clung to her skin, returning to its original shape.
Kamoj closed the window. So odd. For all the beauty Vyrl had restored to her ancestral home, he also brought these strange changes.
Where was Vyrl? The fountain still gurgled in the bathroom. What if he had passed out and fallen in the water? Azander already suspected her of foul play against her husband, and many people knew she had dreaded this merger. If something happened to Vyrl, she was the obvious suspect.
Kamoj limped into the main bedroom and went to the bathing room. The door stood ajar, but no one answered her knock. She nudged it all the way open, revealing a chamber larger than hers, though still smaller than the main bedroom. A pool filled most of it, tiled in pale blue squares enameled with roses. In its center, the sculpture of a rose opened to the ceiling. She remembered crawling into that bowl as a child and playing with dried leaf-scales that had drifted into it. Now water surged out of the fountain and cascaded down its sides.
A larger-than-human statue stood at the corner of the pool, the figure of a quetzal, that bird named for a mythical creature on a mythical world no one had ever seen. This statue was actually a great stone chair, its scaled head raised high, its back designed from its feathered wings, its upper legs as armrests, its middle legs encircling the seat, and its lower legs as the base of the statue, along with its glorious feathered tail.
Sprawled in the chair, a naked Vyrl was sound asleep.
Kamoj blushed. She didn’t know whether to stay or leave. She saw what had caused the crash that woke her. Blueglass shards from a shattered bottle lay scattered around the base of the quetzal. The bottle must have slid out of Vyrl’s hand, probably resting on an edge of the statue, gradually slipping, until it fell. His legs were braced against a ridge in its base, his muscles tense even in sleep. It was apparently all that kept him from sliding into the pool.
Picking her way through the glass, Kamoj went to Vyrl. She couldn’t stop staring at him, at his broad shoulders and chest, his narrow hips, his long legs, all well-muscled, his skin flushed with health, his magnificent hair tousled around his handsome face. The lamp light made his metal lashes glitter. For all her attempts to imagine his appearance, it had never occurred to her that he might be beautiful.
But did he always drink this way? She thought of Korl Plowsbane in the village, old before his time, wandering with his bottle. Kamoj balked at believing the same of Vyrl. Even if he was like Korl, he couldn’t have been drinking that heavily for long. He seemed too healthy. Perhaps he had simply been edgy today over the impending merger.
Still, what she had so far seen didn’t look auspicious. She inhaled, letting her nostrils widen so their membranes captured every stray scent under the odor of rum. She caught traces of trees and ferns, a hint of sun on scale-leather, even a lingering trace of Vyrl’s disk mail. It all mixed with a strong soap smell and another scent harder to define, a masculine smell she liked. Drawn by Vyrl’s scent, she stopped closer and rubbed her fingers along the knuckles of his hand where it lay on his thigh.
“Higher,” he said drowsily.
Kamoj snatched back her hand. He was smiling at her, his eyes half open.
She flushed. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He sat up straighter, rubbing his eyes. “How long have I been in here?”
“A few hours.”
“Ah.” His gaze wandered over her body. Mortified, Kamoj realized she was wearing nothing but stockings and a translucent underdress. Then again, given his “clothes,” she was overdressed.
Vyrl grinned. “You look beautiful.” He slid out of his chair, and she jumped back, losing her balance as she put her weight on her injured foot. Teetering on the edge of the pool, she flailed her arms.
With unexpected grace, Vyrl slid out of the chair and caught her around the waist. Holding her bent over his arm, he leaned down to kiss her. Startled, Kamoj just stared up at him.
He stopped, then straightened up, bringing her with him. “Don’t you ever smile?”
“Well—yes. Of course.”
Vyrl stepped away from the pool. “Maybe we should—ah!” He lifted his foot and pulled a shard of glass out of his heel. Blood welled up from the cut. With a grimace, he stuck his foot in the water and swirled it around until the blood washed away. His graceful way of moving made her think of a greenglass stag.