The cart rolled on, jolting up the narrow path, crushing vines and roses under its wheels. Tera sat next to Kamoj, as she had throughout the ride, silent, watching her captive. Bound and gagged, Kamoj had shivered at the start of the trip, until Tera wrapped a carpet around her shoulders.
Kamoj glanced at the boda-bag on Tera’s belt. She had neither eaten nor had anything to drink since yesterday.
For a while Tera watched Kamoj watching the boda-bag. Then the archer spoke, her Ironbridge dialect so strong Kamoj could barely understand her. It sounded like, “Be you still o’piece, move I yer quieter?”
Kamoj nodded, hoping she had guessed the correct meaning of the question: will you be quiet if I take off the gag?
Tera removed the gag, then pulled the sponge out of Kamoj’s mouth. The archer took the boda-bag off her belt and unscrewed the top. Tilting its narrowed end to Kamoj’s lips, she squeezed the bag, making wine squirt into Kamoj’s mouth. As much as Kamoj disliked the harsh mead brewed in Ironbridge, she disliked her searing thirst even more. She sucked the bag dry.
When Tera lowered the bag, Kamoj said, “Will you untie me?”
The driver answered, what sounded like, “Maybe a’can,” to which Tera responded, “Lector, we cannee risk her a’run.” Kamoj wasn’t sure if Lector was an oath or the driver’s name; either way, it came from a contraction of Electromotive Force. Legends painted Lector as a great hero who converted humans into energy. Why converting people into energy was heroic, Kamoj had no clue, but the name was popular in Ironbridge.
“I won’t try to run,” Kamoj said. She almost meant it; she had no idea where they were now, besides which, she would be even colder wandering in the woods than sitting here under a carpet. Even so, she was willing to try an escape.
She didn’t fool Tera, though. The archer made no move to untie her. “Out there you be peat for Argali vines,” she said.
“Look,” Lector said. “That wild greenglass again. I’d spend a Long Year to catch that beaut.”
Kamoj looked, and saw a huge stag keeping pace with them, half-hidden in the trees. She doubted Lector would have success with this greenglass. Greypoint would never allow anyone but Vyrl to ride him. And it was Greypoint following them, she was certain. But why? The Current only knew what the animal had thought yesterday when a giant metal bird took away Vyrl. Had Greypoint been pacing the woods since then, undecided whether or not to return the Quartz Palace?
Tera was watching her. “The animal follows you.” She grinned, showing teeth browned from chewing cabarque leaves. “We caught us a forest nymph guarded by the king of stags, heh?” Her smile faded. “Or else we caught us a witch.”
“Donnee talk of Argali that way,” Lector said.
Tera answered something about, “vile business” and “Lionstar,” to which Lector nodded in agreement.
Their words were an unwelcome reminder to Kamoj of Vyrl’s dismal reputation. No one had trusted him before and now he had trampled their customs. All in the Northern Lands would have the same thought: if a stranger could overthrow Argali and humiliate even Ironbridge, no one was safe. Jax must have marshalled that fear to augment his army, bringing in archers like Tera who usually served on a highborn woman’s bodyguard. He would have left enough archers and stagmen to protect Ironbridge and taken the rest with him. While Vyrl rode on Ironbridge, Jax was somewhere up here, high in the mountains, sealing his plans for Argali.
As the bi-hoxen plodded onward, Kamoj brooded. Would the Ascendant help Vyrl find her? Could they find her? She had no concept of what the Ascendant could do, no referent to understand either it or its people. Besides, either Lector or Tera would go back and hide their tracks. Probably Tera. She had a venerable name, one that originally derived from the Volterra line in Argali, though the Volterra penchant for travel had long ago spread it across the Northern Lands. Volterras had a knack for solving problems that involved a preferred direction. They made good trackers.
Groggy from hunger and drunk from mead, Kamoj fell into a daze, watching the trees go by. The cart finally rolled into a high mountain clearing. Saturated in mist, a camp lay before them, black tents with purple tassels hanging from their roofs. Stagmen moved about the clearing, cutting wood, mending clothes, cleaning weapons, tending campfires. They all wore boots and fur-lined clothes, protection against the sleet that drizzled from the overcast sky.
When Tera tugged the carpet off Kamoj, a blast of freezing air cut through Kamoj’s underdress to her skin. Then Tera pulled her out of the cart. As Kamoj’s bare feet hit the iced ground, she gasped and jerked. With her hands tied behind her back, she lost her balance and fell against the cart.
Lector came over to her. He lifted Kamoj up, settled her in his arms, and then set off into the camp, carrying her with one arm under her knees and the other behind her back. She gritted her teeth against the stares of the encamped army. Her rose-hued dress was the only bright color in the camp, and she knew glimsilk glowed on overcast days. It was like a beacon drawing attention to her loss of status. Jax had stripped her of authority in both a literal and figurative sense.
Lector stopped at a large violet pavilion with black tassels hanging from its fringed roof. When he nodded to the two stagmen posted outside its entrance, the taller man inclined his head and went inside the tent. Kamoj was shivering uncontrollably now, her dress frozen in the sleeting rain.
The flap lifted, releasing a puff of warm air. The stagman looked out at them. “He meets with an advisor now. He be calling you when they finish.”
Kamoj stared at him. Did Jax mean to freeze her?
“Sweet saints, man,” Lector said. “She cannee survive this cold.”
Another stagman inside lifted the flap, releasing more warm air. “You may come now,” he said.
As Lector carried Kamoj into the tent, warmth closed around her. She closed her eyes, hating herself for the gratitude she felt. Did Jax plan these things, or did he just have an inborn instinct for controlling people?
Silk panels hung on the walls, violet, silver, and black for Ironbridge. Rugs covered on the ground and a bed made up with purple velvet stood in one corner. On the floor, braziers with iron grates gave out heat that rippled in waves, distorting the air above the scrolled grills.
“Over there,” a man said. That voice Kamoj knew. Jax. Looking over her shoulder, she saw him sitting with a judge at a table across the tent. He returned to his meeting without acknowledging her.
Lector set her on a pile of furred blankets near a brazier. As he covered her with the furs, she craned her neck to look at Jax again. Unexpectedly, he was watching her. When he realized she had caught him doing it, he turned away, focusing on his advisor, who was struggling to decipher a map.
Heat from the brazier warmed Kamoj, melting the ice on her clothes. She began to feel again: rivulets of water ran down her neck from her hair, Lector’s jacket scratched the skin of her arms, and waterproofed fur rubbed her thighs. Closing her eyes, she soaked in the warmth. She knew she was passing out but she didn’t care. Exhausted, she let darkness carry her into oblivion.
IX. Iron Rose. Internal Bound States
In the drowsy contentment of first waking, Kamoj reached for Vyrl, her husband. She found only empty air. Opening her eyes, she looked up—at Jax Ironbridge.