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.
Lector rode hard through the trees. When Kamoj shivered, he pulled his cloak forward, around her. What had possessed her to call Vyrl? He had seventeen stagmen and Jax had sixty, plus forty more in camp. Ironbridge would slaughter Lionstar. Then again, Vyrl’s people had their Ascendant weapons. They might slaughter Ironbridge. Either way, people would die.
When the fading light turned the mist a darkling pearl color, Lector slowed his stag, letting it find its own way. Finally he stopped. As he jumped down, his cloak swirled away and icy air clapped around Kamoj.
He eased her off the greenglass, sliding her down to the ground. “We cannee ride any longer. It be too dark.”
She tried to nod, but the day’s drizzle had turned to snow and she was shaking too hard. Watching her, Lector removed his cloak and gave it to her. As she wrapped it around her body, he tapped his stag with a signal to wait. The greenglass stamped its feet and bared its teeth, its breath curling out of its nostrils, heavy with a spiced musk odor, adding condensation to the fog.
Lector led her forward into the darkness. The scents of the wet forest permeated the air, eddying and flowing around them. Even after Kamoj contracted the membranes in her nose, she was swimming in a sea of smells.
She pulled the cloak tighter. “We need shelter.”
Lector leaned down. “Eh?”
“Shelter.” Her teeth clattered together from the cold. “We need shelter.”
“Aye.” He guided her around an upended tree with moss hanging from its roots. They approached the looming shadow of a hillside, closer and closer, until its darkness folded around them. When Kamoj reached out her arms, her hands brushed over dirt walls laced with roots.
“You best wait here,” Lector said.
She stopped, listening to the tread of his boots. A spark jumped in the air about ten paces away. Then a sphere of light appeared, with Lector at its center holding a lamp. They were in a burrow with earthen walls held together by networked roots. The wavering light threw shadows on the walls, revealing bags of food in one corner, along with a blanket.
“It inna so bad, heh?” he asked.
“Lector, let me go,” she said.
“I cannee do that, Gov’nor Argali.”
“What if I just left?”
“I would have to stop you, ma’am. I’m sorry. I be liege to Ironbridge. I cannee fail him.”
Kamoj hadn’t really expected otherwise. She doubted she could have survived in the forest anyway, on this freezing night, dressed as she was, having eaten only one meal in over two days.
Lector set the lamp on a ledge formed by a tree root. Then he took the blanket from the corner and spread it on the ground. “For you, Gov’nor.”
“Thank you.” She sank down onto the blanket, grateful for the solidity of the ground. “Are you cold?”
He settled himself on a large boulder near the entrance. “Heh?”
“Cold.” She offered him the cloak. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Please keep it, ma’am. Cold never much bothered me.”
Like Jax. Unlike Jax, however, Lector seemed to notice when it bothered others. Grateful for a bulwark against the chill, she wrapped the cloak around herself again.
Lector stretched out his legs and leaned against the wall. “I can tell you what makes ice on my spine. The magics in these woods. You be better off without Lionstar. That demon prince would trap your soul.”
“I don’t think it’s magic, Lector. It just looks that way. And Lionstar is no demon.”
“Heh?” Lector leaned forward. “Who is the demon?”
Her voice caught. “Me. I caused these problems.”
“Why do you say that? You hanna done nothing.” His voice gentled. “This madness will end. You will see.”
She swallowed. “It’s kind of you to say that.”
“I’ve a daughter your age. When I look at you—” He shook his head. “It be a father’s nightmare.”
The sound of dirt skittering across leaves came through the entrance, followed by the tread of boots. Lector stood up and drew his sword.
“Step and call,” a woman said.
“Come,” Lector said. Sheathing his sword, he stepped aside to let Tera and a stagman enter, followed by a taller man. Jax.
The Ironbridge governor glanced around, his gaze scraping past Kamoj as she got to her feet. To Lector he said, “Did you have any trouble?”
“None at all, sir.”
“Good.” Jax sat on a boulder. The soldiers sat then, too, Lector on the other boulder and the others on the ground. With five people crowded into the burrow, Kamoj stayed on her feet, pressed against the earthen wall.
Jax regarded Lector. “I need your counsel.”
The stagman sat up a straighter. “It be my honor.”
“I must decide a course of action,” Jax said. “Everything has changed now.”
“What happened, sir?” Lector asked.
“Lionstar insisted I let him speak to Governor Argali.” Jax made an incredulous noise. “Seventeen stagmen and one old hag, and he threatens me. When I gave the order to my archers to fire, it was like ordering the slaughter of bi-hoxen.”
Kamoj dug her fingers into the wall. The question Is he dead? hung in the air like a mist-o’-mime.
“What did they do?” Lector asked.
Jax leaned forward. “One of Lionstar’s bodyguards drew his weapon so fast it made a blur. An essence came out of its end. It made orange sparks in the air. The tree he pointed it at exploded in a burst of orange light. Lionstar’s other bodyguard swept her weapon through an arc and more trees exploded.” He grimaced. “As fast as an archer can knock a ball, his bodyguards could have killed my entire company.”
“It be sorcery,” Lector said. “I feel it in these woods.”