As Vyrl laid her on her bed, moonlight cast shadows on his robe, making him look as if he were cut from onyx. His callouses felt nubbly on her skin when he peeled off her underdress. Then he paused, kneeling between her legs. Too self-conscious to meet his gaze, she sat up and took off his robe, shy and unsure, trying to act self-assured. She didn’t succeed, but he seemed to like how she touched him anyway. She couldn’t look at his face because–she wasn’t sure why. If she looked, he would somehow acknowledge her touch, making her too embarrassed to continue.
Kamoj tried to relax. Most women her age were already married, even mothers. Lying down, she reached her arms out to Vyrl. When he stretched out on top of her, he supported his weight on his hands so he didn’t crush her under his body.
He took their lovemaking slow and gentle, giving her as long as she needed to relax. Even so, when the time came, she tensed up. It was tearing–she wanted him to stop–
He went still on top of her. "Kamoj–?"
Hai, she thought, mortified. If she kept this up she would still be a virgin after her wedding night. "It’s all right."
Vyrl handled her even more gently after that. The moons shifted in the sky, their light casting a stained glass rose on the floor. He murmured against her ear, saying her name over and over, and right this time. His intensity increased, until finally he drew in a breath and blew it out, the stream of air wafting tendrils of her hair around her cheeks. Then he relaxed on top of her, still murmuring, his voice a soft current of sound against her ear.
After a while his murmurs trickled into silence and he lay still, one hand curled around her breast. He breathing deepened, until eventually it came with a faint snore at the end of each breath.
Kamoj blinked. Apparently they were done. Although the experience had been pleasant, after the initial pain, it seemed incomplete. Was this why Lyode extolled marriage? Certainly it was nice, but Kamoj didn’t see why it made her usually no-nonsense bodyguard smile like a besotted fruitwing. Kamoj wondered if in her shyness, she had somehow overlooked or missed the important part.
Vyrl felt heavier now that he wasn’t supporting his weight. She nudged him until he rolled off her and stretched out along her side. Then she turned onto her side, her body spooned into his, her back against his chest. He slid his arm around her waist without a break in the rumble of his sleep.
Kamoj drifted in a doze, like the fever-sleep of a delirium, her body so sensitized that she felt air currents whisper across it. She felt restless. Incomplete. Sometimes she awoke to find herself rubbing her own body.
When Vyrl’s arm shifted, at first she thought he was restive in his sleep. Then he slid his hand down over hers. As she moved against his hand, he kissed her neck, his teeth playing with her necklace. Whatever he was doing, he knew how to do it well. She felt as if she were trying to climb a peak she couldn’t reach. Then the release came, like a crest with many bumps. It spread to the rest of her body, until she lost control and cried out.
When she calmed, Vyrl murmured, "Sweet water sprite."
Kamoj wanted to say soft words too, call her husband beloved and other endearments. Yet she didn’t feel she knew him well enough. So strange, to be so intimate, yet so unfamiliar at the same time.
Languor settled over her like a downy quilt . . .
* * *
Kamoj wasn’t sure what woke her. The moonlight had dimmed, both the Sister and the Far Moon having finished their voyages across the sky. The sense of drowsy satisfaction had also left the room.
She rolled over. Vyrl was lying on his back, staring at the canopy above them, a fixed stare that saw nothing. The tendons in his neck had pulled taut, and his jaw had clenched so hard the bones stood out against his skin.
"Vyrl?" She pushed up on her elbow. "What’s wrong?"
He jerked his head. Then he sat up, his face contorting.
And he screamed.
It shattered the silence. He sat with his fists clenched on his thighs, his face twisted until she hardly recognized him.
Boots pounded in the main bedroom. "Prince Havyrl!" a man called. The bead curtain rattled as Azander and the other bodyguard swept it aside and strode into the chamber. Scrambling to her knees, Kamoj yanked on Vyrl’s robe, covering herself.
Vyrl showed no hint he saw any of them. Staring straight ahead, he worked his mouth like a man in a nightmare trying, with horrific futility, to scream again.
Azander knelt by the bed and shook Vyrl’s shoulders. "Prince Havyrl, wake up! You’re all right. It only be the nightmares. Wake up!"
Vyrl swung his fist so fast, Azander had no time to duck. Vyrl hit him in the chin, and the bodyguard flew over backward, hitting the floor with a thud.
"Get out!" Vyrl said. "Now."
Azander stared at him, holding his chin. Then he jumped to his feet and the two bodyguards left fast as they had come.
Kamoj slid back, away from Vyrl, until the wall stopped her retreat. Had she been mistaken about her new husband? But no. This was different from rage. Something was wrong, very wrong. He leaned forward, his arms wrapped around his stomach, as if he hurt somehow, not a physical hurt, but something else.
She didn’t know how long they sat that way. Finally she moved closer to him. Then she waited. When he neither objected nor showed anger, she came the rest of the way to his side. He turned to her, moisture gleaming under his eyes.
She touched his wet cheek. "What is it?"
"Nothing." He took a breath. "Go back to sleep."
Nothing? He had just split open the night with his scream. She wanted to offer comfort, but she feared it would anger him instead, a risk she couldn’t take, not when the well-being of Argali depended on his good will. So she did as he asked, lying down with her eyes closed. She heard him put on his robe, then heard the bed creak and felt the mattress shift.
Kamoj opened her eyes. She was alone. She put on her underdress and got out of bed. Her footsteps made no sound as she crossed to the curtain and peered through the beaded strings into the main bedroom.
Vyrl had opened the window above his desk and was sitting in his chair, staring at the night, his body silhouetted against the sky. He raised a bottle to his lips, and the cloying smell of rum drifted in the air.
Watching him, Kamoj knew that whatever troubled Vyrl, it went far deeper than the rum could reach. What had happened to give a man of such power the terrors that haunted his dreams?
Part II
V
Binge
Higher Level Eigenstates
Early morning light filled Kamoj’s room. Jul had yet to rise above the forest, so no rays slanted in the window, which someone had opened while she slept. She lay alone staring at a tapestry on the wall across from the bed. The hanging depicted two fierce women in warrior garb engaged in a duel over a youth. They were facing off in a forest clearing, one with a bowball cupped in her palm, her arm raised to throw it. Their young man stood leaning against a tree with his muscular arms crossed, looking appropriately dashing. He also looked rather disconcerted, which Kamoj suspected was closer to the truth of whatever legend had inspired the tapestry.
She felt lethargic, unable to face the day. She had watched Vyrl for more than an hour last night, afraid to intrude on his solitude. Exhaustion finally forced her to choose between sleeping on the floor or returning to bed.
Still, lying in bed solved nothing. She got up and went into the main bedroom. It was empty of Vyrl, but two trunks stood against the foot of his bed. Her trunks.
Her mood lightening, she went over to the trunks. The first held her clothes and the second had personal items, including the dolls from her childhood collection. She picked up her favorite rag doll, enjoying the familiar feel of its yarn hair against her cheek.
"Governor Argali?"
Startled, Kamoj looked up. A housemaid stood in the doorway of the entrance foyer. She must have been on the landing outside, waiting for Kamoj to wake up. "I heard you opening the trunks," the woman said. "Would you like h
elp dressing?"
Kamoj reddened, embarrassed to be caught holding a doll. Lowering it, she said, "Not today. But thank you."
"Yes, ma’am." The woman bowed and withdrew.
Putting away her things took several hours. Then Kamoj went to the bathing room. Someone had swept up the glass and opened the window, letting sunshine in and the rum smell out. Bracing herself for icy mountain water, she slid into the pool. What she felt was even more of a shock: warm water. How? She saw no steaming stones or other heat sources.
Then she remembered her heel. Holding onto a claw of the quetzal statue, she pulled her foot out of the water. All she saw was healthy pink skin with a slight bruising. That rapid healing impressed her as much as all the other marvels she had seen here.
After her bath, she ran naked back to her chamber, racing across the main bedroom. She wasn’t sure why she ran. Vyrl had seen her without her clothes, and besides he wasn’t here. But she ran anyway. For all she knew, Morlin watched everything.
In her room, she started to take out a tunic. Then she changed her mind and put on a rose-cotton farm dress instead. It gave her pleasure to think Vyrl might enjoy how she looked. None of her dresses fit anymore, though. Her breasts plumped out the neckline, the waist was too tight, and the skirt barely reached her knees. She pulled up lacy ruffles from her underdress to cover her breasts and tugged her underskirts down until their ruffles swirled around her knees. Then she pulled on grey leggings made from Argali wool, followed by her suede farm boots.
Kamoj left the suite and paused on the landing at the top of the stairs. She was hungry, but she wasn’t sure where to find the kitchen. She also had to find Vyrl, to discuss Argali. Theirs was a tricky situation, one with no precedent that she knew. The union of provinces through a dowered merger of two governors was almost unheard of. She and Jax had agreed to split their time between Argali and Ironbridge. With Vyrl she had no idea. He could demand control of Argali or leave it to her, tax her province to death, shower it with riches, ruin it, or ignore it.
She descended the stairs, listening to the forest, the wind in the trees and the blue-tailed quetzals calling, even the trill of a gold-tail. Flaring the membranes in her nostrils, she inhaled the scents of the forest and its scale dust. It wasn’t until she reached the bottom that she heard the voices. As she walked down the Long Hall, they resolved into an argument between Vyrl and Dazza.
"I can’t," Dazza was saying. "I haven’t the equipment."
"Don’t treat me like a stupid farm boy," Vyrl said. "The Ascendant has more than enough facilities. It’s a flaming city."
The voices came from the entrance foyer. Kamoj hesitated in the Long Hall, near the entrance to the chandeliered ballroom, unsure whether to stay or leave.
"These aren’t simple alterations," Dazza told him. "I would have to change your lungs and hemoglobin, redesign the way your body absorbs oxygen and carbon dioxide, and add filters for impurities. Who knows what side-effects it would cause? I couldn’t even begin until I made a thorough study. Surely you realize the magnitude of what you’re asking."
"Contact the Ascendant," Vyrl said. "Tell them to send down what you need."
"The web systems in this building aren’t sophisticated enough to run the equipment," she said. "If you want me to work on you, we have to do it on the ship."
"No!"
Dazza spoke in a placating voice. "Vyrl, listen. Why change your body? Doesn’t the respirator let you breathe in comfort?"
"I don’t want a metal face."
"You asked for metal. It doesn’t have to be that way. If it bothers you, we’ll redesign the mask."
He made a frustrated noise. "The people here don’t need respirators. If I’m going to live on this planet, I want to go out without anything."
"Why? Is this temporary exile worth such drastic changes to your body?"
Kamoj tensed. Temporary exile? Vyrl was going to leave Argali? What did that mean for her people? For herself?
She walked through the ballroom and stopped in the doorway to the Entrance Hall. Vyrl and Dazza were at the other end of the hall, in front of the entrance foyer. Azander and two other stagmen were standing back from them, trying to accomplish the impossible by being simultaneously attentive to their liege and oblivious to his argument.
"I told you what I wanted," Vyrl told Dazza. "Do it. I’m going riding."
"You’re in no condition to ride–"
"Contact the Ascendant, damn it."
Dazza crossed her arms. "And if I refuse?"
"Don’t push me, Colonel."
She exhaled. "Vyrl, stay here. Let me give you something to deal with the alcohol. Or let it work out of your system. When you’re sober, we’ll talk modifications."
"You’re not putting more of your bugs in my blood." He grimaced. "Those bloody things never die."
"Nanomeds aren’t bugs. And meds designed to flush out alcohol do ‘die.’ They dissolve after a few–"
"No," he said.
She scowled at him. "If I alter your body so you can live on this planet unaided, you’ll need even more self-replicating meds than the ones you carry now for health maintenance."
"Fine." With no warning, he spun around and strode up the hall, straight toward Kamoj. His sudden attention caught her off guard. She hadn’t even realized he knew she was there.
A farmhand must have given him the clothes he was wearing, an old white shirt, soft and worn with washings, and rough pants tucked into scuffed boots. Although Maxard wore old clothes when he worked the farm, it was still the garb of a highborn man. It startled her to see the wealthiest man in the Northern Lands, possibly on all Balumil, dressed like the poorest farmer.
Before she could react or retreat, he reached her. He didn’t even stop, just slid his arm around her waist and swung her around, then pulled her with him as he headed back down the hall. His longs legs covered ground so fast she had to run to keep up with him.
He stopped in front of Dazza. "My wife and I are going riding." Propelling Kamoj ahead of him, he stalked into the entrance foyer. He left her in the middle of the chamber while he went to where his cloak hung on the wall like a patch of evening sky.
Kamoj pushed her hand through her hair. What if she refused to go with him? Perhaps she was naïve, but she didn’t believe he would do anything more than leave her behind. The idea of his going alone bothered her more. Could he safely ride, as drunk as he seemed right now? Suppose he fell from his stag and broke a limb? Or worse? She didn’t know how it worked with his people, but among her own, a man thrown from a greenglass could die alone in the forest before anyone found him.
Vyrl smacked his palm on the wall, and a block of stone slid to the side, revealing a cubical cavity. He pulled out his silver mask. Crumpling it in his hand, he swung around and looked at someone behind her. "Bring Greypoint out front," he said.
Turning, Kamoj saw Azander by the great double doors of the entrance. A bruise purpled the stagman’s chin where Vyrl had hit him last night. Azander pulled back the heavy bolts on the doors and leaned his weight into the left one until it swung open, letting blue-tinged sunlight pour into the foyer. Then he walked through the shimmer curtain, out into the autumn day.
Dazza spoke from the foyer’s inner archway. "Vyrl, at least let Kamoj ride her own stag. She’ll be safer that way."
"Safe from what?" Vyrl swung his cloak over his shoulders, the blue cloth swirling through the air like a swath of midnight-blue sky. "Military witch-doctors who want to fill my blood with bugs to stop me from enjoying a drink, but who refuse to fix my body so I can goddamn breathe?"
"Don’t go riding," Dazza said. "Wait until you’re sober."
Bi-hooves clattered on the flagstones outside. Vyrl came over to Kamoj and took her arm. Pulling her with him, he strode through the shimmer curtain, out into the sunlit courtyard.
Dazza called from behind them. "Vyrl!"
When he turned to the colonel, Kamoj’s hope jumped. Would he change his mind and go
back?
Dazza was standing in the palace entrance now, behind the shimmer curtain. "Your respirator," she said.
He watched her, the mask still crumpled in his fist. Then he spun around and drew Kamoj over to where Azander held a stag ready. The animal was huge and muscled, with gigantic greenglass antlers that shaded from emerald at their base into silver tips. Despite the stag’s great height, Vyrl swung up onto its back with mesmerizing grace. Greypoint pranced sideways, shook his head, and stamped his four front legs. Then he stilled, becoming a statue as he looked down at Kamoj. His eyes, huge and green, with vertical pupil slits, stared at her with unsettling intelligence.
When Vyrl motioned, Azander put his hands on Kamoj’s waist and lifted. At the same time, Vyrl reached down and grabbed her. He hauled Kamoj up in front of him so she straddled the stag, her flared skirt foaming over her thighs and knees. It happened so fast it made her dizzy. Or maybe it was the air, so thin after the palace. Vyrl held her around the waist with one arm, his mask clutched in his fist, while Greypoint danced under them, agitated with Kamoj’s unfamiliar weight.
Suddenly the greenglass reared on his back legs, rising up, up, and up to his full height, his front four legs pawing the air, their scales splintering the light. Clangs filled the courtyard as he crashed his bi-hooves together. He threw back his head and bared his fangs, the opaline teeth glittering like daggers. And he screamed at the sky.
For one frozen instant Kamoj couldn’t move, terrified she would fly off the greenglass. From this height the fall could break her neck. Then she grabbed its antlers, their velvety green scales slippery in her hold.
"Damn it!" Dazza shouted. "Vyrl, don’t do this!"
The greenglass came down, jerking his head until Kamoj released his antlers. Vyrl’s labored breaths rasped behind her. Kamoj twisted around to see him staring at Dazza, his face flushed. As Greypoint danced beneath them, on the verge of rearing again, Vyrl yanked a narrow slab out from his cloak, a rectangle covered with lines and symbols. Extending his arm, he pointed the slab at Dazza. "You can forget about having your orbital monitors track me, Colonel. I’m setting up a jamming field–" He pressed a blue light on the slab. "–now."