The Quantum Rose

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.

Her serenity vanished. She was lying on Jax’s bed, her arms free now. The tent was empty except for the two of them. It was also dark; the only light came from dimly glowing braziers. She had no idea how long she had slept. A heavy, slumbering night had fallen outside.

Jax was sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning his weight on one hand while he watched her. His hair hung around his face, straight and black, with streaks of grey. He wore a governor’s clothes, rich and well-tailored: violet shirt, black suede pants, and black knee boots edged with silver fur. The silver-thread design of a bridge decorated the cuffs and collar of his shirt. Kamoj wondered which of his mistresses had embroidered it.

“How long have you been there?” she asked.

“A while.” Leaning forward, he stroked her hair away from her eyes. “You looked so pretty sleeping. An Argali rose.”

Argali. Argali. She jerked away from him. “You burned it.”

His smile vanished. “Perhaps next time you will think before you humiliate Ironbridge.”

She pulled herself into a sitting position. “How could you do it?”

Jax watched her with focused intensity. “If your former husband has any wits about him, he will evacuate the villages in time.”

Former? “Lionstar and Argali have a merger.”

A muscle in his cheek twitched. “It’s being dissolved.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Of course I can.” He trailed his finger across her lips. “I have a gift for you.”

The change in subject disoriented Kamoj. “What?”

“I had intended it as a wedding gift.” He paused. “But I will give it to you tonight, even if we won’t sign the contracts until tomorrow.”

“Contracts?”

His voice hardened. “I learned a great deal from the Ascendant delegation that came to Ironbridge. This Drake Brockson, the man they call an anthropologist—he and I talked a long time. He has concerns about what he calls ‘our native sovereignty.’ Lionstar’s actions here disturb him.”

Although Kamoj knew the judges of her own people would side with Jax in this, she had expected disinterest from the Ascendant, perhaps even help. It hadn’t occurred to her that Vyrl’s behavior might have offended his own people as well as hers. At least they had been helping with the fires. Was Argali burning even now?

“Are the—” Kamoj stopped when she saw Jax’s mouth tighten. She recognized the warning signs.

Jax stood up, the dim light casting shadows across his body as if he were a living statue. He had Vyrl’s height and musculature, but the resemblance ended there. Where Vyrl was tawny, alive like the land in autumn, Jax evoked stone and iron.

A tanglebirch chest stood at the foot of the bed, carved with bridges and rivers. Jax went to it and took out a black lacquered box. “Ten years ago I traveled with some of my stagmen to the Thermali Coast, where the ships sail in.” He came back and sat next to her again. “I got this from a merchant who sailed from another continent.” Setting the box in her hands, he added, “I’ve kept it for you.”

Kamoj almost flinched. Given the circumstances, how could she accept a gift from Jax? Painfully aware of him watching her, she lifted the lid. Inside, nestled in a bed of gold velvet, lay a porcelain egg, exquisitely designed, with silver filigree curling over it like lace.

She spoke awkwardly. “It’s lovely. But I can’t accept—”

He touched his finger to her lips. “Look inside.”

Still she hesitated, but when irritation flashed across his face, she undid the latch on the egg. Gold velvet lined the interior, and jewelry sparkled within it, two earrings and a long necklace, all made in the Argali design, gold vines inlaid with ruby roses.

“Sweet saints,” she murmured. “They’re beautiful.”

“Indeed.” Jax picked up the earrings. Holding back her hair, he inserted the earrings himself, with an expertise that suggested a long practice of putting jewels on women. The rubies dangled against her neck, clinking together, their tiny bells making soft chimes.

He held up the chain next, letting its rubies glitter in the dim light. “Kamoj, you’ve truly a lovely stone as your namesake.”

She swallowed. “You are kind to offer me such a necklace. But I can’t—”

“It’s not for your neck.” He laid his palm against her waist. “It goes here. Actually, with a waist as small as yours, it will rest on your hips. Women in Thermali wear them under their clothes. It’s very pretty.”

“Oh.” She didn’t want to know how he saw what women in Thermali wore under their clothes.

Jax set the egg and the box on the floor. He let the chain slide through his hand, until it pooled on the velvet spread in a shimmer of gold and rubies. Then he got up again and went back to the chest. This time he took out a braided cord made from glittering scale-hemp, with tassels on each end. Threads of beaten gold and bronze wove through the braid, and jeweled dust powdered its surface. It resembled the old farm belts she often wore, except instead of being functional, this was designed for beauty.

Jax stood by the chest, watching her with a shuttered look. “I had this made when you and I were betrothed.”

Kamoj had no idea how to respond. Never in a decade of Long Years would she have imagined Jax indulging in the sentimentality of these beautiful gifts. “You are too generous.”

“Am I?” He returned to the bed with slow, deliberate steps and sat next to her. Taking her hands in his, he wound the cord around her wrists. Then, with a jerk, he tightened the belt. “Am I, pretty rose?”

Kamoj flinched as the cord bit into the rope burns on her wrists. “Jax, don’t.”

“Why?” He twisted the belt tighter. “Is what I have for you not good enough now you’ve had his wealth to play with?”

“I didn’t mean that.” Her eyes watered from the pain. “What are you doing?”

“Giving presents to my love.” His voice sounded clenched. “To the woman who humiliated me the moment a richer man made her a better offer.”

“You know I had no choice.”

“You had a choice. You could have said no.” His lower eyelid twitched. “You think it was hard for you, being carried through my camp like an unwilling bondsgirl? How do you think it was for me, having you walk away, knowing you were going to another man’s bed after I had waited almost your entire life for you?” Incredibly, his voice shook. “It happened so cursed fast. One moment I was looking forward to seeing you and the next you were gone.”

She stared at him, stunned by the depth of his reaction. “I—I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re mine again.” Gritting his teeth, he added, “Except he had you first.”

“Jax, please—”

“Please, what?” Then he slapped her across the face.

“No!” Kamoj tried to lift her arms, to protect herself, but he held her wrists down with the cord. “Don’t!”

“You want me to stop?” He hit her again. “How could you do it?”

“Jax, no!” Kamoj stuttered as he struck her a third time. “Stop. Please.”

Reaching to his boot, he pulled a knife out of it. “Whether it happens again is up to you.”

“What are you doing?” She tried to jerk away from him, but he held her in place by the belt around her wrists. With methodical strokes he sliced up the belt, shredding the gift until it was no more than a pile of raveled glittering threads.

Her voice caught. “Jax—”

“No.” The blade glinted as he lifted it in front of her. Then he cut the shoulder straps of her dress. “I will hear no more.”

Staring at the knife, Kamoj swallowed and remained silent. Jax laid her on the bed. His blade felt like ice as he cut away her dress. She stared at the tent overhead, at the cloth shaking with falling snow. A tassel hung from its highest point, bobbing back and forth. She focused on it, trying to numb her mind to the blowing snow of Jax’s touch.

Some time later he fastened the gold chain with its ruby roses around her hips. His hair brushed her face, the scent of his astringent shampoo wafting in the air, mixed with the tang of his sweat. His clothes scratched her skin, the buckle of his loosened belt scraping back and forth on her thigh. She built a dome of ice in her mind, a place where she hid in numbing cold.

Later, he lay still. Eventually he rolled off her and sat on the edge of the bed, his booted feet planted on the ground, his elbows on his knees while he stared across the tent, lost in thought. Then he undressed and laid his clothes in a neat pile on the nightstand. Numbly, Kamoj wondered if he always undressed afterward instead of before, or if this was a game he played with her emotions.

When he saw her looking at him, he smiled. “Curious?” His voice had quieted, as if he had spent his rage with his passion. He pulled down the covers under Kamoj and slid into bed with her, then drew the soap-scented velvet over them both. She felt an absurd relief that the blankets were Argalian wool and the sheets spice-cotton, instead of exotic silks.

That was when she started to shake. Why, she didn’t know. It was over. Done. Yet now her icy protective numbness cracked wide open and she shook like a vine during a storm.

“It’s all right,” Jax murmured absently, pulling her into his arms. After a while he added, “Perhaps Lionstar did me a favor.”

“A favor?” Her voice sounded hollow.

“I got you two years earlier than I expected.”

“Oh.”

“What will he do now, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Attack Ironbridge. Perhaps he will be killed.” A chill edged his voice. “Imagine it, Kamoj. Your marauding lover from the stars stabbed through the way he stabbed my stagman.”

She knew the Ascendant would never let Vyrl risk his life. But she couldn’t rid her mind of the image: Vyrl in agony on the battlefield, bleeding to death.

Jax turned her over onto her side, with her back spooned against his front, a bitter parody of her wedding night. He drifted to sleep with his thumb hooked in the chain around her hips.