“Just answer the question,” Vyrl said.

“I was riding to the Quartz Palace, bringing salutations from Ironbridge on your wedding.” The man paused. “When I came by here, I saw the bridle and thought a rider was in trouble. I investigated and heard voices. I recognized the woman.” He glanced at Kamoj, then quickly shifted his gaze to Vyrl. “I heard her call you a farmer and your agreement. It seemed that given the, uh, appearance of this matter, I ought to apprehend—I mean—what I thought—”

“I get the idea,” Vyrl said. “Why are you up here? The road to Ironbridge is on the other side of the palace.”

“I was coming from another errand for Governor Ironbridge.”

Vyrl motioned toward the entrance. “Outside.”

The man obeyed, his back stiff, either with fear or shame. Kamoj didn’t believe for one second Jax had sent “salutations.” He was having her watched.

As Vyrl followed the stagman, he nodded to Kamoj. At first she wasn’t sure what he wanted. Then she remembered. The mask. He couldn’t do something as simple as walk into the forest without endangering his life.

She retrieved the mask and also Vyrl’s cloak. With her arms full of Argalian wool, she stepped out into a breezy afternoon. Vyrl and the stagman were standing about twenty paces away, Vyrl still holding the sword. He looked as if he was threatening the stagman with the man’s own weapon, but as Kamoj came closer she realized he was only giving the archer directions to the road.

It didn’t surprise her that Vyrl intended to let him go. The archer looked tense, though. Disbelieving. That didn’t surprise her either. Had one of Vyrl’s stagmen attacked Jax, Ironbridge would have sent the attacker to prison, possibly even executed him.

Then, in her side vision, she saw the trees move. “Vyrl!” she shouted. “Look out!”

Vyrl spun around just as a bowball hurtled toward him, the kind with an arrow embedded in the marble. It slammed against his side, the arrow stabbing deep into his body. Then the weight of the falling ball yanked out the arrow, pulling shreds of muscle with it.

As blood spurted from the wound, Vyrl staggered, and the stagman lunged to regain his sword. He almost recovered it; Vyrl was already injured, and the stagman was well trained. But Vyrl handled the weapon like an extension of his body. Metal flashed in the dappled forest—and Vyrl thrust the blade into the stagman’s chest.

“No!” Dropping Vyrl’s cloak, Kamoj ran toward them. A second bowball whistled through the air and hit Vyrl. He was moving, so it missed his heart and slammed into his chest below his shoulder. This time he managed to grab the shaft of the arrow before the falling ball ripped it out of his body. The weight of the ball broke the arrow, leaving its upper end embedded in his muscles.

A great roaring noise filled the forest, and the cry of a siren. With shock, Kamoj realized the siren was coming out of Vyrl’s body. Wind thrashed the trees overhead.

As Kamoj came up to Vyrl, another ball hurtled between them. Vyrl tried to shove her away, to safety. “Stay back!” He had to shout to be heard above the noise.

He sank to his knees, his face contorted with pain. Blood soaked his shirt and pants, and the stagman lay dead at his feet. No, not dead; blood still pumped out of his wound. But Kamoj recognized mortal injuries: neither Vyrl nor the stagman would live much longer.

Dropping next to Vyrl, she pressed the mask over his face, trying to make it stay as he gasped for air. Before she had it in place, someone grabbed her arm and yanked her back. Twisting around, she found herself looking up a second Ironbridge stagman, another archer, almost certainly the one who had shot Vyrl. She struggled as he dragged her back, but she couldn’t pull free. Frantic, she threw the mask at Vyrl—and saw it hit the ground beyond his reach.

“Let me go!” she shouted at the stagman.

His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear him. The whole forest was in motion now, come alive, trees parting overhead while the wind roared.

Incredibly, Vyrl made it to his feet and stumbled toward them, his hand clutched on his side, blood running over his fingers. Then he fell, barely managing to put his hand out in time to cushion the impact. His face had gone pale, a mask of death to replace the silver mask that lay beyond his reach.

“Let go of me!” Kamoj shouted. Wrestling in the archer’s grip, she looked up—

And froze. A giant black and gold bird was cutting a swath through the trees, blasting away scales and dirt. The roar of its descent drowned out even the siren from Vyrl’s body.

As soon as the bird landed, its mouth gaped open. People ran out of its throat, Dazza and others in gray uniforms, all sheathed in shimmers that molded to their bodies. Two Lionstar stagmen came also, Azander and another man. The unfamiliar Lionstar man raised his arm and pointed a tube at the Ironbridge archer that held Kamoj.

“Ah—” With a stunned expression, the archer collapsed. The Lionstar man looked disconcerted, as if he hadn’t been sure what would happen when he did whatever he had done with the tube.

Kamoj tried to run to Vyrl, but one of the shimmer-sheathed strangers caught her and held her back. The other healers were kneeling around Vyrl. As one of them placed a translucent mask over his face, Dazza worked dials on a cylinder connected by a cord to the mask. Two other healers lifted him onto a stretcher.

Impossibly, the stretcher rose off the ground on its own. Grabbing its ends, the healers ran for the metal bird. Dazza went with them, running by the stretcher. Two more of Vyrl’s people laid the dying Ironbridge man on a second stretcher and followed the first group. The siren from Vyrl’s body still rang throughout the trees.

Kamoj struggled in the grip of the healer that held her. “Let me go with him!” she shouted. When he only tightened his grip, she screamed, “Let me go!”

Still running, Dazza glanced back. “Let her come,” she called. Then she disappeared into the bird’s throat.

The instant the healer released her, Kamoj took off. She had no time to consider the consequences of running into the mouth of a giant metal bird. Its jaw was already closing. She barely had time to race inside before it snapped shut behind her. Two more steps took her through the throat—and into a nightmare.

The bird’s stomach was a demon’s nest of tubes and metal curves, surfaces that gleamed, light panels, other things she had no names for, looping coils and projections like clawed hands.

Suddenly the bird lurched. Kamoj lost her balance and slid to one knee, her shoulder hitting the metal “wall” that lined the beast’s gut. A roaring filled the air and the bird vibrated around her. As it grumbled and boomed, a great invisible hand shoved her against the wall of its stomach.

The Lionstar stagman who had knocked out the Ironbridge archer knelt on one knee at her side, his presence both reassurance and an offer of protection. She managed to incline her head in gratitude. He nodded back, his face as pale as a white-skeeted snowlizard. She suspected he had no more love of riding in the innards of giant metal birds than did she.

A few paces away from them, Vyrl lay on a pallet enmeshed in coils and jointed metal arms. The siren coming from his body abruptly cut off, leaving a calm broken only by the muted clinks and hissing of the bird’s guts. The Ironbridge man lay on another pallet, surrounded by healers. Kamoj couldn’t tell what was happening with him, or even if he still lived.

Vyrl, however, was very much alive. He had ripped the mask off his face and was grabbing at a tube Dazza kept trying to press against his arm.

“I won’t be put to sleep like some wild animal!” he told her.

“Stop fighting,” Dazza said. “It will drive the arrows deeper into your body.”