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to make it stretch to fit Kamoj's breasts. She cackled at her reluctant model, her eyes almost lost in their nest of lines. "You've no boy's shape, Gov'ner. You be making Lionstar a happy man, I reckon."

    Kamoj glowered at her, but the seamstress was saved from her retort by a knock on the door. Kamoj limped across the room in her unfamiliar shoes, heeled slippers sheathed in rose scale-leather.
    She opened the door to see Lyode.
    Her bodyguard beamed. "Hai, Kamoj! You look lovely."
    "It's for my wedding," Kamoj said.
    Lyode's smile faded. "Maxard told me."
    Kamoj dismissed the seamstress, then drew Lyode over to sit with her on the couch. The older woman started to lean against the back of the sofa, but jerked when her shoulders touched the cushions and sat forward again.
    Watching her, Kamoj said, "You've huge bags under your eyes."
    "I had-a little trouble sleeping last night."
    Kamoj wasn't fooled. But Maxard must have mollified Jax to some extent; otherwise Lyode wouldn't have been able to move at all.
    "How is Gallium?" she asked.
    Gently Lyode said, "He's all right, Kami. We both are."
    Kamoj crumpled her skirt in her fists. "I hate all this."
    "Hate is a strong word. Give Lionstar a chance."
    "Lyode-"
    "Yes?"
    "About tonight . . ." Although in theory Kamoj knew what happened on a wedding night, it was only as vague concepts. But she felt awkward asking advice on such matters even from Lyode.
    "Don't look so dour." Lyode's face relaxed into the affectionate grin she took on at the mention of her own husband, Opter. "Weddings are good things."
    Kamoj snorted. "You look like a besotted fruitwing." When her bodyguard laughed, Kamoj couldn't help but smile. "How will I know what to do?"
    "Trust your instincts."
    "My instincts tell me to run the other way."
    Lyode touched her arm. "Don't judge Lionstar yet. Wait and see."

    * * *
At sunset the Argali coach rolled into the courtyard, pulled by four greenglass stags and driven by a stagman. Shaped and tinted like a rose, it sat in a chassis of emerald-green leaves. Unlike Argali House, which had only legends attesting to its construction, the coach was inarguably one surface with no seams, glimmering like pearl. Its making was so long in the past, no one remembered how it had been done.
    Watching from her bedroom window, Kamoj heard the door behind her open. She turned to see Lyode framed in the archway, the bodyguard dressed in her finest shirt and trousers, with her bow on her back.
    "It's time to go," Lyode said.
    Kamoj crossed the room without a limp. She felt nothing in her foot now: it had gone numb. She had soaked and cleaned the wound this morning, but it remained swollen. Normally she would have paid more attention, but she had too much else to think of now.
    Maxard was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She smiled to see him. Today no lack of splendor would shame Argali. Her uncle's mail vest gleamed, a gold contrast to his black hair and eyes. He wore a suncorn shirt, wine-red suede breeches, and a belt made from green, gold, and red quetzal feathers. Green feathers lined the tops of his gold knee-boots, and a ceremonial sword hung at his side, its scabbard tooled with Argali designs.
    As Kamoj descended the stairs, her uncle watched with a smile that showed both pride and sorrow.
    When she reached him, he said, "You look like a dream." His voice caught. "Just yesterday you were a child. When did all this happen?"
    "Hai, Maxard." She hugged him. "I don't know." It was true. She had been a child; now she was an adult. Nothing separated the two. It gave her an inexplicable sense of loss. Why? Why should she want more time as a child?
    She knew the stories, of course, of the rare child who took longer to reach adulthood. Rumor claimed Jax Ironbridge's youth had stretched out far longer than normal. At her age he had still been an adolescent, tall and gangly, with only the first signs of his beard. He continued to grow long past the age when most youths reached