The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [64]
Chala’s heart ached at this description, and she had to turn her head and walk away.
Still, the man called after her.
“Five copper pieces, then. Or you can come with me and I’ll show you some others. I have plenty to choose from. I only brought these because a man here wished to see them, though now he says he has already bought others.”
It was all Chala could do to walk away. She vowed that this man and the unmagic here would be dealt with later, after the battle.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Richon
THOUGHTS OF MAGIC whirled in Richon’s head. Magic was everywhere, in every Eloliran.
He found Chala standing near a hound, a horse, and a man who seemed to own them.
He nodded absently toward Chala and ignored the others. He simply picked up the sack of swords he had left beside her and moved toward the end of the town.
“How was your drink?” asked Chala, on his heels.
“Fine,” said Richon shortly. He knew he should explain to her what had happened, but he had to sort it out in his own head. He was still not sure he believed it.
“You look unsteady,” she said.
He was indeed. He tripped over his own feet, stumbling into Chala and nearly pulling her down.
She stared at him with disgust. “You are drunk,” she said.
“No,” said Richon. He had only had the one drink. “At least, not on ale. It was…” He could not say it out loud. Not yet.
Chala walked with him, but not so close anymore that he might walk into her.
Moving out of the town, they passed a well. She stopped to drop a bucket in and dumped it on top of her head.
He watched as the water poured down her face.
Then she did the same thing again. And again.
The fourth time, she rubbed her hands in the water, and failing to find soap, used a stone nearby to make her hands raw.
“What are you doing?” he asked, torn out of himself for a moment.
“Making myself clean,” she said.
Was she that disgusted by his drinking?
He wanted to tell her he had magic, as she did. But if he was wrong—He dared not give her, or himself, hope that was false.
They walked farther, and Richon wondered if every person they passed had magic.
Had his whole court had magic and simply hidden it from him all those years?
His own body servants?
The cook?
The stable boys?
Lady Finick and Lady Trinner?
The lord chamberlain?
The royal steward?
And himself?
Was it possible that a man could have magic for more than two hundred years and not know it?
He had wanted the magic so often it had eaten at him. But he had never been able to find the least stirring of it inside himself.
Even now he had come to save those with the magic, not to find his own.
And besides, those who had magic needed no lessons in it. It simply came to them, like crawling or walking upright.
Chala put a hand on his shoulder and turned him around to face her. “You must listen to me. The unmagic is here in this time as well. I have seen it, in the forests, and elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?” Richon echoed, turning to her.
“The horse and the hound in the village. They were touched by unmagic.” She shuddered. “Made lifeless.”
“Unmagic? And I did not sense it?” Was that not proof enough that he had no magic? “Should we go back?”
“No. We must first save the kingdom. Then we can save its magic.”
They walked on, and Richon thought of one day when he was a child and he had found his mother standing under a parasol outside the palace, dressed in her night-clothes, her hair still tied back in braids, though it was the middle of the day.
“I am thinking,” she said when he asked her what she was doing.
She did not look at him or turn toward him as she always had before. She did not give him her full attention.
It seemed she was deeply herself in this moment, and not his mother. Or his father’s wife. Or Elolira’s queen.
“What are you thinking of?”
“I am