The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [82]
She pulled up her magic once more. This time she did not use it as a defense, but pressed it into the cat man. As she did so, she thought of all the moments that had made her life precious and sharp with joy.
Her first hunt.
Her first coupling with her mate.
The birth of her daughter.
The first sight of the princess.
The smell of the bear in the cave.
The wild man’s gap in time.
Her new body.
Her own magic.
And now this.
Even this pain was life. She savored it, and pressed that feeling against the cat man.
This was her magic, and she poured it into him until he drowned in it. It had been so long since he felt true magic, and even then it had not been magic like this.
As she touched him, she saw also his plans for the future. To go south, to conquer animals and humans there, then to return north when he had enough unmagic to finish the destruction completely. It was not only this kingdom that he had threatened. His plan had been an ambitious one, almost like a man’s.
The hound drained him of all memories, of all hatred, of all he had been.
Then he was a cat again. The creature in her arms gasped and choked, but there was still some life in it.
The hound was nearly drained herself. She knew it would take all of her magic to finish him. When she was done, she would no longer be able to change between forms. She did not think about it but simply let the magic drain out of her.
And as she did so, she changed once more into a human woman, still in her filthy gown. She was only partly surprised that in her deepest self she was now human.
The cat shivered once as the last of Chala’s magic was pressed into him, then sagged against her.
Pulling away from him, damp with human sweat, constricted by the tight bands of fabric around her chest, Chala did not regret her choice.
The wonderful new power she had shared with Richon, to change freely from animal to human, had not lasted long, after all. And now she had given it up, not for him or his kingdom, but for the future world that would have been threatened by the cat man’s continued existence.
To no longer be a hound, that was a loss she would have to come to accept. But to never be human again, to lose Richon, to return to what she had been—she could never have come to accept that.
CHAPTER FORTY
Richon
FOLLOWING HER SCENT, Richon came upon Chala the next day. She was carrying water from the well to the inn, looking like a peasant girl with her bucket in hand.
“What happened?” Richon demanded. Something had changed in her, but he was not sure what it was. He feared it had to do with the royal steward she had been chasing and the unmagic he could smell all around him.
Chala told him the fate of the royal steward and of the cat man.
“Then—the unmagic is gone?” he asked, astonished.
“The cat man is gone,” said Chala. “But the unmagic will always exist. We have only staved it off. Remember what the wild man said? The battle between magic and unmagic goes on until the end of time.”
“But we have done our part for this time,” said Richon. The cat man would not be able to spread his unmagic into the future. And for his part, Richon would make sure that the hatred against those with magic was also tempered.
All was well.
Richon breathed deeply, then reached for Chala. He wanted to fold her into his arms and tell her that he loved her. Now he could. He had the words for it, and he meant it truly.
But when he touched her, he felt an emptiness in her that made him draw back. There was more to the story of the cat man’s defeat.
“I used my magic against him,” said Chala. “All of it. That is how I defeated him. He swallowed it up. I could not battle the unmagic. I could only heal it with as much of my own power as he had of his.”
“But you will get it back,” said Richon. “Your magic—” He thought of the joy she had in being a hound, chasing through the woods, eating fresh meat, standing at his side when he was a bear.
Was all that lost?
She nodded sadly.
“Never?” he asked.
She shook her head. “My magic is gone. I am a human