The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [83]
Richon began to understand her sacrifice. “I am sorry,” he said. He had restored his kingdom, but at what cost to himself? Had he lost her?
“I will go away if you wish it,” she said. “I can no longer change into a hound, so I will have to live as a human. But it need not be here if it bothers you. I am strong, at least, and can make my own place in the world.” Her chin came up, and Richon could see the Chala he knew. And the hound as well, in her stubborn pride.
“You will go nowhere,” he said.
She shifted. “I cannot stay,” she said.
“Because of my magic?” Richon asked. If that was so, he would give it all up. He did not know how he could do it. Spread his arms wide and let it go to the forests or the animals? Give it to his people? Or if that did not work, go back to the wild man and beg him to take it? Surely he would have some use for additional magic if he intended to protect the world against unmagic for the rest of time.
“Because I am no longer like you,” said Chala. “I have no magic. I cannot change my form. And yet I will always have something of the hound in me.”
Richon threw himself forward. He winced at the wrongness of her lack of magic. And then she was in his arms.
She was rigid at first, but gradually seemed to let herself fall into him.
“Is there unmagic?” she asked softly.
“None,” Richon assured her.
Chala bowed her head. “There is a scar in me, burned deep. A reminder of what I once had.”
Richon was filled with sudden excitement. “I have enough magic for both of us. I will heal you by giving you of my own.” He heard Chala begin to protest, but he ignored her. He reached for both of her arms and held her above the elbows, throwing magic at her.
But it would not enter her. He could feel it bounce off her and return to him, or simply spread out to the world around them—ground, field, forest—where it would be absorbed by whoever happened to walk by it.
He found his fingernails were digging into his hands, and blood was trickling out from his clenched fists.
Chala took his hands in her own and smoothed them out. “I would have told you it was not possible, but I realized you had to see it for yourself.”
He sighed. “Then we must both learn to live with it.”
“No,” she said. “I must learn to live with it. You need do nothing at all.”
What did she mean?
Did she think that he would turn away from her now, when he had never felt closer to her? He must make himself more clear.
He reached for her hands and looked into her eyes. “I am not a child who is crying for a sweet fallen in the dirt. I have weathered other changes, and I will weather this one. We will weather it together, you and I. And no doubt it will make us stronger and better, whether we wish to be or not.”
There, was that enough for her?
“I can no longer be a hound,” she said, very slowly, as if to make sure he could not misunderstand. “If you wish to be a bear and run in the forest, I cannot go with you. You will have to go alone, or find another who can share that part of you.”
Richon held her fiercely tight. “I want no other,” he said.
“But how can you love a woman who will never again be whole in the way that you are?” she asked. “A woman who will never share your wildness and yet will always wish for it?”
“I love the wound as much as the woman who wears it,” said Richon. “And I love the reason she received the wound. How can I ever forget that, when I feel the change in you? You have given so much.” He still marveled at it. He had done what he had done to be redeemed, but she had had no mistake to make up for, no honor to be reclaimed.
“And all for me,” he added, in awe of her.
“But it was not for you,” she said.
He loosened his grip. What did she mean? Had he lost her love somehow? Had she found another here in his kingdom? Who could it be?
“I did what I did because it had to be done,” said Chala softly.
Richon was so relieved that he laughed. In a moment, though, the sound turned quickly to choking