The Princess and the Snowbird (2 page)

“
C
OME NOW, COME
now,” Jens’s father said to the black-faced ram. He walked from the gate across the muddy ground to where the animal stood. He put out his hand and moved slowly, crouching so that he seemed shorter than he was, less threatening.

The other sheep stepped away from the one who had been chosen to die.

The ram trembled.

Then Jens saw its head rise. The ram looked his father in the eyes and went still. Jens could not even see the beat of blood in its neck. Its eyes had turned to glass, like in the heads displayed atop spears at the winter feasts.

“Just a bit of cold,” his father whispered. He took out his stone knife, different from the knives of the other men in the village, cruder in shape, though just as sharp. The tip of it was white and it was so brittle that it had grown smaller over the years, until Jens did not understand why
his father did not replace it, but instead claimed that this knife was better than any other.

His father took a breath and twisted the knife under the ram’s neck.

Blood ran out between his father’s fingers. There was no struggle.

His father let go of the animal, slipping his knife out of it, and Jens sighed in relief as the carcass fell to the ground.

“Good meat,” said his father, leaning over the upturned abdomen. He nodded to himself, then smoothed his hands up and down the skin until he found the right spot to open the carcass.

“Careful not to ruin the skin,” his father said, glancing up at Jens. “Worth less, can’t make a full coat of it.”

Jens’s own coat was patched together from two pieces, and he knew what his father meant. Whenever there was wind, Jens felt it pierce him at the small of his back, where the coat was stitched.

“Best knife I ever found. Some of the others in the village say it’s an uncanny thing, but it’s mine and I’ve never had an animal move after the blade touched it.” He held up the knife to the sun, where it glinted with specks of gray.

“You have to get them close enough with a word they understand, but the knife does the rest.” With a few more flicks of the blade, the ram’s skin was freed from its flesh.

Jens reached for the skin, but he did not move quickly enough. It fell to the ground.

“Blind, dumb, and deaf!” his father shouted at him. “Useless, since the day you were born. Not a bit of tehr-magic in you. Not a hint of it, that I’ve ever seen. Might as well give you to the Hunter. He’s the only man I’ve heard of who makes having no magic a virtue.”

Jens shivered. The Hunter, who lived in the great port town of Tamberg-on-the-Coast, was ruthless and cruel, and he did not hunt animals. He hunted humans who had the old aur-magic. It was said he had a knife that could cut the aur-magic out through the heart, and when parents were angry, they sometimes warned their children that the Hunter would come for them and take their magic.

It seemed worse still to Jens that his father thought he would go to the Hunter and become like him.

“I am glad your mother is dead, for she would hate to see what you have become. You are nothing like her. Nothing at all.”

Jens’s mother had died at his birth, and his father had never forgiven him for it.

“Sorry, Father,” said Jens, trying to clean off the skin. He seemed only to make it worse.

“Take the knife.” His father held it out.

Jens took it, shuddering, though the knife itself felt no different to him than any other.

“Be careful with it,” his father said, and held up one
arm to show a livid scar. He always said he had no feeling left in that arm. He would not even flinch when he held it to the fire, which had given him a reputation as both brave and coldhearted.

“Quickly, now. I want to be done with this soon,” his father said, rubbing his hands together. “Call it.”

Jens opened his mouth, but did not know what to fill it with. He had never been one to talk to animals. He listened to them well enough, but only because the sound was soothing, not because it had any meaning.

“The one with the lame leg,” his father directed him. It had been the smallest of the lambs born in the spring, but it had the most beautiful white coat, so clear and pure that it seemed to shine even in the dullest light. It would bring good coin for the hard winter months.

“Come now,” said his father.

“Come now,” echoed Jens, his voice as wobbly as the lamb’s legs.

“No. Not like that. Speak to its heart. Speak as it speaks.”

Jens licked his lips. He made a few baaing sounds. Was that what his father meant? He put his hand out, and the lamb kicked up its legs.

“Must I always do your work for you?” His father did—something. He looked at the lamb intensely; it was as though he
thought
at it. Jens knew that his father was using the tehr-magic, but he couldn’t sense it himself. What did it feel like? Jens would never know.

The lamb went silent, its eyes on Jens’s father.

“Let the knife take its life, and the cutting will be easy,” his father promised.

Jens raised the knife, then put it to the lamb’s neck. But the lamb twisted away from him and he panicked, letting go of the knife. It fell onto a stone, and the blade shattered.

“Useless!” his father shouted, shoving him back.

Jens knew he deserved it. The stone knife could not be replaced…but there was a part of him that was not sorry it was gone.

Taking out a metal knife, his father called to the lamb, which was twitching and crying out in pain, though the stone blade had only cut it lightly on one side.

The metal knife went in deep and clean, and the lamb was finished. It shivered once, then died.

Jens stared at the delicate shards of the stone blade. He kicked dirt at them to cover them up.

His father cursed at him as he sliced open the carcass, then ungloved the flesh, but cut the skin badly. “Blind, deaf, and dumb. Useless. A dead son would be a better one.”

A
FTER HER MOTHER’S
injury, Liva noticed the passing of seasons far more. In winter her mother did not leave the cave, as if she were hibernating with the bear. In spring the bear took Liva to gather berries, and when they returned, the hound had done nothing but stare at buds unfurling on the oak tree with the broken limb. In summer, she remained at the edge of the cave for most of the day, or sometimes limped to the stream to get her own water, slipping her whole head in for long stretches of time. In autumn the bear told Liva stories about the ancient aur-magic, and the hound flinched at the sound of the rain and wind, howling through the craggy rocks on the mountains above.

When eight seasons had passed after her mother’s injury, the bear began to leave again more frequently, on his rescue missions to the south. He did not tell Liva
of them, but she could tell when he had spent the night without sleep after a dream in which he had seen humans with aur-magic in danger. Liva did not understand why so many humans hated the natural aur-magic, though they used the corrupted tehr-magic freely enough. She had tried once to ask her father, and he had only said that humans did not understand what was best for them, and they likely never would.

While her mother spent more time in the cave, Liva spent more time outside in the forest. Liva hated being inactive, and she had been hoping for a while now to find an animal to be her companion.

Liva could take any form, but that did not mean the animals would accept her. Her best hope seemed a young one who would become used to her, but she had tried several times before without success.

Once she had tried to bond with a bear cub, but she had smelled too much of her father, a different bear, and the cub fought with her over and over until she gave up believing it was all in fun.

A second time, she had tried to befriend a nest of baby robins, but they had grown up so quickly and were soon flying away without her. They didn’t want her following them, for they were looking to the future and to making their own nests.

Finally she had tried to join with an animal already full grown, a vixen. They had hunted together, and Liva had given up the prey to her friend to prove her
trustworthiness. But only a few days later the vixen was ready to mate, and if Liva came too close, she growled and snapped at her. Liva tried again when the vixen was alone, but she was fractious and ill-tempered because of the weight of her pregnancy.

Now Liva was desperate, and she set her sights on a felfrass kit.

Liva had watched the felfrass’s birth only a few weeks before: a sleek, black thing with tiny claws, large black eyes, and a face circled in white. A full-grown felfrass was the size of a wild hound, but with the fierceness of a bear and the courage to try to take prey from one if it could. The small felfrass was more the size of a rabbit and twitched like a bunny when Liva was nearby, looking as if it recognized her.

But this was the first day she had tried to approach the kit. She wore the form of a young felfrass herself, following it patiently step by cautious step, focused on nothing else but the kit. It was old enough now to be without its mother. Liva waited until the kit had eaten leisurely by the stream. Then it lay on its back on a warm rock, staring up at the patches of sky visible beneath the canopy of trees. Liva came closer, snuffling, making a few sounds so that her appearance would be no surprise. She spoke a few words in the language of the felfrass about the brightness of the day, the smell of the air after feeding, and the beckoning of the stream.

The felfrass kit poked its head up.

She spoke to it of dancing on rocks and swimming as fish.

The felfrass kit switched its tail in invitation.

It liked her. Surely this was the moment when she had found a creature that understood life in the forest, the freedom and the joy of it, and also the thrill of danger. A felfrass was just arrogant enough not to care that Liva smelled of bear and hound from the cave.

She was reaching out a paw to touch it, to begin a play fight, when suddenly there was a terrible rumbling sound in the forest. Liva looked up to see a whole hunting party of humans, more than a dozen of them, all holding weapons of various kinds.

They wore heavy coats of animal fur pulled up around their faces, as if they thought this would disguise their piercing, human eyes; the smoky, sour smell that hung over them like a cloud; and the scratching sound of their voices in the soft forest air.

Liva remembered from her father’s stories that humans were wily and dangerous, unpredictable. And they killed sometimes for pleasure rather than for the need for meat. Certainly when Liva looked into these eyes, they seemed hungry for something that mere flesh would not provide. Her instinct was to run away from them, but a stronger feeling told her to stay. She had to protect her felfrass.

The felfrass was frozen in curiosity, but Liva hid behind a tree. She watched through branches for a few
precious moments to see which of the humans were most vulnerable.

Two were smaller than the rest. One was a head shorter than the others, but there was a hard look in his eyes that Liva did not like. The other human was not as small, but he looked more unsure of himself. If she meant to attack the weakest human, he would be the one.

Liva had killed many times in her life, nor did she know of any reason to be ashamed of it. She chose animals that would have died more painfully otherwise, lingering with age or infirmity, and she ate the animal whole when she did kill it, leaving nothing behind but the bones.

The small, uncertain human had no fur around his face, but showed white-blond hair, and he shivered with the cold. His boots were far too big for him, and his hands were bare underneath the long sleeves of the coat. To Liva he looked as innocent as a newborn eaglet—but a newborn eaglet took only a few days before its beak was capable of ripping apart flesh and its claws were good for stabbing directly at the heart.

Liva changed into the form of a wolf, leaping from behind her hiding place and lunging at him with teeth bared. She landed two paws on his chest and threw him backward onto the forest floor. None of the other humans noticed his plight—they were too busy closing in on the kit.

Liva had to make this human cry out first for the help
of the others. They must turn back to him and abandon the felfrass.

The human scrambled to his feet again. When Liva raked a claw across his upper thigh, he turned to her with his hands flapping as a bird’s wings in her face, with no hope of actually harming her. The sharpness of his movements caught her eye.

No human face could look handsome to Liva, who was so used to animals. But he had character, and there was a spark of fire in him that Liva liked. Yet when Liva searched for a taste of his magic, she found that he had none at all, neither the aur-magic that was her own nor even the tehr-magic that was so common among humans.

Hesitating at this revelation, Liva was surprised when the small human threw himself at her. Suddenly they were tumbling end over end down a small hillock, toward the stream nearby. She could smell the water.

The human had a hand to her throat. Liva’s claws were on his chest, and there was blood streaming down into the top of his trousers. Clearly this human had been hurt before, and instead of giving up, had decided to live. The human looked her in the eyes then.

And stopped.

Liva did not know why he did it. But she did the same. She recognized something in him that was like herself.

It made no sense.

He lived in a village, with other humans.

She lived in the forest, with other animals.

He had no magic of any kind.

She had the wild aur-magic in great plenty.

He was pale and white haired.

She, in her human form, was dark.

But she let go of him, and he took his hand from her throat and got to his feet.

He pointed at her and stepped back. He, too, stared at her as if he were staring at a reflection of himself in a mossy pond, dimly recognizable.

Liva did not know how, but despite her form, he could see in her eyes the truth of what she was.

He knew she was human.

Liva found herself changing. She was smaller than he was in human form and shivering, for she had on no clothing. She had never bothered with it, because she had never changed into human form away from home before.

That was one of the rules her mother had drilled into her since she was born. She could change whenever she wished, into any form she chose, so long as she did not change while humans were watching. They were not to be trusted. They would kill her, her mother had said. No matter what the cost to themselves, they would chase her down. They would kill her and her mother and her father, and her great aur-magic would all be gone—for great aur-magic was what humans feared most of all.

The boy swallowed hard, his eyes wide. He pointed to himself. “Jens,” he said. He waited.

“Liva,” Liva said at last, her throat dry.

He smiled at her.

Then there was a shrieking cry, of death and despair. Liva knew the sound well. She had heard many animals make it before. Sometimes she had caused them to make it herself, for not all animals welcomed death, even when she warned them of it, or tried to stun them with her magic, to make it easy for them to die.

It was the felfrass.

Liva was angry that she had forgotten about the kit who was her only hope for companionship. A human had made her forget.

She spat at him, then changed herself back into the form of a felfrass, and crashed through the bush to get to the kit.

She reached the circle of humans with their weapons out. The kit was mewling.

Liva growled, a warning to the kit to get away, to flee. But it was not fast enough.

So Liva watched as the kit had its throat cut before her eyes, and she wept with felfrass tears though it was a human thing to do.

Then she gave up a howl and turned her back, running into the forest to the north, back to her cave. When she reached home, she tucked her tail around herself and listened to the quick breathing of her lungs and the beat of her heart.

I am a felfrass.

I am an animal.

I am not human,
she thought.

I am not like them!

I am not like him!

I have aur-magic, and I belong in the forest.

I will never leave this place.

But when her mother came to lick her awake the next morning, she was in human form, wrapped in the fur of animals left in the cave. And she could not get the image of the small, uncertain human out of her mind, his eyes staring into hers as if he saw himself for the first time.