Her face and neck bled, covering her like a gown of red jewels, but she only turned to the next hound and seemed stronger than before. She changed each hound in turn into something small and unthreatening. She stomped on some of them before they could squeak away.
But she did not see that underneath her was yet another fissure opening in the ground. A larger one, Fierce thought, than any of the others.
“Stop! Look down!” Fierce called out.
The princess listened at last, and saw what she had done. There was no denying now that her using the wild magic had caused this fissure.
The haughtiness in the princess’s face was gone now. Her shoulders hunched. She twitched and stumbled as she tried to escape the fissure herself.
“Feersha?” said Red.
She nodded, turning away from the new fissure to him.
He moved to her side and looked her up and down before he took a shuddering breath. “I was afraid that they—that you—” he said.
She was not physically hurt, but Fierce felt hopeless as only a human can. A hound will fight and fight, no matter what the odds. But as a human, her hope had been crushed even if her body had not. She thought of the future, but it was a bleak and empty one, and one that would end very soon. She could not think only of this moment as a hound would, and enjoy the respite from pain while it lasted.
“Don’t give up,” said Red. “You are safe. I am safe. And we will think of something we can do.”
Fierce did not answer him, but focused as much as she could on being a hound again in her mind, as she had told Loyal and Unbroken to be. She breathed deeply and evenly and closed her eyes. After a long moment, she was able to feel the simple pleasure of Red’s touch, the goodness of his hand on her back.
It was sometime past midday before anyone tried to move again.
There were still worms coming out of the new fissure, moving slowly away in different directions. Sometimes they merged together. Other times, they simply moved together. If they touched one of the princess’s entourage, they simply wiggled over. It seemed they had a taste of her and wished to avoid her, if they could.
The princess’s face was crusted with blood and she struggled to stand at the side of the horse without assistance. The horse whinnied a word of concern for her and strode toward her, but she held out a hand to stop him.
“I will heal you now,” she declared. “I must trust you not to run from me.” She stared into his face.
For the princess to trust the horse seemed a great leap of faith, particularly for someone who had only trusted herself before.
Then the princess added, with a hint of steel in her voice, “Tell me you will not.”
The horse neighed something softly that Fierce could not hear. It sounded kind, but firm, part horse, part human language.
At last, the princess closed her eyes and touched the horse.
In a few moments, his leg was healed. He stood up, as unsteady as a newborn foal.
He did not run away. Yet.
It seemed that the princess waited for the moment of him fleeing to come and then when it had passed, she was overcome with emotion, weeping on the horse’s side.
Unbroken, Loyal, and Hunter found a wild boar that evening and killed it. They ate much of the meat raw, but brought back the rest for the others in the camp. Fierce could see the delight in their eyes. They had all found a way to be themselves, no matter what their form.
But in the morning, when Fierce woke, the princess and the horse were both gone.
Red spat on the dirt.
“Where did she go?” asked Fierce.
“South,” said Red. “Away from the fissures. Away from what she has done here.”
“But I thought she understood,” said Fierce.
Clearly, she had not.
“I will go after her,” said Red.
Fierce held her teeth closed against a low hound-like grunt. “Yes,” she said. “I will go, too.”
Red did not try to stop her and Fierce found she enjoyed the intense pace he set, running forward. She had never tried to push her human body so hard, but now that she did, it seemed more like a hound than she had thought possible. She could feel her legs becoming one with the forest floor and she anticipated stones before she had seen them. She leaped over them and landed softly, arms outstretched to balance her. She breathed in time to the sounds of the forest.
At last they found the princess, alone, hunched over herself, leaning against a tree.
“You!” Fierce called out. “You coward!”
The princess turned back to her and Fierce saw her stricken face. She seemed much older than she had before, her face lined, her whole figure burdened, her movements shaky.
Where was the horse?
“Where is he?” asked the princess desperately. “Tell me where he is.”
“Who?” said Fierce.
“My horse. The horse I have spent all my life in search of, and found at last. I woke early in the morning and he was gone. Did you send him away somewhere? Are you keeping him from me, to force me to do something? Tell me or I will make you regret it!” The words were angry, but the princess’s voice cracked several times, and her strength seemed gone. She seemed no more a threat than the dirt under her feet.
“You came in search of him,” said Fierce, understanding at last.
“Yes, of course,” said the princess.
“And not to avoid the task of healing the fissures to the Xaon.”
“What?” The princess waved a hand. “What do those matter in comparison with this?”
Indeed, what did the whole world matter compared to her need to have what was hers returned to her? Fierce should not have expected anything more of the princess. She was selfish to the last.
“We can go look for the horse again,” said Red, his tone coaxing. “When the white worms are destroyed and the fissures healed. Come with us. I promise you, if you help us, we will stay with you for the rest of our lives, if that is what it takes to find your horse again.”
“But—I have little life left. I spent so much on him. I kept him wounded to keep him by me, and then when I healed him, he was gone in a moment. Though he promised me he would not, he left me. Again, he left me.”
He was only a horse, thought Fierce. It made sense to her that he had fled. He had done what Fierce would have done, if she were still a hound. He had followed his instincts.
“Princess, please,” said Red.
Fierce was not sure that there was any point in talking to her at all. She seemed crazed. But Fierce did not think the fissures could not be healed without the princess. Could they simply carry her back, unconscious or unwilling? No. She would be of no use then. She had to actively think on this, and then actively work to correct her mistake.
“I will help,” said Fierce. “I know the forest well. And I know the horse. How he thinks.” It was all she could think to do to convince the princess to spend her energy on the fissures.
“I could turn you into a horse,” offered the princess easily. “Then you might find him better.”
Fierce flinched, and could not speak. Did she not see how much Fierce would hate to be changed yet again? Or how dangerous it would be to use her wild magic when it had seemed to creature these fissures each time she did so?
Red touched her lightly across the forehead and shook his head.
But how could he swear to her that the princess would not do it? He did not know what it was like. Now how quickly and painfully it could happen.
“Princess,” said Red sharply. “No more wild magic for now.”
“What?” said the princess, her head tilting up, toward Red’s. It was the first time since they found her that she seemed to recognize them. “What do you mean?”
“Do you know what you have done?” asked Red.
“You will tell me, I suppose,” said the princess with a hint of her old sarcasm, but it sounded only sour and old now.
Fierce wanted to leap at her, tumble w
ith her on the ground, nip at her. Instead she let an angry sound rumble in her throat and stood tall at Red’s side. He knew of the humans and the wild magic. She did not. And so he should speak now.
“You are destroying the magic,” said Red.
“I? I am the only one in the whole north who dares to use the true magic at all. You should all learn from the south. We use the full magic, not just the little bit of magic that you dare to touch.” She looked a little more herself with her eyes flashing.
“How long has it been since you were in the south?” asked Red. “Have you not heard the stories of the magic in the south, and what has happened to it?”
“What do you mean?” asked the princess sharply.
Fierce did not know, either.
“I mean that there is no more magic in the south. It has died out completely. As you would know if you had been there in the last hundred years.”
“It is not possible,” said the princess. “How could you know such things? You hear stories, but they are of those who are jealous of our southern power. They mean nothing.”
“The kingdom of Rivers?” said Red. “The kingdom of Wisdom? The kingdom of the Five Brothers?”
“What of them?” The princess winced.
She knew those kingdoms, thought Fierce.
“They are gone,” said Red. “The lands have been cleaned of all life. They are deserts, sand covering all that remains of the great cities that once were. And now I know why. Your wild magic, used too freely for too long. You have seen the fissures and the worms for yourself. How can you doubt what will happen here in the north, as well, if nothing is done to stop the fissures from spreading and the wild magic from destroying life here as it did where you came from?”
“How do you know this? Where have you heard these lies?”
“My master, Lord Ahran, has many travelers that pass through his estate. He invites them to eat with him. And his animals stay with me. I hear from them. Animals do not lie.”
The princess flung herself forward and began to attack Fierce instead.
The princess flew herself toward Red, but Fierce caught her and the princess screamed at her, scratching and clawing at her like one hound against another. It was a fight that Fierce could not lose. The princess did not have the experience that Fierce did.
Fierce felt the princess’s fist slam into her right eye. She snarled and dug her teeth into the princess’s arm. She tasted blood, human blood. She was surprised that it tasted little different from the blood of animals. Sweeter, perhaps. And with no trace of the forest.
The princess moved back and tried to kick Fierce in the side.
Fierce turned just so and caught the princess’s arm with her own. There was a sound like a crack and the princess fell to the ground, clutching her arm. Fierce looked at it, but did not think it was broken. Only bruised.
Yet the princess did not get up to fight again. No hound would back away from a fight like this. But the princess was a human, and one who did not know how to use her human body even as well as Fierce could use hers.
“Are you finished now?” asked Red, standing over the princess.
There were tears running down her cheeks. She nodded.
“Say you are sorry, then.”
The princess whispered the word more than said it.
“Not to me,” said Red. “To Fiersha.”
The princess got to her feet and stared at Fierce. “You think that I should apologize to her?” she said.
“Do it now or I will tell you nothing about your home in the south,” said Red.
The princess swallowed and looked away.
For a moment, Fierce thought she would simply walk back into the forest and there would be no way to bring her back willingly.
But then she nodded. She looked at Fierce directly. “I am sorry for hurting you,” she said. “I was upset.”
“I know,” said Fierce. She thought that the princess was sincere, and it startled her.
“And now you offer her your forgiveness,” said Red to Fierce.
Fierce did not know what this was. Another human thing she could not understand.
“I offer you my forgiveness,” said Fierce stiffly.
“Good. Now we can be friends again,” said Red.
“About my kingdom,” said the princess in a hoarse, pleading voice. “What can you tell me of it? The kingdom of the Three Mountains?”
Red shook his head.
“I wish to know, no matter how terrible it is. I must know. I left so long ago. I was warned that my people would need me, but I did not think of them.” It sounded as if the princess were only now realizing the mistake in this.
“I do not know,” said Red. “I have never heard of it. But there are many smaller kingdoms I would not have heard of.”
“The kingdom of the Three Mountains was no small kingdom,” said the princess. “It was the greatest one in all the south. If you have heard of the others and not of it—?” She shook her head sadly. “What of Lord Ahran? He has never heard of the kingdom of the Three Mountains? He has never met anyone from there? Or who has heard of it?”
Red’s mouth hung open for a moment. Then he said, “No.”
The princess put her arms around herself and rocked back and forth on her feet for a moment. “Oh, my people. Oh, my kingdom. I meant to return to you, and now it is too late. I chased after a horse I loved too much and now he is gone and my kingdom is gone and I wish I were gone, as well.”
“There is something you can do for them, to make up for your mistakes in the past,” said Red. “Something harder than letting yourself die and letting all your wild magic go.”
The princess stared at him, waiting.
“Make the magic whole again. Heal the fissures. Destroy the white creatures.”
“Yes,” said the princess after a long moment. “I can do that.”
Chapter Fourteen:
Red, Fierce, and the princess made their way back to the others before it grew dark that night. Fierce slept well that night with Red not far away, but in the morning she woke early and saw that the princess had not slept at all.
“You,” said the princess as soon as she saw Fierce’s eyes open. “Tell the others. We leave now.”
“Leave? Where are we going?”
“North, through the forest,” said the princess. “I will follow my trail back to where I began. I will undo what I have done. I will heal every fissure I have made in the wild magic. And then I will be finished. I will rest at last. Alone.” She sighed and looked to the south.
Fierce wondered if she was thinking of her lost kingdom or her lost horse.
Fierce went to Red first and woke him gently by pressing a hand to his cheek. He was warm and the feel of his skin underneath hers gave her a distinct pleasure. Touching a human was not like touching any other creature. Red had no fur, though he had some soft fuzz around his chin, a darker red than his hair. It was like touching a newborn animal, innocent and unsure.
His eyes flashed open after a moment and he jerked to his feet, scrambling away from her as if he had seen through her human skin to the predator that was beneath.
“I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt you,” said Fierce.
“You didn’t. I was only startled,” said Red. He put a hand to his heart and took a deep breath. Then he moved closer. “I had a dream,” he said. “The worms had turned into monsters, as tall as mountains. There was no stopping them.”
“I do not have dreams like that.” As a hound, Fierce’s dreams had always been bits and pieces of her past, that she relived in her sleep. She had never wondered where this flash of an image or that had come from. But as a human, the dreams were changing. How long would she be human before she had dreams like Red’s? She did not like to think of it.
“I envy you, then,” said Red. “If that is true.”
Fierce wondered if her mother had human dreams like Red’s. Did she ever dream of Fierce herself? Did she ever imagine returning to her daughte
r and living with her as a hound again? It would be only imagination now, thought Fierce.
“What is it that you need?” asked Red.
“The princess wishes us to be ready to go back to the fissures. Soon,” said Fierce.
Red grinned and Fierce thought how wide his mouth was. Such a mouth on a hound would be a great advantage. More could be eaten quickly, and the teeth would be more readily available for a kill.
“Still a princess, then? Ordering us this way and that? I will not worry about hurting her tender feelings too much, then,” he said.
“I will tell the others,” said Fierce.
Red caught her from behind and pulled her back. “Why should you? She can do it herself. I think she should learn that we are not all her servants.”
Fierce smiled at him. He was absolutely right. She was not the princess’s servant. Not anymore.
“Did she say that she would change everyone back?” asked Red. “To their proper shapes?”
Fierce could not breathe for a long moment. Did he suspect the truth about her? And if he did, why did she care so much? He loved hounds. He would not treat her badly if he knew she was one.
But he would treat her differently, she was sure of that. There would be a barrier between them that had not been there before. Fierce did not want that.
“I thought not,” said Red, when Fierce was silent for too long. “She thinks like a princess. She speaks like a princess. She acts like a princess. I will believe she has changed when I see her bringing her own food to us and tending our wounds before her own. When she thinks of all of us as equal to herself.”
“But if she used the wild magic to change back—those she has changed—” Fierce put in awkwardly. “Would that not bring more of the white creatures and fissures?”
Red tilted his head to one side and took in a deep breath. It was something he had learned to do from hounds who were waiting for the next scent of the hunt before they bounded forward, Fierce thought.
“Perhaps,” said Red. “But it may not be so. Magic is supposed to be about balance, about keeping humans and animals in fair balance to each other.”
The Princess and the Horse (The Princess and the Hound) Page 9