The Princess and the Bear (21 page)

K
ING
R
ICHON AND
Queen Chala ruled happily for many years, though they were not blessed with a child to rule after them. Some said it was because the king’s magic was too strong for any child to hold. Others said that it was part of the curse that had made the king into a bear.

But it was the queen who seemed most hurt by her childlessness. She was often seen among the children of the palace, playing games with them, throwing a ball in the air and catching it with her teeth, or teaching them the foolish rules of being human that their parents expected them to learn without speaking of them.

When the king grew older, he went on a journey to the far reaches of the kingdom and brought back with him a young woman named Halee, who had as much of the magic as the king himself did, though it seemed to
have come to her late in life. She had compassion as well, which the king thought far more important to being a good ruler. In time the king named her his heir.

The king and queen stayed for several months to help her learn all she needed, and then they disappeared one night and were never seen again in that land or that time. It is said that they returned to their animal forms and that they are still to be seen on the darkest of nights in the forest, where the magic is strong.

But the truth is that they returned to the wild man in the mountains.

He was waiting for them, lying on a blanket, his head tilted to one side and his eyes closed.

At first Chala thought he was dead. The smell of death was in the air. It was part of the reason that she and Richon had come to him now. Richon had noticed it as far away as the palace, and even Chala had begun to get a sense of it, despite her utter lack of magic after all these years.

But the wild man was still breathing. She could see the rise and fall of his chest.

“Ah,” he said, opening his eyes and struggling to sit up.

Richon moved to help him.

How frail the wild man had grown, thought Chala. He looked more wolf than man now, with those huge teeth and the skin sunken around his eyes making them look brighter than ever before.

“You have come,” he whispered.

“We could not have done otherwise,” said Richon. “Not when I heard your call.”

“Your kingdom?” asked the wild man.

“In the care of one who loves the magic as only one who thought she did not have it can,” said Richon.

The wild man nodded. “Good.”

“I cannot thank you enough,” said Richon.

The wild man smiled widely, like a wolf. “You will not say that when you hear what it is I have brought you here to do,” he said.

Richon waited.

But Chala thought she already knew.

“The magic needs protecting, and I can no longer do it, but you can,” said the wild man to Richon.

“But I—I could not possibly take your place. You have so much magic—” Richon sputtered.

“You have as much magic as I did when I began,” said the wild man. “But that is not why I ask you to take my place. There are others who are strong enough, but they do not understand how important it is, how horrible the unmagic will be. You do.”

Richon stopped protesting. “I do,” he said.

“And she will stay with you,” said the wild man, gesturing to Chala.

“Without magic?” asked Richon. He was as pale as he had been when he first realized what Chala had
given up to destroy the cat man.

Chala put a hand to the back of his neck to reassure him. She did not mind.

“Here, alone, for years on end?” said Richon.

“Ah, but she will not be without magic,” said the wild man.

Richon stared.

And Chala, for the first time, felt hope in her heart.

“I will give her my magic,” said the wild man. “Mine alone is old enough to work past the scar of the unmagic in her. And to enable her to have a child again, when the time comes.”

“A child?” said Richon, eyes wide.

It was then that Chala saw the pain he had concealed for so long, so as to avoid adding to hers. How much he had wanted the child that she could not give him. The scar in her had not only walled off her magic, but had made her unable to engender any life, for magic is life.

“Come to me,” said the wild man.

Chala approached him. She had never felt so light, and so afraid. She had had a child before and Richon had not. She knew the love a child would bring into their lives as well as the pain.

The wild man put his hands on her.

She felt the rush of magic into her, sweet and hot, like love itself.

Then the magic was hers and the wild man was falling away from her.

Richon’s smile—when she touched him and he felt her magic—was all the reward she could have asked for.

Together they found rocks under which to bury the wild man’s body. He would be remembered, in legends and in their own minds.

But life went on, and so did magic.

Jacket art © 2009 by Larry Rostant

Jacket design by Amy Ryan