The Princess and the Snowbird (16 page)

A
YEAR PASSED
. L
IVA
and Jens lived apart, lives intersecting sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a whole day. Liva found herself drawn more and more often to the village nearby, to answer questions about the aur-magic. Or children and their parents sought her out, for advice, for stories, and for reassurance that the aur-magic was as it was meant to be.

Still, Liva did not wear the half circlet. But she was growing into the role she had been meant for. Jens could see it. He did not press himself on her. He simply waited for her to see what she wanted, and he hoped he would be part of it.

One night Liva saw the bite marks on his side after Jens encountered a hungry boar, just managing to evade it.

“If I had my old aur-magic back,” Liva said absently,
“I could heal them in a moment, without a scar, with hardly a memory of it.”

“I’ll keep my memories, thank you,” said Jens. “They are all that I am.” It was what she had said to him, once.

Liva looked up at him, and Jens was sure she was thinking the same thing he was, because her lips reached for his. She had not kissed him at all the first several months. But now it happened more often, almost every day.

He could taste the life in her, sweet and strong.

“Sometimes I don’t know if what we have is enough.”

“Enough for what?” asked Jens.

“My parents had a love that lasted a thousand years,” she said.

“We will have to concentrate ours then,” said Jens. “Into a hundred.”

That summer he secretly went about making a house in the treetops, in the dense part of the woods south of the cave where he had once lived alone. He found wood that would go just right together or cut it with his knife so that the notches dovetailed together. He used rope from the village to pull it up and put it together. Three rooms: one for her, one for him, and one for both of them together.

He was afraid that Liva would want to stay in the cave, but to him the place was too full of the Hunter’s attack and the loss of her aur-magic. And her parents’ deaths.

In the fall he brought her to the base of the tree and
tilted her head up so that she could see the sun sparkling down around the tightly drawn wood.

“You like it?”

“I love it,” said Liva fervently. “As I love you.”

He liked that look in her eyes.

That night, as they arranged bedding in the two separate rooms, Liva said, “What about the wedding?”

“Wedding?” echoed Jens stiffly.

“We could go to the village. Or to Tamberg-on-the-Coast.” She smiled at Jens.

He felt as though his skin had burst open with bright love he had been trying to keep inside.

“Oh?” he said casually, though he knew she could see the smile on his face—so wide, he thought it might leave him aching at the stress on long-unused muscles.

“I am curious about the way it is now. I did not think much of it before.”

“I have heard of changes,” said Jens.

“What kind of changes?” asked Liva.

“The Hunter’s son has taken power. I think he calls himself Duke now, instead of Dofin.”

“Ah. He sends messages to you?”

“Of a sort,” said Jens, not wishing to brag about his own importance. He was not lord of the forest or anything of the sort. But he understood it now, and he made sure that the village kept to its place while the animals kept to theirs. “He is very keen on keeping me away from the town, however. And you. He fears your reputation
with aur-magic will subsume his own.”

“Do you think he will be better than his father?” asked Liva.

“He could hardly be worse,” said Jens. “Besides, he has a little magic, and I think he has felt enough cruelty in his life to try to avoid it now. I hope.”

“So that leaves the village.” Liva nodded. “Your father is no longer there, you know. He has gone south, in search of his fortune.”

“Has he?” said Jens.

“Tern is there,” said Liva. “He is our only family, in a way, though he prefers to remain there. And we had our first conversation in the village, did we not? It seems right to go back, after a fashion.”

“If you are sure,” said Jens shyly.

“I am sure,” said Liva, and she kissed him until he believed that she was.

Jens went to the village alone and found that in the time since the Hunter’s death, there were many from Tamberg-on-the-Coast who had come to villages in the forest beyond it, no longer so afraid of the aur-magic and the animals.

One of these was a priest who wore a tattoo above his left eye to mark him as one who loved the aur-magic. Jens told Liva about him the next day, and Liva tracked his movements until there was a chance to ask him for a private ceremony in the forest.

On the day they had chosen, Jens surprised Liva by
climbing out of the tree wearing a white jacket and trousers he had traded several skins for. They were a little small for him, and the stiff shirt itched at his throat, but when he saw the look in her eyes, he forgot all that.

She wore a gown of deep blue with gold stitching up the bodice and shimmering, white-gold sleeves. Jens had seen her at work on it, though she always hid it when she caught the first glimpse of his head appearing in their tree house. She had traded skins to the women in the village and had somehow gotten the fabric for this.

“My mother told me once that her wedding day was the only day she had ever been truly frightened,” said Liva, smiling.

“Of your father?” asked Jens.

“Of herself,” said Liva, “and of the life she saw ahead of her, shining as a diamond in the light.” She took out the half circlet and put it on her head proudly. It fit her well.

“Perfection is a hard ideal,” said Jens, and he trembled in awe at the sight of the woman who was to be his wife.

But she smiled at him, and he knew that he was her match in all the ways that mattered.

Soon the moment came when the priest asked Jens if he had a ring. Jens produced one made of wood and polished to a sheen. The wood was from their own tree, and Tern had put a little aur-magic into it.

Now Jens could see her stiffen and take in a gasping breath as she felt the ring on her finger with her other hand.

“Is anything wrong?” asked the priest.

“No,” said Liva softly, eyes alight.

“And do you have a ring for him?”

Liva took out one that had been made from black stone. Was it possible?

Jens stared at the ring as Liva put it on his finger. He thought he could feel something in it, like an echo of what he had felt when the snowbird had channeled the aur-magic through him.

“How?” asked Jens.

“If I told you all my secrets before we are married, what would we have to talk about afterward?” she asked.

The priest pronounced them husband and wife and said they might now kiss and love each other “with abandon.”

Jens did not need any more encouragement. They kissed there in front of the priest, and then climbed together to the tree house and kissed again. Together, they made it their home.

Jacket art © 2010 by Larry Rostant