by Jessica Daw
“Good. Do it again.”
I was excited enough that I didn’t protest his high-handedness, finding another wax patch to prove to myself that I could do this. I could use my magic, control it instead of letting it control me. I, Helena Nordskov, could use magic. I can. Another patch of wax melted away.
Eliminating wax spot after wax spot, my confidence grew. My heart was pounding from the exertion, but I kept pushing myself.
Then I was overconfident and burned the dress. Again. I stared at the hole for a moment, heart still pounding.
“Mistakes are a part of learning magic, Lena,” the isbjørn rumbled next to me.
The barriers I’d overcome to do this started rising again. “How do you know when you’ll make a mistake that’s too big to be worth it?”
“You don’t.”
I was back to where I’d been before my moment of triumph, staring at the fabric balled in my hands, though it was now wax-free, if a few holes had been gained.
“But . . . I know I’ve seen many more lives improved and saved by magic than I’ve seen lives harmed by it, and I’ve been involved—I’ve seen the harm magic can do.”
I caught his hesitation. What had he been involved in? But only part of my mind wondered about that. The rest was captivated by the issue at hand.
“Besides which, as I said earlier, the only person you could harm is me, and I’m confident in saying that a year is enough time for you to have enough control to avoid fatal mistakes.”
I winced at the word fatal. “I don’t like you, but I don’t want to kill you by accident.”
He let out a short bark of a laugh. “Why, Lena, I’m flattered.”
Reluctantly, I laughed, just a little. “It’s true,” I insisted, toying with the skirt in my lap.
“Hmm. I don’t want to kill you by accident either. There are times when I want to kill you quite intentionally, but not by accident.” I looked up and saw humor in his eyes, those human eyes set in the isbjørn face, and smiled. “Now, we should do something to celebrate. You worked magic!”
My smile grew. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Now what shall we do to celebrate?”
I thought perhaps my smile stretched wider than my face. “Run.”
His black-lipped smile showed off his sharp teeth. “That’ll do.”
Chapter Twelve
Isbjørn
The Second Report
It was late by the time Lena and I returned, and even later by the time I made her a celebratory dinner and sent her off to bed. Still, I thought the progress made that day was worth mentioning to her parents.
I took a moment to tidy up after demanifesting. My limbs felt strange now in human form, short and loose. I was beginning to wonder about the toll it would take on me to hold the isbjørn shape for an entire year. A little late to worry about that.
Sitting, I took a breath. I was also getting accustomed to speaking without any diplomacy whatsoever. It was more freeing than I would have thought, living exclusively with someone whose opinion I didn’t care for in the least. Not the case with King Aleksander and the Vansen Council. I knew the primary reason for this whole debacle wasn’t to look good in front of them, but my brother had greatly stressed what a good opportunity it was to impress them and I was already enough of a disappointment to him.
Time to write a report. Using my best diplomacy skills—which consisted of imitating my brother as well as I could—I took up a quill.
“Helena has disclosed why she was restricted from working magic for the past decade. With an understanding of her hesitation to use magic, I was able to make some progress with her. She successfully performed a small spell today. If she continues to agree to it, I will continue to train her in the basics of magic-working.”
I didn’t know what else to say, so I replicated the letter and sent them off, to King Aleksander and the Vansen Council.
The proximity of my brother allowed me to scry him, though the amount of energy to scry someone, to speak with them over a long distance and see their face in a reflective surface of your choice, seemed nearly obscene with my exhaustion. Still, he’d sent me at least three scrying requests in the past few days that I’d put off answering. Sighing, I responded to the request, going through the ritual steps to set up a scrying conversation, and Eirik’s face appeared in the mirror. “Finally. I was beginning to think the Vansen princess had killed you.”
“Nearly,” I replied, smiling. If Eirik was in a good enough mood to joke, it was an enjoyable experience to talk to him. Unfortunately, it was often the case that his multiplicity of duties was weighing on him too heavily to be anything but absolutely serious.
“How do you fare?”
“Well enough. It’s a new experience, at the very least.”
Eirik laughed, making him look much closer to his actual age. He typically looked at least ten years older than his twenty-five years. The tidy goatee he wore didn’t help his case.
“You haven’t reconsidered shaving, have you?” I asked, one of my favorite questions for my brother.
“I see you’ve—No, I’ll not be sidetracked. Is there any news? Anything I can pass on to our interested friends?”
I leaned back in my chair, making a face. “Have they been pushing for information?”
Eirik’s political mask fell into place. I hated that mask. “Nothing I can’t handle. How is it, really?”
“The big news of the day is that she performed a single tiny spell. You may inform our interested friends of that if they ask what news there is.”
“Hmm.”
“She also said that she didn’t want to kill me by accident. I’m sure they’d be pleased to know our relationship has progressed to that stage.”
The mask dropped as Eirik snorted. “You know how to pick them, don’t you?”
“I think this was your idea.”
“I suppose I know how to pick them, then.”
“I suppose so. Did you have any other pertinent questions? If not, the circles under your eyes are going to become permanent if you don’t get some sleep.”
He laughed. “Fine. No more questions, unless there’s anything you need?”
“I’m fine, Eirik. Get some sleep.”
“Next time answer my requests earlier,” he said quickly, making me roll my eyes and end the conversation, leaving me once more with a mirror reflecting my own face.
Chapter Thirteen
Lena
I lifted my fingers to flick a tiny, innocent flame at the isbjørn's face. His eyes narrowed. “If you try lighting my nose on fire one more time, I will eat your hand.”
“It won’t light you on fire,” I said with a scowl, but I lowered my hand. “You’re being highly frustrating. Someone has to keep you in your place.”
“Oh, and you’re the perfect person to do that, Miss High-and-Mighty Princess?”
Moving fast, I flicked the fire at his face, coming out slightly larger than I’d originally intended, then sprinted out of the retainer’s hall that had become our magic lessons room, straight into the snow of the courtyard. I flew into the stable, now smelling pleasantly of horses and fresh hay after the isbjørn and I had taken another day to finish cleaning it, diving into Rune’s stall and swinging onto his back.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t considered the fact of the single entrance to the stable. The isbjørn loomed an enormous shadow in the doorway. I cursed, but I felt reckless. Rune could jump, and the isbjørn, if he had no love for me, didn’t want to hurt my horse. Before I could rethink my plan, I let out a “Hiya!” and squeezed Rune as hard as I could, spurring him forward. He ran at full gallop toward the bear, and leaped.
“Good boy!” I exclaimed full voice, thrilled as we landed in the snow past the isbjørn. “Go!” I wasn’t wearing my parka, since we’d been inside and the first spells we’d been practicing were insulating spells for the slit windows, at my insistence. I hadn’t been all that good at the insulating spells, hence my frustration with
the isbjørn, who kept making me try again and wasn’t helpful in the least, and my desire to throw fire at his face.
I turned Rune sharply to escape from the gate, shouting, “Otkroisya!” open in Nyputian. If I were a better magic-worker, I could have used the language of my choice, said anything I wanted, or even not spoken, but the doors in the castle were accustomed to the isbjørn and his use of Nyputian to perform magic and seemed to respond best when I spoke the same language. Besides, I knew a bit of Nyputian, from Dagmar’s persistent drilling.
“Zakroisya!” the isbjørn roared from behind me. I knew enough to know that the isbjørn had shouted close.
This time I yelled another curse word, pulling Rune’s mane to stop him in his saddle-free state, nearly sliding off his rear as he stopped in time to not run full-speed into the gate that had swung halfway open only to close as we reached it.
“Wash your mouth,” the isbjørn said in an obnoxiously self-satisfied voice.
I turned Rune around, glaring at the isbjørn. “You are no fun.”
“Oh? What, pray tell, did I do that earned me that label? Helping you learn magic? Protesting when you wanted to throw fire in my face?”
“Chasing after me like a fox after a poor rabbit?” I added to the list. “Slamming the gate shut in my face?”
“After you recklessly made your horse jump over me? He could have broken a leg.”
“Fine. Sorry, Rune, for believing in you. I should have thought you couldn’t do it.”
The isbjørn growled in irritation, something he did on a regular basis. “Even you must admit that at least that was unwise.”
“Don’t listen to that mean old isbjørn, Rune. You can do anything you set your mind to.”
“You mean he can perform any task you impulsively decide he should perform for your benefit.”
“I meant what I said. Now stop being a stick in the mud and let’s go run. You have to be as bored and cramped as I am. I can tell—you’re always more obnoxious when you’re bored and cramped.” I really could tell. It had been nearly three weeks since the day I’d confessed to the isbjørn why I didn’t work magic and he’d spent much of that time teaching me small practical spells. It hadn’t been easy, and I’d faced a daily fight against my instinct to shut out my magic, shut down, refuse to do anything. I hadn’t succeeded every day, and throwing fire at the isbjørn that day was not an isolated incident.
The only reprieve was when he agreed to go out. For Rune’s sake, as I often painted it, when I was feeling diplomatic.
I couldn’t complain too much, though. The castle was becoming more livable, we had more varied food, and I could light my own fires, heat my own bathwater, grind my own flour—though the isbjørn still had to help me make bread, which was apparently one of his particular hobbies. We’d made more different kinds of bread than I’d even known existed, the isbjørn making me use magic for any step that could be quickened by doing so, even though he told me that usually it wasn’t the best idea to use magic for things that could so easily be done by hand.
The isbjørn looked indecisive. “Come on. Just a little run,” I wheedled. “I’ll be so much less bored and cramped, I’m sure I’ll be less inclined to throw fire at your face.” Which was also one of my magic talents—flicking little bits of flame at the isbjørn when he irritated me. I was getting quite good at it.
“I wanted to experiment with a few different magic methods, though. Get you ready to work some bigger spells.”
I made a face. “We have a whole year.”
“Eleven months,” he corrected.
I blinked. “It’s been a whole month?” It made sense, really—I knew it had been roughly that long, but it was strange to think that a whole month had passed since I’d bid farewell to my home. “Well, eleven months is plenty of time to experiment with different magic methods, and Rune needs to be exercised anyway.”
I saw him relent before he even verbally gave in, and had to reign in my triumphant smile. “Fine. But a short run.”
Both of us loved the freedom of racing through the empty, snow-strewn world too much to make it a short run. Finally, it was me that had to insist on turning around.
“I don’t think you’ve ever been the first to want to turn in,” the isbjørn said as we began slowly walking back.
“Um. I seem to have . . . forgotten my parka.”
“What?” His gray eyes were wide, staring at me. “Lena, you little idiot. You could get frost bite!”
My fingers were a nasty shade of purple. I hid them in Rune’s mane. “I’m fine.”
He let off one of his signature growls of irritation. “Get off Rune. You’re coming home with me.”
“I’m fine,” I repeated. I wasn’t sure if my frozen limbs would support my weight.
“Don’t be stubborn, for once in your life. Get off Rune.”
His tone was the one I knew I couldn’t argue with—I’d tried enough times to be certain there was no point. I started trying to dismount, hissing as ferocious needles of pain dug into my numb skin.
I found myself supported by magic hands, lifting me carefully from my almost-falling position and onto the isbjørn’s back. “Thank you,” I said, eyes drifting shut as I was enveloped by my companion’s warmth.
Before I knew it, I was slipping off a high-speed isbjørn. I woke just in time to grab his fur. “Sorry,” I whispered when he grunted.
“Are you falling asleep?”
“No.” The word faded into nothing and the world was going dark around me. It would be the stupidest thing ever to die because I hadn’t worn my parka on a run.
I felt, as from a distance, his fur wrapping around my hands and arms, the way it had when we’d first come to the castle. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since then.
The next thing I knew, I was being lowered into my bed, covers pulled over me.
“Sleep, Lena.” The isbjørn’s voice barely registered before I did exactly what he told me to do—sleep.
It felt like I’d just closed my eyes when I opened them again. The isbjørn’s “Finally,” indicated that perhaps that wasn’t the case.
“Mmm.” I rolled onto my side, and fell back to sleep.
When I awoke next, it was to the scent of freshly-baked bread, the soft white kind that tasted like eating buttery clouds. My stomach rumbled.
“Are you actually awake this time?” the isbjørn asked suspiciously.
I tried to say of course I am, but it came out more like, “Mrahhh,” since I tried to speak the words at the same time as I tried to sit up and upset bowls of water my hands had been resting in. “I’m wet,” I observed.
“Show me your hands.” I was tired enough that I obediently lifted my hands for him to see. They were red and swollen. “Good. They’re looking better,” he said.
I made a face. “Ew.”
“You went riding in December without gloves. Or a parka. Or your ward pendants. Or anything except your dress, and thankfully boots—your feet are fine, in case you were wondering.”
“It wasn’t that cold,” I protested.
“You’d been working magic all morning. You were more tired than you realized, which meant you were more vulnerable to the cold. And it was especially cold yesterday, in any case.”
“Yesterday,” I repeated. No wonder I was so hungry. “Is there . . . bread?”
He snorted a laugh. “Yes.” He levitated up a plate that proved my nose had been exactly right in diagnosing what kind of bread the isbjørn had brought me.
After looking at my disgusting hands, I gingerly picked up the plate and used my teeth to eat the bread without touching it. It wasn’t until the bread was almost gone that I choked on a gasp. “Is Rune okay?” I asked urgently through coughs, remembering leaving him to ride home on the isbjørn.
“Happy as ever. Keeps me busy supplying him with hay.”
I smiled, finished coughing, and ate the rest of the bread. He levitated the plate away and gave me a glass of water, which I
drained in one long swig.
“How are you feeling?” he asked with solicitousness that sounded suspiciously business-like.
“Well.” It was true. My hands felt tight but not painful, and I was rested.
“Good. I have a proposal.”
Very suspicious. “I’m listening.”
“Well, it’s less of a proposal and more of me using my advantages as your guardian to get you to do something you don’t really want to do. You need to find a magic method and push yourself further than you have. Besides which, you proved yourself reckless riding Rune without a parka and your privileges with him will need to be limited. Therefore, I’ve decided that you have to try one new magic method a day before you can ride Rune. If you refuse, I’ll exercise him for you.”
I flopped back into my pillows angrily, folding my arms. I had actually been curious to try different magic methods and big spells, but now he was treating it like he had to force me into it. Fine. I would refuse. “Bully.”
“We’ll start tomorrow.”
“Not a chance.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I should warn you, Lena, that I like a good challenge.”
It took two weeks for the isbjørn to convince me to try different methods of magic. He hadn’t been joking when he said he enjoyed a challenge. The more I insisted I didn’t want to, the harder he pushed.
And he got sneaky. He spent hours helping me learn how to cook, teaching me how to make griddle cakes, honey-and-oil bread, bread covered in poppy seeds, and rolls baked on a spit, then rabbit stew (I did refuse to cook with him when I discovered he’d caught the rabbit with his teeth until he thoroughly washed his mouth), cod he caught with his paws (avoiding mouth-washing), boiled potatoes, smoked salmon, mountain hare served with crushed juniper berries, mutton stew with cabbage (I couldn’t bring myself to ask where the mutton came from), and a terrible attempt at meringues. He helped me organize my room and build my own very rough-hewn bookcase from wood he brought me. And he held true to his word that I wouldn’t ride Rune until I tried some magic methods. All that combined with my actual desire to try new magic methods, I caved.
