HER THROAT HAD never felt so rough. She had torn it with howl after howl, not giving herself a moment’s rest. It had been the one way she could think of to make things better for these animals who had been killed by unmagic.
“We should go now, I think,” said Richon as the morning light grew hot. There was no cool breeze here, as if the wind itself were afraid to come through the trees of this forest.
The hound hung her head, taking in great gulps of air.
She wondered if she would ever feel whole again. She felt the deaths of these animals as if they were her pack, and the pain of their loss tore at her more because a part of her was human and did not see death as natural and inevitable.
In any case, these deaths had not been natural, any of them.
Suddenly there was a streak of sunlight from overhead, and the hound felt the descent of something heavy from above.
Rain?
She looked up and saw nothing, but felt the same sense of weight approaching.
Richon saw it, too, and reached for her.
The weight—whatever it was—was falling slowly. And it was warm.
Then the hound gasped as she realized what it was.
Magic!
And it belonged to the animals. She could sense it as it descended toward them.
This was why their bodies had not disintegrated.
The unmagic had caught them unawares. They had not had time to flee. But they could have fought back. They could have thrown their combined power against him, but they had chosen not to.
For if they had, their magic would have been swallowed up. And it was wrong for that magic to be gone from the world.
Though none of these animals had any hope of giving their magic to a son or a daughter, to a mate or a cousin, or even to any of their own species, the hound realized, they had wanted to keep it safe. And so they had sent it up into the air above them, still attached to their forms but away from the greedy unmagic, waiting for magic to call to magic.
The magic of a thousand animals or more—it was hot and heavy, and very sweet.
The hound did not think it was for her.
She turned to Richon, who held out a hand, as if reaching for the magic. Then he pulled back and looked at her.
“I am the last man who should take it. The very last. I am the cause of their death, and they hated me. They must have, to fight against me as they did.”
He stared at the hound, his eyes wide and red, his hands clenched into fists.
The stance of a man ready to do battle, thought the hound. It reminded her of King Helm.
“There are humans who died because of you and yet you still think yourself able to be their king. How is this different from that?” she asked simply. Perhaps it was a hound’s argument, but it was true for humans as well.
“Because I was born to be a king of humans. Not of animals,” protested Richon.
“Both,” the hound barked at him. It was never as easy to speak as an animal. The words were simply not as complex. But the hound felt it would be wrong to change back into a human now, and Richon could understand her in either tongue.
Richon took in a choking sob. “I have another battle to fight first.” He looked out to the southern edge of the forest, beyond which his army was supposed to be, battling other humans who threatened his kingdom.
“There is only one battle,” the hound barked. “And one magic.”
At last Richon lifted his head to the magic, as if welcoming it. He spread out his arms. And then he opened himself.
The hound could feel the block he had been using to press against the magic simply disappear, and the magic flowed into him naturally. Then she saw him sag, and put a hand to his mouth, as if to stop himself from vomiting the magic back up.
He took a tottering step. Then steeled himself and took another.
“They trust me,” he said, half in wonder, half in despair. “I may do whatever I wish with their magic. They give me free rein.”
The hound was not surprised. She, too, trusted Richon to the end of her life and beyond.
But she turned back to the animals one more time and saw that the bodies, held lifeless but untouched by death, had changed. They had begun to melt into the ground, overcome by the unmagic now that their magic had been taken up by Richon.
In a few hours’ time there would be nothing left to mark this spot except a vast field of cold death. The animals would be erased entirely, as the cat man must have intended from the beginning.