Free The Princess and the Snowbird by Mette Ivie Harrison Page B

later, and then felt sick at the sticky blood that covered him. He made his way to the river and dipped his head in all the way, then plunged in fully, not bothering to drink, but just using it to scrub himself clean.
    When he came out of the water again, though, he was as hungry as he had been before.
    After he caught the next rabbit, he made a fire to cook it on, forcing himself to wait as it roasted on a stick. It will taste better, he told himself. But more importantly, it would prove that he was still human.
    Satiated, he fell asleep as the fire turned to coals and ash.
    In the morning he woke to the sound of snorting.
    When he opened his eyes, he found himself staring into the face of a felfrass, its black snout gleaming, its sharp teeth darting in and out of view.
    Jens kept very still. This was not Liva. There was nohint of humanity in those eyes.
    The felfrass was smaller than he was, but it was a born predator and could make Jens bleed to death with one blow of its sharp claws or swipe of its mouth. In sleep, he had rolled away from his knife.
    Jens tried to pull his hand farther from the felfrass.
    It moved one foot forward, then nudged its head closer to Jens’s hand and began to lick it.
    It was the hand Jens had used to hold the branch over the fire. The meat had sizzled and dripped juices down the branch and onto his hand.
    The tongue of the felfrass felt rough on his skin. Jens had to grimace to keep himself from jerking his hand away. What happened if the felfrass rubbed his skin raw and tasted Jens’s blood?
    But the felfrass became bored soon enough, and sniffed once more at Jens’s hand, then turned to the branch itself. Its teeth crunched through the wood as it ate the stringy remains of the hare. When it was finished, it sauntered off without a glance back at Jens.
    Jens’s vision swirled with black. He steadied himself with a hand and bit back any sound.
    As the felfrass disappeared in the distance, Jens got to his feet.
    He put his arms around one of the smallest of the large trees and shimmied up its trunk. When he reached the first of the huge branches, he hung over it, his arms dangling, and thought of how many ways hecould have died in the night.
    Then he climbed several more branches, until he looked up and realized that the tree was so tall, he could not tell how close he was to its top.
    His fear was transformed into curiosity.
    He climbed branch after branch.
    As he got closer to the canopy of the forest, the branches were so close together that he had to push several out of the way before he could move any farther.
    He looked down and his vision swam. Now he could see how far up he was, and the world was very small below. His hands clutched tightly to the branches, and he had to breathe deeply to keep himself from fainting.
    Then he looked up.
    The sun bathed his face, and he could hear insects humming. He could see birds circling overhead. He could feel the sway of the tree with the rhythm of the forest. And he was no longer afraid.
    No doubt the felfrass was below him somewhere. And there could be bears and wolves and any number of other creatures who would devour him at a moment’s notice, just as he would devour others, in his turn.
    There was a hierarchy of life:
    Wolves, lynx, bears, hounds, foxes.
    Ermines, weasels, martens.
    Moose, deer, chamois.
    Falcons, kites, ospreys.
    Quail, plovers, curlews, gulls.
    Beetles, newts, wasps, midges.
    Moss, rivers, stones.
    He stood in the tree and felt a part of something larger than himself. He reached into his pouch and felt for the two feathers, the snowbird’s and the owl’s—Liva’s. It was a long time before he was ready to descend.
    On the ground again, he put his hands to the dirt and ran them through the texture of it, taking pleasure in the feel of bark, bits of bones and teeth, droppings, fibrous roots, and thorns.
    He lost himself in the feeling of oneness that had come without any magic at all. He was alone, yet not alone.
    When