Chapter 3

A week before my wedding my mother suddenly changed her tune. "That human, Leon. Have him come to the tea house at the border tomorrow at midday. I'll see him."

A thin thread of hope rose in me, because by then I knew I had three years left at most.

In those three years I would not ask them to save me, or to put together a decent dowry. I only wanted Leon to meet my parents before I married him.

Even if all my mother said was, "Take good care of Sif," I would remember it for the rest of my life.

I sent word to Leon and asked him to be ready well ahead of time.

The next day I got to the tea house ahead of time and ordered a table of food that both elves and humans could eat, and I waited from high noon until the sun went down.

One set of customers replaced another. The human caravans packed up. The elven guards at the border changed shift. The vine lamps along the walls came on. And my mother and the rest never appeared.

Leon sat at the table with me the whole time. The tea was warmed and replaced three times, and not a bite of the food had been touched.

He looked at how pale I was and finally took my hand. "Sif, why don't we go home?"

I shook my head and kept watching the door. "A little longer. She said she would come."

As the night deepened, the owner of the tea house came to clear the table and asked hesitantly, "Shall I take these dishes away?"

Only then did I notice that the soup had gone completely cold and a hard crust had formed on the cakes.

Just then the jeweler's apprentice came in to rest his feet, wandered over without ceremony, and said with open envy, "Sif, what are you doing here? Your mother has been with Wendy all day trying on the crown. That gold crown with all the jewels is beautiful. It's my master's finest piece, and your father and your brother were standing right there clapping and praising it!"

The tearing pain came through my chest again, and I could barely hold down the taste of blood.

Leon steadied my shoulders. I bit down hard on my lip and forced that sweet iron taste back.

So nothing had come up. They had simply forgotten my wedding entirely.

I had waited a whole afternoon, and what came was not my mother's blessing but someone's offhand boast, making all my hopes seem pathetic.

I buried every feeling and shook my head at Leon beside me. "I'm all right. After the wedding we'll leave the Forest of Life and never come back."

Leon took my cold hand and nodded firmly. "All right. We won't come back."

I walked slowly on the way back, my legs like lead.

The withering of the bonded tree had reached my legs. Every step made my bones feel as though they were burning.

When I pushed the door open, soft hides and silks were strewn over the floor, and my father and Karl were stuffing things into the chest made from my oak, pressing them down again and again.

Wendy turned, saw me, and there was actual reproach in her eyes. "You're about to be married and you're never home! The house is this busy and you won't even lend a hand?"

I stared at my mother's back. "I waited five hours for you at the tea house today."

Her expression darkened at once. "I simply forgot to send word! I've run my legs off every day choosing fabrics for Wendy, and nobody thanks me for it, and now I have to put up with your sulking as well?"

"Setting her crown was the urgent thing? Then what is my wedding?" My voice shook.

She gave me a weary look. "You insisted on marrying that short-lived human. Who forced you? You chose this path, so live with it. Is the whole family supposed to revolve around you?"

Karl slammed the lid of the chest down, strode over and pointed at me. "Sif! Mother spent the whole afternoon out and put two hides in your room hours ago! What is that short-lived human's dignity worth? So what if he can't live past a hundred? Can't he at least survive until after the wedding!"

I watched my own brother curse the man I was about to marry in the cruelest terms. Then my mother covered her face and pretended to weep. "We raised her with everything we had, and now she throws her own family away for an outsider. If I had known she was this ungrateful I should never have raised her at all."

My father's face darkened too. "Sif, apologize to your mother. Now."

Looking at them, I was suddenly very tired. I was dying, and they were still demanding I apologize for failing to cater to Wendy's feelings. There was a time when I would have bowed my head and admitted fault. Now the draining of my life had left me without even the strength to be angry. I went around them and dragged myself back to my room.

Two old, mangy hides had been tossed onto the crude wooden bed. This was the dowry my mother had run her legs off to prepare for me.

In that empty room, the two ruined pelts were painfully conspicuous, like silent mockery.