After They Cut Down My Bonded Tree, I Found a New Family

"Today is supposed to be a good day. We're choosing Wendy's dowry. Stop standing there bringing bad luck down on us!" My mother pulled my sister back in disgust, afraid the blood I had coughed onto the floor would splash the silver-bound chest. When a forest elf girl is born, her family plants a bonded tree for her, a tree that lives and dies with its owner. When a daughter marries, her eldest brother takes the old branches the tree has dropped on its own and builds her a dowry chest, a sign symbolizing a lifelong covenant of love and kinship. The chest is filled with gowns and with whatever the family gives her, and the larger the chest, the deeper the blessing. My brother cut my tree down and damaged its roots as well. "Wendy's tree is too thin and weak. It isn't worthy of the Royal Court. I had no choice but to saw yours into boards and put together a respectable chest for her." My sister stroked the silver-bound chest made from my ancient tree like a highborn princess. The whole family gathered around her to pick out what would go inside, as though they had forgotten that I was a bride that day too. My voice shook. "Then what about me?" My mother looked at me shaking there, and her face filled with disgust. "You insist on marrying that short-lived human. A wicker basket is dowry enough for you." Only in that moment did I understand that to them my life mattered less than Wendy's dignity. So I no longer had to treat them as family. Chapter 1 "Wipe that blood up, quickly. Don't let the Royal Court see this disgusting mess!" My mother threw a rough-woven cloth at me and turned to shield Wendy's hands. Wendy wore a gown of pure white elven silk with a crown of woven gold on her head. She carried every mark of pure high elf blood. I had inherited only my father's ordinary wood elf line. I pressed a hand to my aching chest as the taste of blood rose up out of my lungs. With my bonded tree's trunk cut through and its roots torn, my life was draining away with the sap, past any hope of stopping. I looked well enough. Inside, every organ was failing by degrees. I crouched down and wiped the blood off the tiles a little at a time. My brother Karl came in carrying two rolls of fine hides and laid them carefully into the chest. He didn't so much as glance at me. He smiled at Wendy instead. "Lord Sorin is the commander of the Royal Court. When our sister marries into it, her dowry cannot look inferior to those of the pureblood nobles." My hand stopped on the floor. I forced the sweet iron taste back down my throat and said hoarsely, "My wedding is in half a month too." The hall went abruptly silent. The smile vanished from Karl's face and his brow knotted. "You're still bringing up that lowborn human? You should be grateful we haven't stopped you from ruining yourself. Do you have any idea how much talk a forest elf marrying a human brings down on this family?" Wendy leaned into our mother's arms, turning a sapphire the size of a thumb over in her fingers, and pouted. "Sif, I say this for your own good. What can a short-lived creature like Leon give you, when his kind don't even reach a hundred years? Don't drag the family down with you." Our mother snorted and set her silver teacup down hard. "If you want to marry, then get yourself off to the human border and don't expect this house to prepare anything for you. If you get in the way of Wendy's match with the Royal Court, I will skin you alive!" They gathered around the silver-bound chest again, finding fault with every treasure that went into it. Not one of them cared how long I had left to live now that my bonded oak had been cut down. I held my empty wooden bowl and looked at her. "Mother, my bonded tree is hurt. Could you brew me a little moonlight tea?" The wooden spoon in her hand clattered into the fruit dish. "Why are you always so much trouble? Wendy has to keep her skin in condition, so we’re eating nothing but ice berries for the next half month. Eat them or don't. If you don't want them, get out!" With one sentence I became the one who had spoiled the mood of the whole family. With my bonded tree damaged, my hands and feet were cold as ice and even my breath came out chilled. I could not have swallowed those ice berries. My father frowned and turned a hard look on me. "Sif, stop pretending to be ill for attention. You're the older sister. Can't you let Wendy have this one thing?" That sentence again. I had heard it more times than I could count since I was small, and the answer was always the same. There was only one ration of the rare spirit spring water in the house, and my mother said I should let Wendy have it. When I earned a fine bow after decades as a weaving apprentice, Wendy wanted that too, and my mother again said I should let Wendy have it. I bit my bloodless lip, looked down at the frost-crusted berries in front of me, and said nothing more. After the meal my father wiped his hands on a leaf and announced to the family, "First thing tomorrow we go to the Sacred Spring of Life and ask the High Priest to perform a family blessing rite. Before Wendy marries, nothing matters more." I was wiping the table, and my hand paused. "Father, I have to go to the market first thing tomorrow to collect my bridal wreath." He didn't even lift his eyes. "Go on then." In his mind it was still a family blessing rite without me in it. I dropped the cloth and went back to my little wooden room with a hand over my aching chest. Leon, the human I was going to marry, sent a letter by raven. "Sif, we've repainted the stone house and laid down your favorite wool rugs. The wedding is a day earlier. Has your father agreed? I've arranged the finest wedding carriage there is. Wait for me." Reading it, my throat closed, and I coughed a mouthful of black blood onto the floor without warning. I pulled some dry grass over the stain and wrote back to Leon. "Don't ask them. I'm leaving with you." Chapter 2 The next day I came home carrying my bridal wreath in my hands. Wendy’s eyes crinkled with a smile when she saw me. "Sif, you're back just in time. Father has something important to announce." I stopped. My father cleared his throat, took out a yellowed scroll of parchment, and pushed it across to Wendy. "Wendy, this is the deed to our family's ancestral woodland in Emerald Valley. It goes with you as dowry." Karl unfastened the emerald-set short blade at his waist, the family's warded heirloom, and held it out to Wendy with a smile. "This one is from me." Wendy gathered up the deed and the blade in delight, turned, threw herself into Karl's arms and thanked him over and over. I stood in the corner with my chest tightening in waves. The woodland in Emerald Valley was the last substantial asset the family had, and the short blade was meant to protect its bearer's life. They had given Wendy everything they had to give. My mother's eyes turned on me, sharp. "Sif, as the elder sister, what do you plan to send with Wendy?" My fingers closed slowly around the wreath. I took a breath. "Mother, let me ask something first. What is my dowry?" The hall went quiet in an instant. She looked away, picked up her cup, drank, and did not answer. My father set his face. "Sif, this house has its limits. Wendy is marrying into the Royal Court, so she needs a proper dowry. You're marrying that human. In a few decades you'll be a widow. What would you want with a dowry?" Because my blood was not pure, because I had fallen in love with a human whose life was short, I was to be drained of my own life and stripped of everything. Karl rapped the table impatiently. "Enough, Sif. You've been the master weaver's apprentice for decades. Surely you've put aside a good many moonstones by now? Bring them out for her dowry." They had cut down my bonded tree, divided up everything the family owned, and now they were coming after money I had bled for. I laughed coldly. "Wendy has been drinking tea at the Royal Court for decades. What has she prepared for me?" Wendy went pale and her eyes reddened at once. She shrank into Karl's arms. "Sif, I know I'm not clever with my hands and can't earn the way you do. You don't have to mock me like this..." My mother shot to her feet and pointed at my face. "You're demanding dowry from your sister? Have you no elven decency left at all! You needn't bring much. Two hundred moonstones will do!" I looked at that mean face and refused flatly. "And if I don't?" She faltered, and her face went iron gray. "You won't? Then don't expect a single member of this family at your wedding! You would shame us to death!" I thought of the bundle of human clothes Leon's messenger had brought, and the cloak his mother had sewn for me herself, and the crooked little note tucked inside. "My child, I've learned to cook a great many of the dishes you like, and I've learned to brew moonflower tea as well." Strangers were going out of their way to love me while my own blood was eating me alive. "What are you staring off into space for!" My mother slapped the table. "All right. I'll bring them." I took the old leather pouch from my belt and poured out two hundred moonstones, cold light running over them. Two hundred stones to buy out a hundred years of family. Not a bad price. 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. Chapter 4 Three days before my wedding the whole family fell into a frenzy of activity. The hall was piled with wooden boxes tied with pure white ribbon. My father was busy writing invitations to high elves from every noble lineage, and every line in them called Wendy "my pride." Karl ran back and forth collecting commissioned jewelry for her. Not one of them asked how my own preparations were coming along. A red leaf with the date of my wedding on it was tucked into the doorframe. For a whole week no one picked it up to read it, and no one noticed that my wedding fell a day before Wendy's. I put on my old cloak calmly and went out to buy Leon one of the fine steel swords humans favor. But when I went to pay at the smithy and reached for the hidden pouch at my waist where I kept my moonstones, my fingers found nothing but coarse cloth. The five hundred moonstones that were all I had left were gone. Something roared in my head. That was the money that kept me alive, lent to me by the master weaver out of pity for my damaged tree so I could buy life-prolonging herbs from the apothecary! I ran back into the forest like a madwoman and threw the door open. In the hall my mother was smiling as she fitted a pair of solid gold armguards onto Wendy's wrists. I crossed the room in a few strides and swept the tray they had come on to the floor. In the bright clash of metal, every head turned to me. "The five hundred moonstones in my pouch. Who took them?" My mother bent to pick the armguards up, as untroubled as if I had handed them over myself. "I took them. How can Wendy go to the Royal Court without gold to protect her? There was no money in the house, so I used yours for now." My throat burned. I fought down the urge to cough up blood, and my voice began to shake. "That money buys my life! Do you not understand what it means for a bonded tree to be cut down?" "That rotten tree of yours is useless now, and medicine would be wasted on you!" She frowned, her eyes full of irritation. "Wendy only marries once in her life. How could we let it be second-rate?" I lost control of myself and screamed at her. "Are you trying to kill me! She has land, she has a blade to defend her, she has all the trappings of a high elf, and I have nothing, and you would take even the last money that keeps me alive!" Karl rushed over and shoved me hard. The small of my back hit the corner of the table, my vision went black, and the pain in my chest doubled me over. Wendy hid behind Karl and put on a hurt expression. "Sif, don't be angry. I just won't take the armguards then..." She said she would not take them, and her fingers never once loosened on them. I pushed myself up off the table and reached to take the armguards back, and a hand closed on my wrist like iron tongs. It was my father, Oren. "What do you think you're doing? Rising against us?" I fought him with everything I had, and a hundred years of grievance, of being used as a stepping stone, of watching my life drain out of me, all broke open at once. "Let go! That is my money!" His grip tightened until my wrist bones were close to breaking. "Your money? You eat this family's food and live under this family's roof. What part of that did we not give you? And now you turn on your own house over five hundred stones. Have you no conscience at all!" His hold left me unable to breathe. With my body already weakened by the wounded tree, struggling was useless. My mother came over and slapped me hard across the face. The crack of it left half my face burning and my ear ringing. "I bore you and raised you so you could turn on your family over a few worthless stones? How can you be this selfish!" I held my face, looked at those accusing eyes in front of me, and slowly stopped fighting. My father let go. "That is the end of this. For the sake of the family's name, no one is to mention it again." One weightless sentence sealed my death sentence. I drew back the fingers that had almost touched the armguards, swallowed the blood in my throat, took nothing, and walked out of the wooden house that had held me for a hundred years. For the next two days I stayed at the tea house on the border. No one from the house came looking for me or sent a single word. They went on circling Wendy as though this daughter had never existed. Then, on the morning of the wedding, the sun came through the thin mist and a line of human wedding carriages, carrying no elven marks at all, stopped outside the tea house exactly on time. Leon wore a crisp human wedding suit. There was no noble elven armor about him, only the dust of the road and certainty in every step he took. He came to me and took my hand, which was shaking with weakness, and held it firm. "Sif, I've come for you." I leaned against his warm chest and looked back toward the Forest of Life one last time. I was never coming back.