The Wild Swans (7 page)

“Gabrielle
, hold on!” shouted a voice Elise didn’t recognize.

“
But Steffen—,”

“It won’t do hi
m any good if you’re both swans!”

The magic hit Elise and her siblings like a wave of black water. It struck
Steffen first, coating his body in black liquid. A black cloud formed around him and started shrinking. Inside the cloud, Steffen yelled. His voice turned wild and the cloud shattered with an explosion of white feathers.

Mikk and Nick
were next. They braced each other and tried to stab their swords through the black magic, but it engulfed them. Elise could hear the clang of their swords falling to the ground as they, too, screamed.

Erick held his hand out in front of him and said words Elise suspected
were part of the language of magic, but the wave of black filth did not flinch backwards and enveloped him as well.

Falk and Rune
were only seconds behind, their screams adding to the cacophony of the air.

A cloud formed around Gabrielle
, but it did not shrink. Something seemed to be pushing it back.

Elise and Gerhart
were last. Elise saw the black magic surround Gerhart before her vision was blocked off.

The curse slide across her skin like a snake coil
ing around her. It pried her mouth open, dripped down her ears and oozed down her throat like tar. Elise choked as she felt the curse tighten around her and fight its way to her bones.

Clotilde
was going to win.

All would be lost. Not just her fami
ly, but Arcainia as well.

Clotilde
, the witch, would ruin it. The servants, her Treasury Department staff, the kind stable hands and the brave soldiers. All would be ruled by a tyrant who was bent on their destruction.

“
NO
!” Elise shouted. Her rebuke was drowned out by the tarry magic, but after she choked it out, the curse froze.

“NO!” Elise repeated. The curse retreated from her mouth and inner body with enough suddenness to make Elise wretch
, but she held it in. “No! I will not accept this!” Elise shouted.

The black magic fled from her. It zoomed back to Clotilde and hit her square in the chest. The woman shrieked and fell backwards
, cracking her head on her wooden throne.

Elise stared wide eyed at the flock of white swans who beat their wings and trumpeted
before she raised her gaze to the fallen queen, who was tussling with the curse that had fled from Elise.

“Elise
, RUN! Now, while she’s distracted,” Gabrielle shouted, wrenching Elise along by the arm. They reached the door and threw themselves against it. Gabrielle narrowly avoided squashing her cat against its surface, but the door flew open.

“Puss
, help us get the princes out,” Gabrielle said, dropping her cat.

“Hurry
! I don’t think that curse will fight her much longer,” the cat said—the
cat
said—as he ran behind several swans/princes, hissing and swiping at them with his claws.

“What the—
,” Arthur started as Elise shooed the last of the swans out of the throne room.

“Don’t ask
. Close the door and keep it shut as long as you can manage, even if Clotilde orders you to open it,” Gabrielle instructed.

“Where do we take them?” Elise asked as they herded the swans down the hallway.

“You’ll have to leave the country. Clotilde won’t rest until you’re all killed,” Gabrielle said when they reached a staircase. “GET A HORSE. NOW!” she shouted to servants at the bottom of the stairs.

“
Aren’t you coming with? You won’t be safe either,” Elise said as the swans bumbled their way down the staircase.

Gabrielle stopped at the base of the stairs
, and for a moment Elise could see how frightened Gabrielle was.

“I can’t. I promised him
,” Gabrielle said, placing a hand over her heart and clenching the fabric of her dress. “I’ll be fine. I’ll have Puss with me.”

“You’re right
. You’ll have me with you. I’m going to tan your hide if you ever move out of clawing range again,” Gabrielle’s cat said. (The
cat
said. Elise suspected she would have to take a serious amount of time to processes this once she and her brothers reached safety.)

“What’s go
ing on?” a servant asked.

“I will explain later. For now we must get these swans out of the castle
, before the Queen finds us,” Gabrielle said.

“Right
,” several servants said, moving in to help herd the swans to a servant’s exit.

“Elise
,” Gabrielle said. “Follow your brothers, and do not let them rest until you have left the country. Go south, if you can, but concern yourself foremost with tracking your brothers.”

“I cannot do this alone. I can hard
ly keep seven swans safe—,” Elise started.

“Elise
,” Gabrielle said, grabbing Elise by the shoulders. “I don’t know how you avoided the curse, but it is abundantly clear that you are the
only
chance your brothers have. You cannot second guess yourself. You must guard them.”

Elise glanced at her swan brothers. She couldn’t tell them apart
. All of them were graceful white birds that were shockingly quiet. Elise didn’t know if Gabrielle was right, but she couldn’t leave her brothers now. Arcainia wouldn’t survive without them, and Elise owed it to the royal family. “Alright,” she said.

Gabrielle spared Elise a weak smile
before they hustled out of the servant’s entrance/exit to Brandis. “Steffen,” Gabrielle called, wading through the birds.

Elise didn’t know how she did it
, but Gabrielle sought out a very specific bird and held its head.

“
Steffen, I don’t know if you understand me, but please remember this. I love you. I love you so much. I’m going to stay here. If I loved you any less, I would come, but I cannot. I will keep our people safe, and I will do my best to make Clotilde’s life miserable. Please be safe. Do not forget me,” Gabrielle begged. Tears fell from her eyes before she awkwardly embraced the large swan.

The swan
was still—it was the only swan that was motionless, the others kept flapping their wings and pecking each other.

The castle shook and Gabrielle’s cat ran back to the castle. “Gabrielle
,” it called in an impatient voice.

“I know
,” Gabrielle said. She paused for a moment in front of Elise. “You may feel like an intruder, Fürstin, but realize this: I am trusting you with the one person I treasure most in this world. Stop forcing yourself to prove your worth, and you will find peace.”

“
Gabrielle
!”

“Yes
,” Gabrielle said, hustling back into the castle. Her cat leaped into her arms and the duo disappeared inside. Literately. When they entered they castle threshold they disappeared like a wisp of smoke.

“Consider it later
,” Elise reminded herself as a servant pulled a horse up to the flock of swans. When Elise saw the horse, she swore several times, making her assistant swan keepers/servants stared wide eyed at her.

It
was Falk’s horse, a spirited beast that shied easily and ran like hellhounds chased him on his mild days.

Someth
ing deep in the castle roared. “No other choice,” Elise grimly said, throwing herself into the saddle.

The horse shied
, but Elise clamped herself to its back like a flea. “Go, go, fly, brothers!” Elise urged as the horse ran straight into the swan flock.

The swans beat their wings and
clumsily took flight. They fought their way into the air, crashing into each other like drunken sailors.

Elise heeled Falk’s horse
, and the beast took off, careening out of Castle Brandis and entering the city. “Look out!” Elise shouted as they galloped down city streets.

Men
, women, and children leaped out of the way, and Elise didn’t try to slow the horse down. Instead, she cast nervous glances to the sky, watching for the flock of swans.

They left the capital
, bearing west.

When Elise cleared the gates
, she loosened the reins. Falk’s horse threw himself into a frenzied gallop. Elise tangled one hand in his mane and clamped onto the saddle with her other hand.

The land to the west of Brandis
was, mercifully, free of trees. It made it easier to watch her brothers, but it also made Elise an open target.

After ten
minutes of flying, several of the white swans started to sink. Their flight was labored, and they strained their graceful necks forward when they pumped their wings.

Falk’s horse
had worked up a sweat, so Elise pulled him back into a trot. They lagged behind the swans, which flew closer and closer to the ground.

When the first swan crash
-landed—rolling when he failed to slow down before touching the ground—Elise slide off the horse’s back and led him up to the flock as the rest of the swans tried landing, having roughly the same amount of success as the first swan.

“We
have to keep moving. If you can’t fly, you have to walk,” Elise said, nudging the swans forward.

The swans walked more graceful
ly than they flew, although the pace left much to be desired. They almost glided when they walked, their backs and shoulders barely moving up and down.

“Faster than this
, brothers. Please, if you can understand me, walk faster,” Elise said.

They didn’t walk faster.

Elise clamped down on the knot in her throat and the tears stinging her eyes. “Come on, birds,” Elise said as she used herself and the horse to force the swans to march forward.

Their blac
k webbed feet padded the ground as they picked up their pace, occasionally stopping to hiss at Elise as she rushed them.

After five to ten minutes of waddl
ing, Elise glanced back at Castle Brandis.

A black cloud hung around the tallest
tower of the palace. There were flashes of red light that occasionally lit up the innards of the cloud.

“F
ly, brothers. FLY,” Elise shouted, throwing herself on Falk’s horse before directing the animal to plow through the flock.

The birds resentful
ly took to the air, hissing and clicking at Elise as they took off, clumsily pumping their wings to gain altitude.

Elise again clamped onto the horse
, her muscles protesting with the stiffness and tension she held the position in. She risked a glance over her shoulder and wished she hadn’t. The cloud left Castle Brandis and was creeping in their direction. Instead of floating like a normal cloud, the black fog bobbed like a cork on rough waters. It rolled downwards before winding up, cresting like an ocean wave.

A forest
was within sight. If Elise could reach it, with her brothers, before the cloud found them they might have a chance.

“Don’t!” Elise shouted when one of the birds started to sink.

The swan hastily pumped its wings, knocking into one of the other swans.

Elise’s
foster brothers squabbled in the air as Elise and the horse thundered along the ground.

The cloud
was maybe two to three stone throws away when Elise and the swans reached the edge of the forest.

The swans dropped like rocks
, shaking dust from their white feathers when they stood and beat their wings.

“Keep go
ing in!” Elise said, sliding off her mount’s back. The horse threw his head and shied, the whites of his eyes showing when he got a look at the incoming cloud.

“Curse you
, Falk, and your competitive streak,” Elise said, wincing when the reins burned her fingers as the horse reared. Elise ground her teeth and clung to the reins, pulling the horse forward. He snorted and jumped ahead, making the swans hurry down the dirt road that plowed through the forest.

They
were within the borders of the woods when Elise took another moment to look back. “It’s not stopping,” she said, able to see the incoming cloud through the opening in the forest.

Fear made Elise’s heart pump. She dragged the nervous horse around the flock
, pressuring her swan brothers off the road. “Off the trail,” she called, whistling at them to get their attention.

The swans
were quiet as they waddled off the path and into green underbrush.

There
was a thundering noise, like the roar of the ocean. Elise whirled around. The black fog was in the forest, creeping forward like searching fingers.

It drew parallel with Elise and the swans when the ocean noises grew louder.