The Flight of Swans

by Sarah McGuire

“If there still is a court,” added Cadan.

  Owain, back from the hunt, looked up from the rabbit he was skinning with my dagger. “Keeping time should be the easy part: in six years, we’ll be men again.”

  And then I remembered what the Queen had said: After six years, you may speak without killing your swan-brothers. They’ll remain free.

  She never promised they’d become men again.

  I’d condemned my brothers to live as swans. I thought I’d been so cunning, demanding that she let my brothers go unharmed. And all the while, she’d known that my brothers would never see Lacharra in sunlight again.

  I nearly jumped straight into the trees when Declan sat beside me.

  “Are you cold, Ryn? I’ll find more wood for the fire.”

  Before I could answer, he disappeared into the dark to find it.

  “I can’t calculate it tonight,” said Gavyn, who was still talking. Had it only been a moment since I’d realized what the Queen had done? “. . . but I estimate that there will be seventy-five full moons during the six years.”

  Mael frowned. “I thought there were twelve moons a year: one each month.”

  “No. Some years, there are thirteen moons. You see, the number of days from full moon to full—”

  Cadan flopped down by the fire. “I’ve suffered enough being turned to a swan. Don’t make me endure one of Gavyn’s astronomy lessons, Aiden!”

  Mael smothered a smile, but we all looked to Aiden.

  “Our concern now is Andaryn,” said Aiden, “and keeping her safe.”

  For days, I’d wanted my brothers around me, smiling and happy to see me. But I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t deserve it, not after what I’d done.

  Declan returned with a piece of wood and placed it on the fire. I took another stick to poke at the fire, grateful for an excuse not to meet their eyes.

  “There are”—Mael paused, choosing his words— “many dangers in the woods. How do we keep Ryn safe when we are swans?”

  For a moment, there was only the pop and hiss of the wood on the fire.

  “Maybe we could.” Cadan laughed. “Do you remember the time the geese chased Declan when he wandered too close to their nests?”

  Declan didn’t answer, just took my wrist and held my arm toward the firelight. The bruises from their attack were already visible. “Did we do that?”

  I tried to pull my arm away, but he wouldn’t release it.

  “Why didn’t you tell us, Ryn?” asked Aiden.

  “Well, there’s that bargain she made about not speaking,” began Cadan sarcastically, but Mael hushed him.

  I pulled my sleeve down over my wrist, but it was already too late: Aiden looked broken. He glanced at the gray eastern horizon and then asked Gavyn, “How do we keep this from happening?”

  “If we were dogs, I’d have her leave clothes behind to get us used to her scent, but—”

  “We could stay away,” offered Aiden. “We don’t have to visit her when we change.”

  “Don’t we?” asked Owain. “How else can you explain us landing at this lake? Ryn didn’t find us—we found her.” He still didn’t sound happy about it, either.

  Silence.

  “That’s good, then,” declared Mael. “It means that part of us knows Ryn, even when we’re swans.”

  “So long as she doesn’t try to touch us,” said Cadan.

  “That could change over time,” said Gavyn. “It would, even with normal swans.”

  “We could work to change it,” said Aiden, and I sensed how glad he was to have some task over the next month.

  “Can we?” asked Gavyn. My brothers looked at each other around the fire, a silent conversation skipping back and forth between them.

  A fool’s idea. Cadan didn’t hide his disdain.

  Gavyn shrugged.

  Mael raised an eyebrow. We’ll try. It can’t hurt.

  Aiden nodded. “We try to hold onto our minds, then. Even after the change.”

  My brothers sobered, and I remembered their shouts as the wind found them in the turret. Such a transformation must hurt.

  They stood on the edge of that pain again.

  Cadan hurled a twig into the fire. “Think of it as wearing feathers, this turning into a swan. I won’t be afraid of feathers. Not for as many times as it will happen.”

  “It hurt,” murmured Owain.

  “So would falling off a horse,” said Cadan.

  Owain glared at Cadan. “It wasn’t like falling off a horse! It was a pain in the center of me.”

  “The pain was in your bones,” said Gavyn. “Birds’ bones are hollow. Every time we change, our—”

  Cadan cuffed Gavyn on the head.

  “—our bones are scooped out?” finished Aiden for him. “How does it help us to know that?”

  “It helps me.” Gavyn glared at Cadan. “I can bear it if I know why it hurts.”

  Mael shook his head. “Keep your comfort to yourself, Gavyn. I’d rather not know what happens when I change.”

  I glanced at the horizon, then interrupted them and mimicked walking.

  “Where are you walking, Ryn?” asked Declan.

  I held up both hands, with an exasperated look. Exactly! Where should I go?

  “Good question,” answered Gavyn.

  I shrugged again. Well?

  “The hunting hut near Cairwyn Lake,” said Aiden. “I don’t think the Queen knows about it.”

  Aiden looked down at my drawings beside the fire. He smoothed the dirt with his hand, then sketched a map in the dirt. “If I’m right, we’re on the shores of Lake Sandall. To find the hut, you need to go north along the headwaters, past the town of Etten. The hut will be a good week”—he glanced at me— “two weeks’ journey.”

  I didn’t hear the rest. In the middle of Aiden’s map, three rivers met.

  Three rivers. Why did that seem important?

  “—I don’t know if we’ll follow you as you travel, Ryn,” continued Aiden. “But the trek is clear. Now you draw the way.”

  He erased what he’d scratched into the dirt and had me try. After four attempts, I could recreate the way. “Good,” he said. “Draw it every morning and every night so that you remember—”

  A fierce wind pulled at the treetops across the lake. We all turned at the sound.

  Aiden took me by the shoulders. “We’re going to hold on to our minds so we don’t hurt you. But go to the hunting hut. We’ll see you there next moon.”

  Small waves lapped at the shore, running before the wind.

  Aiden stood. “We need to leave now so we don’t hurt her again.”

  Then it was a tangle of good-byes, hands squeezing my own, and fast, fierce hugs.

  “Quick!” barked Aiden, his voice ragged. The change was beginning.

  They loped to the shoreline, clutching the tied blankets around them.

  “Clothes, Ryn!” called Cadan back over his shoulder. “Have clothes for us next time! It’s the worst part of this, opening your eyes and—”

  The wind caught them and a shadow streamed over their bodies, blotting them out. Cadan’s neck began to stretch. He tried to tear at his throat, but by the time he’d swung his arms forward, they’d turned to wings. Owain’s shout turned to a rippling trumpet, and I prayed it didn’t hurt him so much this time.

  They didn’t stop, my brothers. They’d been running as they changed, and in a moment, they were swans hobbling toward the water, wings sweeping the air beneath them.

  All except one: Aiden. He paused, then stumbled over his webbed feet as if his body carried him someplace he didn’t want to go. The swan looked back at me with its red eyes, but I saw my brother, determined to hold onto his mind.

  Then sunlight streaked across the lake, tipping the waves with gold. It touched the swan, and I saw Aiden slip away.

  I dropped to my knees.

  I’d thought home was the castle, my bed draped with curtains, my window seat that looked out over the fields. But home was my brothers,
all six of them, a living castle around me.

  My swan-brothers drifted to the far side of the lake. Two of them flipped so that their heads were underwater, their black tails pointed toward the sky. One of the swans righted itself, then pivoted to watch me, neck arched.

  I couldn’t let my brothers stay swans. I stood, then walked to collect the scraps of blankets they’d dropped along the shore.

  I also gathered some of the black feathers scattered there, brushing them across my cheek. I’d tie them together and keep them so I could remember my brothers when I left for the hut. All I had to do was follow the headwaters—

  Headwaters. A tangle of rivers. And the Queen’s low-burning fury.

  A woman beside a knot of rivers who taught her the power of words. Who’d made her beg.

  I had to find her. She might be able to tell me who the Queen truly was. And how to stop her.

  How to make her beg once more.

  I’d meet my brothers at Cairwyn by the next full moon, but I’d find the woman beside the rivers first.

  I’d discover how to set my brothers free.

  Chapter 14

  Aiden’s map had made the journey to the hut look so simple: all I had to do was follow the headwaters for two weeks.

  I thought there would be a narrow, winding path the entire way.

  I quickly learned that following a river meant scrabbling over fallen trees and along steep banks. It meant almost falling into the water a dozen times.

  It meant actually falling in twice.

  I learned there was a reason travelers carried walking sticks, and I fashioned one out of a branch I hacked from a newly fallen tree. I only fell in the river once after that.

  All the while, I thought about the knot of rivers between me and Cairwyn Lake.

  A woman who lived beside a knot of rivers taught me the power of words.

  Would this woman know how to undo that power?

  And would she tell me?

  * * *

  Two nights after the full moon, I stopped along a level bit of land beside the river. I’d put off using Mael’s weir because . . . I huffed out a breath, ashamed at myself . . . I didn’t want to have to clean a fish.

  But after two days of travel, I had to fill my belly. I set the weir between two submerged boulders where the water moved as fast as a winter wind, and limped back to where I’d left my satchel to start the fire. The blisters had merely stung this morning. My feet throbbed now.

  I ignored them long enough to properly start the fire, then gingerly removed my boots. Little wonder my feet hurt: my stockings were bloody. I’d torn the blisters.

  If I was home, one of my brothers would have carried me to my room while another fetched the physician. I’d be so busy listening to Declan’s scolding or Gavyn’s lesson that I wouldn’t even notice the physician’s ministrations.

  Tonight, I would have to be my own physician.

  So I peeled off the stockings, then hobbled to the river. There was a dry rock near the weir to sit on, and I lowered my feet into the rushing water. The water sent goosebumps racing up my legs, but it numbed the pain. I kicked my feet in the current until the weir jumped.

  When I finally pulled the weir out of the water, I saw two fish trapped in the narrow end of the trumpet shape.

  Two!

  I cradled the weir like a dripping baby while the fish inside it tried to flop free.

  Now what?

  The dagger.

  I hobbled back to the fire, still holding the weir, and dug through the satchel with one hand. The fire was running out of fuel, so I added a few more branches before taking the dagger and the weir back to the river.

  The fish had stilled in those few minutes, and I sighed in relief. Perhaps they were already dead.

  They weren’t. The minute I reached into the weir, they both flopped around.

  A few minutes later, I still hadn’t managed to keep hold of a fish. I sat back on my heels.

  It was getting dark, with a gibbous moon rising in the east.

  The moon reminded me of the Queen, a pale, beautiful face staring down at me from the sky. I could be sensible and brave during the day, but at night the moon—even if it was waning—made me feel hunted.

  I imagined my brothers: Aiden stroking his beard. Mael with one eyebrow raised. Gavyn with his finger at the place where he’d stopped reading in his latest book.

  And then my mind didn’t have room to fear the moon and the Queen.

  How long do you plan on waiting, Ryn? That was Cadan’s voice. Till the fish turn to dust?

  A frustrated grunt from Owain. Apparently, he was mad at me even when I imagined him.

  You can do this, encouraged Declan. You’ll get used to cleaning the fish—

  I know she can do it, interrupted Cadan. I’d just like to see it before I’m an old man.

  I laughed silently, right under the rising moon.

  Lips pressed together, I reached into the weir. I could almost feel my brothers crowded around me as I wrapped my fingers around the struggling fish and pulled it out.

  I’m sorry, I thought. I’ll be as quick as I can.

  Dream-Cadan mocked the silliness of my little speech, but Declan whispered encouragement. And with my brothers looking over my shoulders, I slipped the knife into the gills, sawing till I’d severed its head, my head half-turned away from the gruesome task.

  It took more work to slice open the belly and clean out the guts, but I could almost feel my brothers patting my shoulders.

  Well done, Ryn-girl! That was Mael.

  Next time, you should angle the knife differently, pointed out Gavyn. It’ll make the cut cleaner.

  It was easier with the second fish. I remembered what I’d seen fishermen do: I whacked it on the side of the head with a rock and it immediately went still.

  It took only a minute to clean that one. After washing my hands and the fish in the water, I returned to the fire. A little later, I ate the fish I’d cleaned and cooked. Plain as they were, I’d never tasted food so satisfying in all my life.

  Afterward, I sent my dream-brothers on their way, worried that if I became too used to hearing imaginary voices, I wouldn’t be able to hear real ones.

  Clothes, Ryn! Don’t forget to have clothes by the next moon! called Cadan.

  I watched the fire fall to coals, feeling small and alone, thinking of Father.

  I quickly sketched the map of my journey in the dirt beside the fire to keep the path fresh in my mind, but I couldn’t stop thinking of home.

  Don’t forget me, Father.

  I erased the map and drew the swans from the Cynwrig crest, the long necks stretching toward freedom in the Northlands. The pebbly soil wasn’t suited for drawing, and the lines in the dirt were crude and wavering. And yet, drawing pictures in the dirt was almost as good as speech. It let me remember the life I’d left. It let me draw my hope for the future, a prayer for my father and brothers sent into the night.

  We are not a game of swans, not anyone’s game.

  I drew the wide wings riding the air.

  We’re a flight of swans. And I’m going to help my brothers fly to freedom.

  Chapter 15

  After a week of walking, I discovered the knot of three rivers. I camped beside the joining, determined to spend as many days as I needed to find the woman.

  After five days of searching in widening circles around the camp, I found her cottage.

  I didn’t even know it was a cottage at first.

  All I saw was the rotting thatch roof rising above a sea of weeds, and the top of a half-open door and two windows. There was no smoke coming from the chimney, no movement behind the shadowed windows. The forest had already crawled back into the small patch of land, sending saplings into the overgrowth that filled the clearing.

  I turned around slowly at the edge of the weeds, hoping for some hint of life, even though I suspected no one would let a cottage fall into such ruin.

  I’d been so sure she’d be h
ere! What now?

  A flash of movement near my feet.

  I jumped away, slapping a hand over my mouth to stop the shriek.

  It was just a finch, pecking at the insects that swarmed among the weeds. He darted away, sending some of the weeds flashing toward me. I pushed them away and nearly yelped at the fire in the leaves: nettles!

  I’d fallen into a nettle patch when I was a child and had borne the pain of it for several days. A few stings weren’t bad—similar to ant bites—but any more than that could make your skin burn.

  Then I heard the scrape of wood against stone as the cottage door moved.

  “Who’s there?” The voice sounded as rasping as the door.

  I dropped into a crouch beside the nettles, heart racing as if the Queen herself had found me.

  “I know you’re there.”

  Don’t hide here, I thought. You looked for her!

  I gripped my walking stick—and stood.

  The woman in the doorway was shabbily dressed, her clothing and shawl all the same drab color. As soon as she saw me, she shuffled off the step and into the nettles between us, clutching her shawl close to protect herself. She moved through the nettles like a boat through water, her head hunched forward and her eyes on me.

  Always on me.

  I gripped my walking stick tighter as she neared, horribly aware that it was too skinny to protect me if I needed it.

  The woman stopped right in front of me. Her eyes, both faded and too bright all at once, narrowed when she saw the feathers at my belt.

  “Black swans,” she murmured. “My birds have been chattering of black swans, and I told myself, told myself, told myself that she had nothing to do with it. But I knew better.”

  I understood the words but had no idea what she meant. It reminded me of when Gavyn was trying to explain something. Yet I was certain I’d found the right woman. No one would look at black feathers and think they came from swans.

  I slowly extended a hand to her—the only form of greeting I had.

  She glared at it, her voice trembling between grief and rage. “And so you’ve come, Swan-Keeper! What will my snowy one do now?”

  I stepped back, confused. Frightened. Who did she think I was?

  I shook my head, trying to show I didn’t understand.