The Wild Swans

by Shea, K. M.

  Falk fluffed his feathers and looked beautiful.

  “Are you sure they’re really swans? They seem too bloodthirsty—agh!” Prince Toril said when Falk flapped his white wings and smacked the Verglas Prince in the face.

  “That’s it. I’m not bringing you any corn today,” Prince Toril declared, holding his nose as Falk settled down behind Elise.

  Grinning, Elise held out the handkerchief of cookies.

  “A sweet to pacify my pain?” Prince Toril said, sounding especially wretched. “Why not?” he grinned before he took one and bit into it. “So, do you enjoy the lake view?”

  While Prince Toril was gone, Elise kept to the woods during the day. She stayed out of sight and never strayed far from Brida. They returned to the cottage only after dark. It was easy enough to keep knitting—she finished the sixth shirt and moved onto to the seventh—but it made Elise uneasy to leave her brothers behind on the lake.

  “They’ll be fine, Fürstin. They can fly off at the first sign of danger,” Brida said.

  Elise supposed this was true, but she was still apprehensive.

  The days trickled by, and hints of fall started to color the world. The few trees in Verglas that were not pine trees or evergreens started to drop their leaves; the air was cooler, and the ground was frosted over every morning like a fresh cake.

  Elise worked harder than ever on the shirt, the last shirt. She worked on it night and day, crouching by the fire in the cottage, and sometimes knitting only by the touch.

  The two weeks were almost up when one afternoon Elise heard the distinctive thrum of swan wings beating the air.

  Elise poked her head up like a surfacing groundhog.

  “I’m sure they’re fine, Fürstin,” Brida said. She was crouched over her sword, cleaning the blade.

  When the flapping continued, Elise lumbered to her feet—clutching the last shirt. She set off through the woods, heading for the lake.

  “Fürstin,” Brida called before chasing after her.

  When they drew close to the edge of the woods, Brida yanked Elise back and dragged her behind a pine tree. They pushed back fragrant needles to spy on six guards.

  The guards were herding the seven swan princes of Arcainia out of the water and up the hill—heading for the castle.

  The swans beat their wings and hissed, lunging at the soldiers. To their credit, the soldiers handled the princes as gently as they could, prodding them along with the wooden poles of their spears.

  “Why don’t they fly away?” Brida breathed.

  Elise’s heart twisted in her chest. The swan princes did not fly because even while cursed, they were noble enough to think they couldn’t leave her behind.

  Elise pulled her arm out of Brida’s grasp and moved to plunge through the trees.

  “Princess Elise,” Brida said, grabbing Elise by the wrist. “You cannot go.”

  Elise held the seventh nettle shirt out to Brida.

  “This isn’t about the shirts, this is about your safety. Your brothers gave me explicit orders to see to your protection above all else. I cannot let you go down there.”

  You must, Elise gestured.

  “We don’t know what King Torgen will do. He might not be satisfied with ruining your work. It might be you he destroys next,” Brida said.

  Elise shrugged.

  “Why do you do this?” Brida said, her voice breaking.

  Because I love them.

  Elise pulled her wrist from Brida’s limp grasp and marched down the hill. When she reached the cottage she put her whistle to her lips and blew it.

  The six soldiers turned around at the noise. (One of them winced when a swan prince pecked him on the thigh.)

  “Elsa, King Torgen asks that you would see him,” one of the soldiers said. “He instructed us to bring your knitting and your birds, but if you come willingly with us, we will leave the swans behind.”

  Behind her, Elise heard the noise of Brida unsheathing her sword from her hiding spot in the trees. Elise shook her head at Brida and walked down the path to the soldiers.

  Two of the soldiers started shooing the swans back to the water, but five of the swans wouldn’t budge. Instead, they hurried forward, hissing and beating their wings. The soldiers blocked their way with their spears, holding the birds back.

  One of the soldiers had already retrieved the sack Elise kept the finished shirts in, as well as the sack that held the nettles she collected the previous week. He bowed to her as she passed him.

  As Elise headed over the crest of the hill, she could hear the swans clicking and grunting, calling to her. Elise squared her shoulders and walked on, not daring to look back at her struggling brothers.

  Elise kept herself schooled and her features set as the guards guided her through the palace grounds. Her gnarled hands grew clammy, and she could feel her heart beating faster in her chest, but no one would have guessed this by the noble expression she fixed on her face.

  All too quickly Elise stood in front of King Torgen.

  “I was wondering where you’ve been hiding. No one has had so much of a glance at you since my son left,” King Torgen said over a banquet table that was laden with food. He bit into a drumstick and studied Elise’s escort. “Where are the birds?”

  “They flew off, My King,” the soldier holding Elise’s bags of knitting supplies said.

  King Torgen narrowed his beady eyes at the soldier and slurped his wine.

  The soldier kept his expression plain; his manner did not betray his lie.

  He probably had practice.

  King Torgen shrugged and returned his attention to Elise. “Although my soldiers might be incompetent bird catchers, at least they managed to find you. Sit. We must chat.”

  One of the soldiers pulled out a chair from the banquet table, placing it close enough that King Torgen could speak to Elise in a plain voice but far enough that Elise could not reach the table.

  Elise wondered if the soldier did this on purpose to keep her out of strangling reach as she sat down and the guard set her knitting materials on the ground next to her.

  “At ease,” King Torgen said to the guards. “Return to your posts.”

  The guards moved to the corners of the room, standing at attention.

  King Torgen watched them go before he turned his rotten eyes on Elise. “You are disturbing my son.”

  Elise folded her hands on her lap.

  “He used to be an empty-headed fool, wandering about like an idiot and blithely doing whatever he wished. Now he talks of loyalty and love, and despairs that none of our subjects love us with passion and perseverance. He was useful as a fool. But now he thinks about people’s feelings. I cannot believe it took him so many months to gather enough selfishness to go fishing. He hardly is at home in the late summer. Because of you, he’s been kicking up his heels, talking to people, giving servants the day off,” King Torgen tossed his chicken leg aside in disgust. “I intended to let him be an idiot until I no longer felt like ruling, and then I would break him to make him a suitable king to rule a place as forsaken and wretched as Verglas. But I cannot let him head down the path of nobility. What use are loyalty, respect, and honor? None! So I must cleanse him of these stupid notions you have given him.”

  King Torgen looked to Elise, as if he expected a reply.

  It took every ounce of Elise’s courage to stare King Torgen down. She was sweaty and her heart thundered as loud as ever, but Mikk would have been proud of the emotionless expression Elise gave the twisted ruler.

  King Torgen picked up the chicken leg again. “I shall have you executed,” he said in the same conversational tone a person would discuss the weather in.

  Elise’s chin quivered for a moment before she snapped down on the reaction and tilted her head back.

  “Yes, I must,” King Torgen said, as if imagining her contrary claims. “This new sickness of his is most certainly acquired from you. I suppose I could exile you, but I’ve always loved a good killing.”
>
  Elise clenched her hands together, making them tingle with pain as she stared at the monster hiding in a man’s skin.

  “I cannot have you hanged of course, and I cannot give you a trial. Everyone knows you’re harmless and quite wretched. But there is one thing I can accuse you of that will remove all those pesky barriers,” he said. “This is your own fault. Someone should have taught you as a child that good doesn’t always triumph. In fact, it rarely does. Loyalty and love are for the fools in this world,” King Torgen said, leaning back in his chair.

  “I’m not sorry you’re going to die. I quite look forward to it, actually. It’s so fun to crush the weak and the innocent,” King Torgen said. “Now, pick up your sack and show me what is inside.”

  Numbly, Elise did what she was told.

  “Ah-hah! I thought so. Guards, arrest this girl! She is a witch, and must be put to death,” King Torgen said, leaping to his feet.

  The guards approached Elise.

  “What proof is there, My Kin—,” one guard asked.

  “You want proof? Look in her bags and see the foul, dark magic she knits,” King Torgen said.

  “It is cowls made of nettles,” a soldier said.

  Shirts, Elise internally corrected him, her mind blank as she listened.

  “Only one devoted to dark arts would use such a loathsome plant. Who knows what foul end she would use them for? Besides, I can smell black magic miles away, and it is plain to me that she not only possesses it, but she loves it. Arrest her! Shackle her and throw her into the dungeons.”

  One guard collected up Elise’s knitting materials; another clasped heavy iron shackles around her wrists.

  Elise caught a glimpse of King Torgen’s smirk. He won. No, it wasn’t even a matter of winning. Elise never stood a chance.

  Elise opened her mouth to shout out her innocence, but she caught sight of the sack of shirts. She was so close. She couldn’t speak now. It would ruin all her work. Elise knew in her heart that Arcainia couldn’t wait the months it would take Elise to knit seven shirts again. Arcainia need the princes now.

  Elise shut her mouth and let herself be led away. When the guards led her out of the dining room and shut the door behind them, peals of laughter escaped from the chamber.

  King Torgen was an evil, twisted man.

  Elise was led down stairs, into the bowels of the wooden castle. Elise never thought such a pleasant-looking place could have such a foul corner in it, but it did.

  The dungeons were made of black stone. Even light from the torches was swallowed up and muted by the oppressive atmosphere.

  It was silent, like the stillness of a body after the skeleton fingers of death strangled the last gasps of life from it.

  The guards led Elise to wooden door set in the black stone and opened it. It was an empty cell. There was nothing in it—not even a pile of dirty straw or a bucket. Once inside the cell, Elise could see that the wooden door had deep gouges, as if someone clawed at it, and was spattered with blood.

  There was one window in the room, but it was at least a foot above Elise’s head, so she could not see out it.

  Elise shivered as the guards removed the shackles and set her nettles and shirts down on the ground.

  “May whatever has guarded you thus long be with you, my lady,” the last guard said before he closed the door.

  Elise shivered in the cool air and looked at her knitting. There was still a chance she could complete the last shirt. She would have to take the biggest gamble of her life and hope she could finish it before King Torgen finished her.

  Elise squared her shoulders and settled down to work, unearthing her knitting needles and the last of her nettles. She wouldn’t fail Arcainia, and she wouldn’t let her brothers suffer anymore.

  Chapter 12

  Elise worked as long she had light, and even after the last bit of sun left the open window, Elise knitted, blindly feeling the rows of loops and knots. For once she was grateful she was knitting nettles. They rewarded her with a sharp, stabbing sensation that bit into Elise’s fingers when she looped them correctly.

  Elise was so intent on her work that she almost missed the footsteps outside her window. She jumped when something slammed against the bars of the window.

  “Elise?”

  Elise stood and ran to the window. “Rune?” the cell wasn’t wide enough for Elise to back up and see outside the window, but she would recognize that voice anywhere.

  “Are you okay?” Rune asked.

  “Never mind me—what are you doing here? If the guards catch you, they’ll drag you before King Torgen,” Elise hissed.

  “I’ve been climbing around the castle since I turned human. Security is tighter than I thought. I tried breaking into the dungeons, but there are too many guards,” Rune grunted as a scraping noise echoed in the cell.

  “You can’t rip the bars out, Rune. They’re set in stone.”

  “I’ve got to try. I can’t leave you here.” Rune said before he toppled from the window. His shadow covered the window again shortly after as he boosted himself back up into the window.

  “Rune, it’s fine.”

  “No, it’s not,” Rune said, sawing at the bars with a knife. “Brida spent the whole afternoon trying to pinpoint your location, but she couldn’t slip past security.”

  “And you could?”

  Rune chuckled. “I’m not the heroic brother just because of my good looks,” he said. “Hold on. I’ll be back; I just need to find a pick-axe of some sort.”

  “Wait. How many minutes until you turn back into a swan?” Elise asked.

  “…”

  “Not many, right?”

  “I wasted too much time trying to get into the dungeon entrance. Don’t worry, I will get you out.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “You can’t know that,” Rune argued.

  “Rune,” Elise said, cutting him off. She swallowed in the silence and shut her eyes as she leaned against the wall. She heard a scraping noise, and looked up to see Rune stretch his arm down through the bars.

  Elise reached up and clasped his hand, squeezing it tightly. “I’m afraid,” she admitted.

  “Swan or not, I won’t let you die, Elise,” Rune promised.

  Elise nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Elise held Rune’s hand even after all the blood drained from her arm. She clung to him like he was her lifeline.

  All too soon, Rune said, “I have to go.”

  Elise loosened her grasp on his hand.

  Rune, however, didn’t let go. “We won’t leave you, Elise. I won’t leave you.”

  “I know,” Elise said.

  Rune squeezed her hand again before he slipped from the window, disappearing into the night.

  Elise brushed tears from her eyes, and she turned back to the last shirt. While Rune spoke to her, the moon had risen high in the sky, shedding just enough light for Elise to knit by.

  “There’s no way I could sleep, so I may as well work,” Elise said, sitting down on the floor. “King Torgen is wrong. Goodness wins, and love always triumphs.”

  Dawn came. The red rays of rising sun leaked into the cell, giving Elise light to see by. Her knitting was no longer neat rows, but downright sloppy. The loops weren’t even, and some holes were too big, but Elise didn’t have time to worry.

  Not long after the sun rose, the door to her cell swung open.

  “Elsa, it’s time,” a guard said.

  Elise stopped knitting long enough to place a hand on her rebellious stomach when it heaved. She swept up the capes and grabbed the last fistful of nettles she had left before the guards could say otherwise.

  The guards didn’t shackle her this time, and one kindly took her six finished shirts from her, letting her knit and carry the seventh cape.

  “Whatever reason you do this for, I think it is time you admit the loss,” a guard softly said.

  Elise ignored him. She was so close. She would free her brothers and leav
e Verglas, or she was going to die by King Torgen’s hand.

  The guards led Elise outside and into a cart. Elise sucked in the fresh air, grating for the change after spending the night in the dank dungeon.

  As the cart rolled along, Elise buried herself in her knitting. If she acknowledged the guards’ pity or her own fear, she would crumble.

  When the cart stopped, Elise glanced up and paled. All warmth fled her body as she stared at the tool of her destruction, a massive pile of wood gathered around a pole.

  She was going to be burned at the stake.

  Elise tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry, so she yanked her head down and kept knitting as the soldiers helped her down from the cart.

  “Good; you’ve brought her tools of witchery. Throw them in the fire with her,” King Torgen said, rubbing his hands as he gleefully inspected the kindling and wood.

  Citizens of Ostfold left their homes, gathering in the city square where Elise’s burning was to take place.

  Elise was tied to the stake by a guard who wrapped rope around her waist, leaving her arms and legs free. Elise inspected the seventh shirt. The front and back of the shirt weren’t stitched together all the way, but it would have to do. She was out of nettles and time. As Elise tied it off, she studied the crowd. Somewhere… she would be somewhere…there!

  Brida was near the front of the crowd, a dark expression pasted on her face, and a sword strapped to her belt.

  She was going to attempt a rescue. It was a valiant idea, but they stood a better chance if Elise’s foster brothers weren’t birds, and if she could talk. Elise tried to get Brida’s attention, but the captain was busy watching the guards.

  A tremendous splash from the city fountain drew Elise’s attention. Floundering in the fountain was a large white bird. A swan!

  When it looked at her, Elise desperately held up seven fingers and waved them in the air, but bodies moved in and the crowd stood in between them, blocking sight of the swan.

  Elise hoped the swan was Falk—otherwise everything was going to be in vain.

  King Torgen adjusted his crown and turned to the crowd. “Citizens, you are gathered here today to witness justice at its finest. It was discovered that this girl, whom many would think to be innocent or perhaps a little mad, practices dark arts.”