Page 2 of The Seventh Swan

The morning brought rain, and the famed duke himself at breakfast, when Saveli ventured out in search of food and information.

Lady Celina welcomed him warmly, and Lord Althaus more cautiously, though politely.

He stared at Saveli intently, his eyes deep and dark, like a swan watching for predators as his brothers feasted and rested.

"You've come far."

"I have traveled farther than this, and will again. I once traveled up a mountain so high that it is impossible to breathe without special sacks of air prepared by local mages, and from the highest peak you can stare down at the clouds. I once went down deep into the earth, where creatures have never known light and found it anathema."

"Why on earth would you do any of that?"

"The first was to pluck a rose that only grows in that one location to save a village from a curse-made plague. The second was to retrieve an egg from a shadow wyvern to save a child from a geas. I paid for the rose in smoke diamonds, and traded the egg for stones that offered heat without light."

"You're a strange one, to be sure,"

Althaus replied as his wife hissed at him to behave and profusely apologized to Saveli.

He lifted a hand in a show of peace. "I take no offense that people want to be certain I am all that I claim. So far from my home, you've no reason to know my name or family, which makes people willing to lend me trust early on. Tell me more of Lord Oskar. I met him briefly last night, but he did not speak much, obviously."

"He was only seventeen when we were cursed,"

Althaus said quietly, idly poking his porridge with his spoon, swirling around the jam that had been scooped atop it. I was twenty-seven, the twins were twenty-five, on down the line all roughly two years apart. And there is not so great a difference between seventeen and nineteen, and yet all of us have managed in the years since, and he has not, and I can only think it is because of his youth."

That was not at all the reason why, but Saveli did not say that because it would sound like a reprimand, and that would help nothing. "What makes him happy?"

"Swimming, I always see him swimming, though you'd think he'd be sick of it after all this time,"

Althaus said. "My sister says he must miss it, being in the water so easily, but I can't imagine why."

The sister sounded wise, but this was a woman who had not been able to speak for five years, and spent two of them entirely alone.

He looked at Lady Celina, who looked like she agreed with the sister, but also like she did not want to say so for the thousandth time.

"What else?"

Saveli asked.

"He likes being outside, sunshine or rain. He likes puzzles, reading. Sometimes he will agree to come and play cards or chess or some other game, but not very often. We try to get him to attend parties, or dinners, but unless it's something important to Celina or Agathe, our sister, he won't do it. He wouldn't even come to my birthday party, though he did leave a gift."

Saveli's magic stirred. "What was the gift?"

"A bracelet, made from bone and shell and stone."

Althaus abandoned the porridge he wasn't eating, shoved up the sleeve of his right arm, and unlatched the bracelet there, handing it over across the table. "You seem particularly interested."

Saveli laid the bracelet flat in his left hand and ran his fingers over it lightly with his right.

"Rabbit bone for swiftness, shell for longevity, stone for strength. It's crude, but made in earnest, and sometimes that is all magic needs. It's a protection spell, Your Grace. Your brother loves you and wants you safe. He probably feels guilty that he cannot be the 'old self' that everyone knows, and that only makes the trauma harder to overcome. Amongst other things. But he does love you and tries to show it."

He returned the bracelet. "Instead of inviting him inside to play cards, try going outside to swim with him. Invite him to a race, or to see who can touch the deepest bottom of the pond first. Just because you cannot imagine something does not mean it isn't true."

Althaus's brow furrowed, and Saveli left him to puzzle it out, thanking Celina for breakfast and extending further thanks to the servants who had done all the work before heading back to his room.

There, he finally unpacked his trunk, setting up the spinning wheel where so much of his magic was wrought.

Now that he had the shape and feel of the magics he would be working, he could secure the materials he needed.

Dressed in breeches, boots, and a sweeping cape of deep scarlet embroidered with beads in a diamond pattern, he braided his hair, secured the end with a scarlet ribbon, and headed out.

His horse was happy to be out of the stable, though he'd not been still even a day. A fierce black stallion, retired from a life of battle, happy to spend his days riding about and eating the wide variety of treats an entire continent could offer.

Saveli traveled through the countryside, examining many farms before venturing up into the foothills where he found precisely the sort of sheep he was seeking. "Boy,"

he called to the dozing youth minding a flock of sheep with golden wool. "Who owns these sheep?"

The boy startled awake, nearly toppling himself over, then stared open mouthed at Saveli until he repeated the question. "Uh, my father, of course."