1The Swan
Araminta had no reason to suspect anything would be amiss with her hatchlings. For more than a hundred years, Araminta had hoped and waited and now, finally, it was happening and she refused to be anything but joyous.
In the manner of the veritas swans from whom she had descended, Araminta had brooded for six years. Her long, golden hair grew ever more thick and lustrous until a terrible itch set into her scalp. For a whole month, she paced the polished stone floors of Hush Manor. Her husband, the wizard Prava, concocted all manner of potions to soothe her and for the first time, Araminta did not fight his draughts. But a dozen of them made no difference.
“This is simply how it is,” she said miserably as she scratched at her head.
Prava was a monster, but he took his duties as a husband with uncommon solemnity. “What can I do to help?”
Araminta sighed and stared longingly through the carved windows. If one were to look at Hush Manor froma distance, one might remark that it looked as though the manor had been built atop a pile of clouds. Perhaps that person would shake their head in disbelief, convinced this was mere folly and a trick of the weather. But as it so happened, Hush Manor was built upon clouds. Long ago a handful of lazy cirrus and cumulus could not be bothered to stay in the sky and so they had dropped like apples into the Silent Lakes district. Once there, they had slowly hardened until they were as sturdy as the surrounding black oaks and silver elms. But although they had made their home on the Isle of Malys, their nature was still that of the clouds. In the evening, they thundered, and lightning skittered through their translucent blue-gray bellies. And despite possessing no desire to move through the sky, sometimes they could not help but drift in their sleep. One might look out the window before bed and see the Mourning Pond only to wake up and find oneself on the other side of the Soundless Mere by dawn.
This was where the wizard Prava made his home. In his mind, the location was a kindness to his wife, a reminder of the clouds that had once been her home. Usually, Araminta found it more of a cruelty than a kindness, but this particular week she was grateful for any reminder of the sky.
“I need a place to nest,” said Araminta. “When our daughters hatch, I want their first breath to be only the sweetest and coldest air.”
Prava took his wife’s warm hand and kissed it. “My love, I shall have the most wondrous nest for you by nightfall.”
Araminta harrumphed and kept scratching her head.
The wizard Prava hastened to his quarters, which took up the entire north wing of Hush Manor. Here, he had his study, his room of experiments, his chamber of mirrors in which he conversed with other wizards of import, and, most importantly, his library. The library lay beneath a dome of polished crystal. The floor was nearly hidden beneath colorful rugs of woven silk and tufted armchairs. Prava could not remember what the walls looked like, for the library’s remaining space had long since been taken up by leather-bound tomes, vellum scrolls and a couple of unsettling novels printed upon thin slices of bone and bound with human hair.
The moment he entered the library, the books fluttered in excitement. The novels, which tended to be anxious, shed a few pages—oftentimes prologues, for these were considered largely useless—hoping to gain his notice. Some of his books did not even wish to be read, but longed to be used as tables for mugs of tea that might only be sipped from once or twice before being sacrificed in the pursuit of endless daydreaming.
“Settle, settle,” said the wizard. “Araminta is brooding, and I must make her a nest. Which amongst you shall help me?”
The books quivered. A few of the cookbooks dustily settled back in their shelves. After a few moments, a shy, slim volume of pure white drifted toward him. The book was freezing to the touch and the pages within weredelicate panes of frost etched in the small, crimped writing of the Aatos Mountains’ scholars. Prava opened the book and felt the secrets of the wind and snow rush through his thoughts.
He smiled.
2The Wizard Becomes a Father
By nightfall, the nesting tower was ready, which was good because Araminta had begun to pull her hair out by the handfuls. Prava found her in the kitchen, walking in circles around the great hearth. Araminta did not normally venture into the lower levels of Hush Manor, but brooding had filled her with strange cravings. The cooks had offered bone marrow stews and hearty loaves full of milled seeds, butter cakes and winter berry porridge. But Araminta wanted none of that.
“Oh, the very thought of such food turns my stomach!” she moaned. “Don’t we have any pondweed? Or perhaps salt-marsh grass! Goodness, what I would not do for juicy little tadpoles! And algae cakes! Perhaps a couple of spiders…”
When she began scouring the kitchen for lonely beetles, the cooks fled.
“Beloved!” announced Prava.
Araminta honked. Veritas swans were breathtakingly beautiful women. But their natures were still swanlikeand as such they were wildly aggressive and prone to squawking.
“If you have not come bearing a basket of widgeon grass and dragonflies, then I must beg of you to leave me,” she said.
“I have something better,” said Prava.
He snapped his fingers and a delicate glass staircase appeared at Araminta’s feet. Every time Prava performed magic, Araminta felt the familiar tug of wonder coupled by a small wave of revulsion. She glanced at her husband, who was smiling. They had been married for some time now, and from the moment she had fallen in love with him, he no longer bothered to hide his true form.
Prava was tall and lean, with auburn hair that curled around his jaw and accentuated the slender knives of his canines. His eyes were speckled green with vertical black slits like a serpent. He was handsome and looked to be somewhere in his third decade though he was far, far older than that. When he was a young wizard, he had traded one magical text for another and thus figured out how to carve the time out of his bones. He was still mortal—something which infuriated him to no end—but time could not touch him. It was one of the many magics he possessed and it was the reason why Araminta both loved and loathed him.
Hundreds of years ago, Prava had found her by the glimmering salt pools hidden in a maze of clouds far above the Isle. It was unheard of for a mortal to find their way to the sky, let alone know where the salt pools of the veritasswans might be found. Araminta had been so impressed, she ignored her mother’s warning about the Isle’s men.
“Bad things befall those who consort with humans,” she had warned. “Even worse things befall those who love them.”
“What things?” Araminta had demanded.
But her mother only shook her head. “Things that are bad enough that there is no one left to speak of them, my love.”
This had seemed like a load of nonsense to Araminta. Besides, she knew she was powerful. She could turn into a swan and fly away whenever she wished. Her voice drew out the truth. The man posed no threat, and besides… he was beautiful.
