A hard lump formed in my throat as the burning heat in my chest returned.
Father wouldn’t recognize me like this. No one would.
I’ll write to him,I told myself determinedly. The moment I reached the nearest village, I would send a letter telling Father where I was. We’d find my brothers, and someone—some enchanter somewhere—had to have the power to undo what my stepmother had done.
Then, against the gray clouds gathering in the east, six birds soared across the sky. My heart leapt to my throat as I remembered my stepmother’s curse.
“Brothers!” I yelled. The word tasted like ash, but I didn’t stop to wonder why. I cut across the rice field toward the sea, flailing my arms.
The birds flew on.
No, no, no. They had to see me! They couldn’t go.
“Come back! Brothers!”
Panicking, I tore off my slipper and flung it at them. My shoe arced into the air, a blur of bright pink barely higher than the trees around me. It had no chance of scraping thesky.
“BROTHERS!” I pleaded one last time. “Please!”
At last the birds stopped. I dared hope that they’d seenme.
No. They were falling. Plummeting. Flightless, as if someone had clipped their wings. It happened so fast all I could do was watch, horror twisting in my belly.
I rushed to the beach, almost screaming when I came upon the six birds lying lifeless in the sand. But my breath caught before I could make a sound: six ghostly serpents, each as transparent and dark as a shadow, glided out from beneath the dead birds’ wings. The serpents reared up, rising to the height of my waist and meeting me with their ominous yellow eyes.
“This is your only warning,” they hissed. “Next time, it will be your brothers who perish—one for each sound you make.”
Their work done, they faded into oblivion.
And to my horror and relief, I saw that the birds weren’t cranes at all, but swans. They weren’t my brothers, but they were dead—because of me.
Six swans, one for each of the six words I had spoken.
For so long as this bowl rests on your head, with every sound that passes your lips, one of your brothers shall die,my stepmother had said.
A well of grief opened in my throat as I suddenly understood Raikama’s curse.
I wanted to shout. To yell. To cry. To show myself that it wasn’t true. That it was a terrible, terrible mistake. But the six dead swans, their eyes black and glassy, their long white necks twisted and bruised, assured me it was not so.
I crumpled to my knees, a silent sob burning in my lungs.
My stepmother had broken me. She’d cast me away from my brothers, my family, my home. Even from myself.
Tears trickled down my cheeks. I wept until it hurt to breathe, and my eyes were so swollen I could not tell the sky from the sea. I didn’t know how long I sat there, rocking myself from side to side, but as the tide began to rise, I finally did too.
Wits, Shiori,I told myself, wiping my cheeks dry with my sleeve.Crying will do you no good. Languishing out here, despairing over what’s happened, is exactly what Raikama wants.
She wanted me to suffer, maybe even to die.
You can’t break the curse if you’re dead. You’ll certainly die if you spend all day out here, wallowing about like some self-pitying fool.
Wits, Shiori,I repeated. I needed food. I needed shelter and money. All things I’d never had to worry about before.
I fumbled at my waistband, at my neck and my wrists and my long fluted sleeves.
There was nothing. No coral necklace, no jade pendant, no bracelet strung of pearls. Not a single coin or even an embroidered fan I could pawn off.
For the first time, I regretted not letting my servants deck me with jewels or adorn my hair with gold pins and silken flowers.
