Page 79 of Down from the Tower

At some point our time together will end. He will continue on with his shadow-life, and I’ll try to find my place in Mystica. I’m no longer sure that includes Tressa.

I’m so lost in my thoughts, watching Zarev lazily walk with the scythe tossed over his shoulder, that I’m taken by surprise when a giant white bird launches itself into the path ahead.

Zarev throws out an arm, stopping me before we get too close. The enormous wings spread wide showing missing feathers and patches where its pink skin shows through. When the colossal head whips around I’m stunned to see the bird is missing an eye.

“Stay back,” he tells me, and the unreasonable urge to go to the creature washes over me. It looks tortured…

And it’s as big as I am. I wouldn’t be able to get a hold of it, and with the way its neck twists, I think using my hair would be a liability to the both of us.

Finally, it clicks into place. “Is that a swan?”

Zarev grunts, dropping his arms. “Swans like to hang out by Swan Lake and migrate far south when the seasons change. The weather is still holding, so I don’t know what this one is doing all the way up here.”

“This one looks hurt,” I say, trying to move past him. The swan continues to struggle, whipping it’s head around, and I’m startled when the creature looks at us with one golden eye, the gaping hole where the other should be a little terrifying to look at.

I take a step back, waiting for Zarev’s lead. The arrival of the bird seems to alarm Zarev, and he shifts his weight on his feet like he;s piercing something together. “Odette?”

The swan screeches, flapping its wings madly. Something about Zarev speaking to it seems to set the bird off, and it takes to the air again with its one, wild eye staring down at us as it tries to flap away. But the wings move unevenly, and it looks like one wing is badly damaged.

“Shit,” Zarev grumbles, taking off after the bird. He shoots an apologetic look over his shoulder at me, and I cannot help wondering what on earth is so important about a gigantic swan. But I hurry after him, well aware he’ll notice and probably be distracted if he doesn’t see me following. Maybe the bird has answers to something.

I’m not really sure what though. It’s a bird, not a book or a person, so what could the swan tell us? I don’t like that it’s injured, but Zarev clearly isn’t a bird whisperer and neither am I. I’m not sure we can calm it down.

Zarev sends his shadows after the creature, but they can’t do anything to stop the birds ambling body. He stays a fair distance back just like me, and I get the feeling he isn’t keen on standing any closer.

I’m out of breath when I manage to catch his cloak, and he shoots me an irritated look. The swan is still trying to escape, but at a slower pace. “Why are we chasing a bird?”

He blows out a breath, watching the creature put more and more distance between us. “Swans flock around Swan Lake. We’re pretty far from that side of Mystica.”

“Side?”

He nods. “Tressa is the southern most location in Mystica, and Swan Lake is the furthest to the west and second most southern kingdom. It’s on the opposite side of the continent from your home. I don’t ever really travel over there, the southwest is more of Raymundo’s domain to handle. But the birds over there don’t really travel…”

Zarev shakes his head, and I wait for more. “But you knew this one is named Odette?”

“Just a thought,” he mutters. “It’s a big swan.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“It’s nothing,” he sighs, and he crosses his arms as the massive bird launches itself into the air again. It struggles but manages to take flight again, the damaged wing still looking painful but not holding the bird back as it catches the wind and shoots higher into the sky. “The eyes remind me of the Princess of Swan Lake. I only met her once. She has a green eye and a missing one.”

I blink, staring at the disappearing swan. That’s a very unique detail to be mimicked in a bird, but birds aren’t people. There’s no way the bird has anything to do with some princess on the other side of Mystica.

“Next time we speak to Raymundo, I’ll mention it to him. He can look into it if he really wants.”

I nod, eyeing the map again. Zarev’s description matches the layout as far as I can see, but I don’t really understand the significance of one lumbering, massive swan being off course from the rest of the flock.

Unless the bird has to do with the princess down there. Maybe there’s something to be concerned about after all.

“Come along Rapunzel,” he grumbles, picking his way back towards the abandoned path. “We are almost to the crest of the hill. When we get there we’ll start to shadow hop again.”

20 Zarev

Rapunzel tries to distract herself for the rest of the day. I purposefully shadow-jumped us a few miles away from the bird, deciding that distance is key. If for any reason that giant swan did have something to do with Princess Odette, that’s one more problem we don’t need to handle. Using my magic too many times in a row makes the gold in my chest ache as though it’s fighting against my shadow magic altogether. That’s just another reason that this stuff needs to get out of my skin, literally.

Rapunzel seems distracted and I’m sure her mind is lost in the letters she read. They opened up quite a mystery, one that the princess and I don’t have answers to. The only things I ever heard about before traveling to Tressa were about the golden princess. Nothing about twins, and certainly not the loss of a baby until I was inside the kingdom. Those rumors are secretive, yet the woman who wrote those letters is in on the gossip like she knew everything intimately and firsthand.

But that strange room in the royals bedroom slips into my mind, the room with two cribs. I assumed that both were Rapunzel’s. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe that room is hidden behind a cabinet for a reason.

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