when the last of the daylight fades, then I’m hit with crippling pain all over my body. The further away I am, the worse it is. And, as an extra gift, I receive a visit from Leander.”
My expression no doubt conveyed my feelings about such an event.
“So today…” Gabe winced. “That’s why you took off running back there in the forest. And why Leander was here. You didn’t make it back in time—because of me.”
I said nothing, and guilt flooded his face.
“I assure you, I would never mean to cause you pain, Adelaide.”
I shrugged. Experience had taught me that the pain caused by those who intended no harm could be the most damaging—because you weren’t armored against it. But I wasn’t vulnerable to him now. I had learned my lesson and built up my armor too thick to be pierced.
After a moment he seemed to accept that I meant to say nothing and continued on.
“But what of your voice? Back at the haven…”
“That is another symptom of my strange entrapment. At night I can speak like normal. But during the day, when I am free to roam, I speak only the language of the swans. It is a painful irony. At night I can speak—but I have no one to converse with. Well, except for the occasional visit from Leander—and I would rather go silent than speak to him.”
“But now you have me to talk with,” Gabe said. “It must be strange for you.”
The truth of his words crashed over me. His presence was strange in every possible way, and I hadn’t immediately realized what a welcome relief it was to make use of my words again. Their loss had stripped away a part of me I had almost forgotten to miss.
Gabe turned to gaze out over the lake, and the one black and six white bodies which glided across it, their beaks dabbling for food in the shallows or their tail feathers flashing as they up-ended for a deeper prize.
“All sorts of strange things have occurred across these lands since Palinar fell into darkness,” he said. “But this is a very odd sort of enchantment. I assume Leander is behind it, but what is his purpose?”
I frowned. “I wish I knew. I have been trying to puzzle it out for two years without success. Leander seems to delight in my captivity, and I do not doubt he has some sinister purpose, but…” I gestured around us, “he’s given me a gilded cage. The pain that strikes me if I set foot into the trees seems utterly at odds with the protected beauty and peace of this place.”
Sweetie waddled over, bugling at me before settling contentedly at my side. I rested a gentle hand against the springy softness of her feathers.
“And I am not entirely alone,” I added. “My swans are loyal and true companions, even if they cannot hold a conversation. If Leander’s purpose is to break me, to isolate me, then their presence seems to work against such an aim. Why give me a language that anyone could understand—even if it was just birds?”
“They certainly don’t behave like any swans I’ve ever seen.” Gabe’s eyes lingered on Sweetie before passing to me. “They must certainly be part of whatever enchantment Leander has crafted. You think his purpose was to isolate you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. But I don’t think the enchantment worked quite as he intended. He told me at first that I would not be able to leave the lake, and yet when I turned and ran, nothing happened. It was only when darkness fell that the crippling pain he had promised hit. There was a weakness of some sort in his trap.”
“A weakness? Hmmm…” Gabe tapped his chin, his eyes fixed blindly on the water. “I wonder…”
I waited for him to explain, but instead his mind seemed to leap in a different direction.
“Leander is clearly a blackguard, and needs to be stopped,” he said. “Why did you prevent me from going after him?”
For a moment I had lost myself in the puzzle of my circumstances and had even enjoyed having someone to discuss my theories with, but his words brought back my earlier anger.
“Who knows what damage that would cause? We know nothing of what he has done here—or how.”
“Exactly,” Gabe said. “What if killing him releases you?”
“And what if it doesn’t?” I shot back. “What if instead it dooms me to spend the rest of my life caught in such a state? There