A Captive of Wing and Feather A Retelling of Swan Lake - Melanie Cellier Page 0,95

a flying leap. She promptly put her full weight on him, pinning him to the ground. I finally managed to scramble to my feet and stumbled toward the sprawl of human limbs and feathers. I reached the fire in time to wrest the bundled shirt and hoops from Eagle and throw them all deep into the flames, my wrap with them.

“Nooo!” screamed Leander as the flames caught the material, burning it all to ash in mere seconds. “I’ll kill you!”

I hobbled slowly up to him. “You already have, remember? You’ve destroyed my life, and now I’ve destroyed yours. It only seemed fair.”

“Why, you—”

His words were cut off as Eagle sat on his head, prompting more squealing laughs from Juniper. I met Cora’s eyes.

“I can’t do the pot, Cora,” I murmured, “or the tree.”

My words must have reached Leander through all the feathers because he began to thrash, trying to break free of the combined hold of Cora and Eagle.

Juniper screamed as a flash of movement darted out from Leander’s writhing shape. Cora gasped, and red appeared, leaking down to soak into Leander’s clothing.

I threw myself forward and wrestled the knife from his grip.

“Eagle,” I said grimly, and the bird instantly stood, exposing the lord’s head.

Twisting the blade in my hand, I brought the hilt down hard on Leander’s skull. It made a shocking thump and then he went still.

“Cora? Are you all right? Where are you hurt?”

I tried to pull her up off Leander’s now still form and only succeeded in nearly collapsing on top of her.

“The blade only cut my thigh,” she said. “I’ll live.”

She tore a long piece of fabric from her skirt and wrapped it around the wound, tying it off tightly.

“But I would like to recover somewhere far from here,” she said. “So let’s get this over with.”

She braced herself on me, using mostly her own strength to heave herself to her feet, and together we hobbled back toward the pot and the tree. Stopping to take several breaths, she took the tree’s trunk in both hands and wrenched it from the soil. Carrying the entire thing over to the fire, she laid it across the burning wood, pausing until the flames licked at the branches, consuming the fruit.

“What are we going to do with the pot?” I asked.

“Use it to put out the fire,” Cora suggested, eyeing the way the flames had already raced along the trunk, escaping the confines of the hearth.

“Good idea.”

I wasn’t sure how much help I could be, but I took one handle while Cora took the other. Together we upended it, my grip wobbling and making the pot tilt toward her. The liquid inside gushed out, nearly missing the fire, but at the last moment, I threw myself sideways, righting it enough that the second half of the contents splashed over the flames. They hissed and fizzled, great billows of steam rising up.

We both dropped the pot, hastily backing away from the steam. Ushering Juniper ahead of us toward the stairs, we followed Eagle’s lead. The rolling steam engulfed Leander’s unconscious form, blocking him from view. If the steam worked as the pure liquid did, I didn’t think he would be waking up anytime soon. But I had no problem with that.

Somehow the four of us made it back down the stairs and into the chaos below. I didn’t have much time left, I could feel it, but I hoped that with the destruction of the shirt, Eagle, at least, was now free from my coming death. But she needed to rejoin her wedge.

“I need to rest,” Cora puffed, lowering herself to the ground.

“I’m just going to help Eagle out of the window,” I told her.

First I had to knock all the remaining glass shards from the window, a task that took far longer than it should. And when I was finally finished, I realized I had long since lost the strength to lift her. Instead, I crouched down, and she somehow clambered up and over me, using me to launch out of the empty hole with a triumphant bugle.

Answering bugles greeted her, and I leaned against the frame, hoping to catch a final glimpse of them all. But I had misjudged my center of balance, my weakness making me clumsy, and I toppled slowly out, unable to catch myself.

“Lady!” Juniper screamed somewhere behind me, but I couldn’t see her, my reaching fingers scrabbling for something to hold.

Then feathers surrounded me, easing my fall, and I slid down into a