Annaliese was looking forward to the day she could get rid of the surname Klein. That had been her fourth husband’s name. The last guy to take advantage of her swan maid magic, steal her swanskin and make her his common-law wife.
Wife. Hah. If only it had been something that nice. With swan maids, it never was. Not unless they somehow, against all odds, found their One, that single man in all the world who fit them exactly. Who would love, as well as be loved. A love that would only grow better with time.
Annaliese had found her One. Alex Fischer. Just the thought of him made her sigh. He’d turned twenty just last week, and in the few short months she’d known him, he had grown more muscular and blue-eyed and square-jawed and aw-shucks than ever. And more skittish.
Humans. Why didn’t they understand about magic? Alex was her One. Marriage was the obvious next step. You’d think she was asking him to skydive without a parachute.
She put her elbows on the reception desk, resting her chin in her hands. Maybe he didn’t like her hair. But no, Alex wasn’t the superficial type. He wouldn’t care if her short bob looked a lot like white feathers. Or that her eyes were black.
His uncle, Matthew Fischer, said that Annaliese just needed to give Alex time. Easy for him to say. Matt Fischer was a man. It didn’t take much to make a man happy.
Unless the man was Alex Fischer, apparently.
“I’faith,” a familiar voice sneered. “Poor swan maid. Pining away, are we? Pray die of a broken heart somewhere else. We must prosper His Highness’ wretched human-saving business, after all.”
Annaliese glared across the length of the lobby at Countess Nidesha, who stood framed in the hallway entrance. She was clad in a white bodysuit that clung and lifted and separated in all the right places, and she was busy braiding her waist-length hair, which was nearly as pale as Annaliese’s own. Her eyes, that absurdly deep and vivid green that Cedar Elves were known for, glittered with amused malice.
She had such pretty pointed ears, like teardrop pearls. Such a full, rosy mouth. Such a witchy personality.
“It’s not your day to work the desk,” Annaliese said. “If you don’t mind, I have–” Oh, how she wanted to lie and say she had a ton of work to do. If only fairykind could lie.
A smile graced Nidesha’s lovely lips. Did she even wear lipstick? If so, it probably had poison in it. “Work to do? Come, now. The phone isn’t ringing, little swan.”
“What do you want?”
“Why, to spar.” Nidesha began winding the braid into a bun low on her neck. Holding the bun in place with one hand, she walked over to the window and pushed it wide, reaching her free hand outside. A moment later, a thin tree branch grew through the opening, ending inside the lobby. Nidesha pinched off the last several inches and held them close to the back of her neck, and they wound themselves over and around her hair like a net.
Annaliese hid a shudder. Nidesha had severed the branch so casually, like cutting a loose thread.
“I swore to train you to fight, did I not?” Nidesha reached through the window again and tapped the branch, withering it. She pulled the window closed. “You are yet unskilled.”
“Maybe compared to you—“
“Would you truly have me abandon you now?” Nidesha put her fingertips to her cheek and widened her eyes. “Poor fledgling. Any cuckoo might shove you from the nest! Or mayhap, you think Alex Fischer fancies helpless women?”
Annaliese was on her feet in an instant. She knew she was being baited. She knew that. “Do not bring Alex into this.”
Nidesha prowled over until she was almost nose to nose with Annaliese. “This miserable place is Dair’s,” Nidesha said, still smiling, “and everything in it is Dair’s. Including you. What belongs to His Highness belongs to me. I wish to spar. Outside, little swan.”
Annaliese put on her fighting clothes. Loose sweatpants and two layers of tank tops over a sports bra. Unlike Nidesha, Annaliese felt no need to strut around in skin-tight, flesh-colored unitards.
Give the horrible elf woman credit, though: she didn’t mind getting muddy.
“Sluggards bear bruises,” Nidesha said, in a drill sergeant tone that her poor fiancee, Prince Dair, had probably never heard. Around the prince, Nidesha was nothing but cherries and butterflies. “I might easily land a blow upon your pate. ‘Tis kindness I do not,” she added, aiming another strike at Annaliese’s ribs.
Annaliese grimaced. Kindness? She’d dodged two swings at her head already. The worst part was that Nidesha had telegraphed those swings. Had she actually wanted to crack Annaliese’s skull, Annaliese would now be on the ground—the wet, cold ground—with a cracked skull.
At least they weren’t fighting with swords.
“Your thoughts wander!” Nidesha said, this time aiming a strike at Annaliese’s lower back.
Annaliese hopped sideways, slid on a patch of mud and caught her balance just in time to duck a blow that would have numbed her arm. They just had to practice outside in the pouring rain. Was there a gym inside the building? With mats? Yes. There was.
“My thoughts,” Annaliese said, panting, “aren’t wandering.” She didn’t add, “because I don’t want to die,” but judging by Nidesha’s smug smile, she didn’t have to.
Nidesha twirled her staff and advanced one prowling hip-slide at a time. The rain slid down her nose and cheeks and over the pale unitard, darkening the material. With the giant evergreens all around them and the smell of the rain and crushed grass, she looked even more fairykind than usual. Ethereal and magical. Like she was looking for somebody to curse to death.
Or beat to death. Ow. Back of the thighs this time. Annaliese spun and brought her staff up to block the next strike, but that hit to the legs had hurt. She shifted her weight and staggered.
Nidesha lifted her staff for another hit.
“Sparring, I perceive,” A rich voice proclaimed.
Nidesha stepped back and lowered her staff at once. She didn’t curtsey—even she couldn’t have pulled that off, in her current outfit—but she lowered her head modestly. “Give you good day, Highness,” she said.
Sweet as syrup. Annaliese rolled her eyes and lowered her own staff, jamming one end into the muddy ground. She leaned some of her weight on the staff, hoping she wasn’t being too obvious about it.
“The swan maid,” Nidesha added (syrup, syrup, syrup) “was desirous of further instruction in the arts marshal.”
“Indeed, there are few who could best you, Countess,” Prince Dair said, beaming. “I wonder. Might you consent to duel with me?”
He, too, looked at home among the evergreens. He should. He was the Heir Apparent to the Western Elf Monarchy and the de facto leader of the Cedar Elf clans, and he had the green, green eyes and cornsilk-blond hair to prove it. Also muscles. And a face like a cologne model.
“Oh, nay, Your Highness,” Nidesha said, with what Annaliese thought was genuine horror. “Pray ask me not—“
“Will you deny me, Lady?” Dair wandered over to the weapons shed, a brown, windowless building to one side of the practice yard. It was a shed in name only. It was nearly a third the size of the Coastal Magic offices, and finished enough that if you put a bed in it you could use it as a guest room. The prince liked his weapons.
Dair entered the building and returned with a staff. He’d tied his shoulder-length straight hair at the nape of his neck, and removed his shoes and socks. He was, however, still wearing the dress shirt and slacks he’d had on earlier. The rain had already started plastering his shirt to his muscles. Er, skin.
“It’s muddy,” Annaliese began, then felt herself blush. Obviously it was muddy.
“And so it is,” Dair agreed, beaming. “And yet, I think I will not be the first to fall in this contest. How now, Countess?”
Nidesha gave him a coy smile. “I fear I am grown tired. Perhaps some other time.”
Dair’s eyes, greener than new grass, gleamed with humor that had just a touch of malice in it. “Would a wager tempt you?”
Nidesha paused, her own eyes gleaming. “Terms?”
“If I fall beneath your staff, I shall wed you in a year.”
He couldn’t be serious. He was supposed to be working on a way to break the marriage contract. Surely, he wasn’t serious. Annaliese peeked at his face. Oh, dear. He was.
“A year? Nay. Tomorrow,” Nidesha said.
Annaliese stared at Dair, pleading silently. What was the point of this? Then she saw his glance shift to her legs, and just for a moment, his face revealed a hint of anger.
“Tomorrow,” he agreed, in a light tone.
Annaliese shook her head. This wasn’t necessary. Nidesha wouldn’t really harm her. Just bruises. Maybe bad bruises. But no real harm. Probably.
The prince kept his eyes on Nidesha, as the moment stretched out, on and on until Annaliese thought she might scream.
“Dair—” Annaliese tried.
“And if you win?” Nidesha asked, touching the tip of her tongue to her teeth.
“The bargain you made with Annaliese Klein shall be transferred to me, and I shall be the one to train her.”
All humor left Nidesha’s face. Her eyes narrowed. “You wish to train . . . The swan maid.”
“What matter for that? Do you fear for my virtue?”
Annaliese wanted to die. Swan maids only ever wanted human husbands. Nidesha knew that. Besides. Annaliese had found her One.
“I’ll not have it,” Nidesha said.
Dair tilted his head. “Oh? No wager, then? I thought the prize a good one.”
“I—” Nidesha’s cheeks filled with angry color. She glanced at Annaliese. Then her gaze returned to Dair. “Tomorrow, we shall wed.”
“If I lose,” Dair said.
“If,” Nidesha said, her smile flat and strained, “I win.”
“Even so.” Dair did a couple of deep knee bends that, under other circumstances, would have made Annaliese giggle.
“Please just go back inside,” she murmured.
“Annaliese,” he said, in the same soft tone, “she has oft bruised you.”
He knew? Annaliese fought against a sudden flare of anger.
“‘Twould be worse, had I not set the brownies to watch you,” Dair said, obviously reading her expression. “The countess knows that all which occurs under my roof is known to me. But there is a bargain between you. The matter is difficult. Lake child, why did you not seek my aid? Had you but asked, the matter would be dealt with. There was no need to suffer.”
Annaliese fought to keep her temper. She wanted to tell him it was none of his business. Since both Nidesha and Annaliese were his employees, though, she supposed it sort of was.
She wanted to tell him that he should have just rescued her. And the thought made her flush with shame.
“Nidesha is good at fighting. I’ve learned a lot.”
“Annaliese–“
“I need to be stronger,” Annaliese said, clenching her fists. “Before Matt found me, before Alex, I was . . . You know, right? You know what swan maids are.”
Dair said nothing, but it was a gentle nothing.
“Your Highness,” Nidesha called, “shall we yet take up arms ‘gainst one another? Or may I retire within and call for tea?”
Dair held up one hand. He didn’t even look at her. And Nidesha shut up.
It was glorious.
“Most swan maids don’t get a chance like this,” Annaliese said. She was talking too fast. It was either that or cry. “They go from one husband to another until they end up dead. We can’t fight. Our magic doesn’t let us fight. But I can fight now, Your Highness. Alex gave me that. Alex, and Matt, and you. I don’t—” Oops. She couldn’t say she didn’t mind the bruises. “It’s worth it to me,” she said instead, and because it was true, the words came out strong and clear.
“I had thought mayhap you might come to trust me,” Dair said gently.
Annaliese gazed at his beautiful, noble face, and thought about how he’d been raised in a palace with servants and nice things and guards and a queen for a mother.
“Probably never,” she told him, smiling. A few tears fell then, but her back was to Nidesha, so it was mostly okay. “Not all the way, anyway.”
Dair grinned suddenly. “A challenge!”
“I—no, actually, it—“
“I accept. Countess!”
Nidesha was standing with one hand on her hip, a strained smile on her face. “Does the swan maid’s conversation please you? I feared you had forgot me.”
“Am I such a fool? But you are mistaken. The swan maid’s discourse displeases me mightily.”
Annaliese narrowed her eyes. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing,” she whispered, “don’t.”
“Let us alter the terms,” Dair continued merrily.
Nidesha scowled. “I will not.”
“Countess, the prize shall not be altered,” Dair said, twirling the staff in his hand. “If I lose, we shall be wed on the morrow.”
“Then what will you?”
“I shall bind a cloth over my eyes before we fight.”
“What?” Annaliese reached out, about to clutch his arm, and remembered just in time that he was royalty. And her boss. “You can’t!”
“I have fought thus in the past.”
Annaliese sought desperately for an argument that might move him. “Barry’s going to kill you!”
“Belike.”
“Your Highness!”
Nidesha pursed her lips. “I shall not be bound?”
“Not in any way,” Dair said, raising one hand. A brownie trotted out the back door, halted in front of the prince and bowed. He held out a white, monogrammed handkerchief edged in lace. Dair handed his staff to the brownie, folded the handkerchief into a strip and wrapped the strip around his head, covering his eyes. He tied the ends and then reached for the staff.
“You can’t be serious!” Annaliese said, wringing her hands.
Nidesha laughed. “How droll! You, brownie. Place calls to my father and Her Majesty. They shall witness this battle. I believe the matter of the marriage bargain shall be settled at last. I shall savor this victory.”
***
Annaliese would have said there was nothing that could make the day worse.
Wrong.
“My son,” the ethereally stunning Queen of the Western Elf Monarchy called, in a voice like strawberries and frost. “What new whimsy is this? For I see you have formed some contest with your receptionist.”
Nidesha’s eyes narrowed just a little. The expression was gone so quickly, Annaliese might have thought she’d imagined it. Might have, if she hadn’t long ago learned to be wary when Nidesha narrowed her eyes.
“His betrothed, O queen,” Nidesha called, her voice just as sweet as the queens. “And it is a wager.”
How had everything gone so out of control? It was just supposed to be a little sparring in the backyard.
I’m freezing and I want to go inside and take a bath and then wrap up in a comforter and drink some herbal tea. That blend the brownies make that helps with stress.
I want to put on my swanskin and fly away.
Annaliese tapped the spot just below her collarbones where the little pouch that contained her swanskin rested against her skin. The magic that made her who she was. That granted her flight. With her swanskin, the whole sky was open to her.
If I was alone, I could take out my swanskin and go flying. If I stayed away for a couple of hours, when I got back this would all probably be over. Dair’s going to win anyway.
Of course he is.
Prince Dair grinned. However anxious Annaliese felt about the blindfold he was wearing, it obviously didn’t worry him at all. He was posing like a pirate. “It is a matter of honor, my queen.”
The queen, who was looking on through what the elves called a “mirror spell”, turned her gaze on Annaliese and raised a brow.
Annaliese blushed. “He isn’t—” Oh, dear. “I mean, I—” She blushed hotter.
“You are a swan maid, I think,” the queen said. What green, green eyes she had. If Spring itself were a color, it would be the green of the queen’s eyes. The fact that she was a head and shoulders displayed in what appeared to be a window cut into empty air didn’t diminish the effect one bit.
Annaliese wanted to curtsey. She didn’t, because she didn’t know how. Also Nidesha had already curtseyed to the queen, and that had been a performance no act could follow.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Annaliese said, bowing instead. “I’m a swan maid.”
The queen turned that deep gaze on Nidesha. “This foolishness began with you. Jealousy becomes you ill, Countess. There is no purpose in it. What should a swan maid desire of my son? You know his parentage. There is no human blood in the prince.”
Nidesha smiled. Oh, it was a beautiful, precise thing. Like she’d practiced with a mirror and a protractor. “The disposition of the swan maid is a trifling business. A warrior fixes her mind upon the battle. By such means is victory attained.”
“It is a wonder,” the other guest at this impromptu contest drawled, “that our noble prince should drive a poor maid to abandon her modesty thus. For a bride to battle her betrothed to obtain that which is hers by right—“
“Go cautiously, Bedivere,” Queen Siobhan murmured.
Annaliese hid a smile at the sour look that crossed the older elf’s face. She didn’t like Count Bedivere. He was a handsome, in a way, all lean strength and proud shoulders and long elf ears and elegantly graying blond hair. But there was a poised, eager quality to his stillness that reminded her of a snake.
That he was the reason Nidesha was Nidesha was something Annaliese preferred not to think about. Not that Nidesha would welcome sympathy. From Annaliese, in particular.
Annaliese’s gaze moved to the two Cedar elves standing at the edge of the clearing. The woman was in the queen’s green, white and gold livery and stood as Queen’s Witness. The man wore the dark brownish-green and amber of House Galanta, and stood as Bedivere and Nidesha’s witness. They were like cedar trees themselves, these two witnesses. You got the feeling they could keep on standing there, watching the queen and waiting patiently, until the last stars winked out.
But Siobhan nodded to them, and the two witnesses turned toward one another, arms out with one arm high and one low, as if they carried something tall between them. A new, wide window formed in the air. One by one, elven faces filled it, until a representative from each of the elf clans was gazing at the two combatants.
It’s a magical Zoom meeting, Annaliese thought, fighting a hysterical giggle. It occurred to her then that Queen Siobhan had only invited the other observers after the part of the discussion that involved Annaliese was over.
Well, that was that. Annaliese was Team Siobhan forever.
The queen gave the signal, and Nidesha raised her sword and charged at Dair. And that’s when Annaliese discovered that Nidesha hadn’t just been going easy on her.
No. Nidesha had been hiding the extent of her skill from everyone.
She hammered blows at Dair, from above, from either side. Low sweeps to his legs, chops at his arms. Every movement strong and clean and so fast it was hard for the eye to follow. Nidesha was a warrior born. An absolute terror.
Annaliese hugged herself, afraid to breathe. Any minute now. Any minute now, Nidesha’s sword would break through Dair’s guard, and the fight would be over and Dair would be getting married.
And yet, somehow, Dair blocked every blow. Again and again, Nidesha’s sword swung, and somehow, Dair was always just out of reach, or his sword was just rising as hers was falling, or he was turning just as she was slipping around behind him.
They’d checked the blindfold. Dair couldn’t see through it. And it was tied tightly. How? How was he fighting like this?
Nidesha must have had the same thought, because she disengaged and backed away, scowling. Then her eyes widened.
“The trees!” she said. For a moment, she looked almost frightened. “They tell you where I am and what I do!”
Dair didn’t answer. But the grin on his face said it all.
“Impossible,” Nidesha whispered, the tip of her sword lowering. “No one could.”
“Hold,” Count Bedivere called. He looked furious. “My daughter speaks truth. It is an impossibility. By what trickery—“
“It was his sire’s gift, as well,” Queen Siobhan said, in a flat tone. “Have you forgotten, Bedivere? You, whom Aodhan counted as a brother?”
Bedivere sputtered. “No mention was made of this when the rules were laid down!”
An argument began—in elvish—between the count and the watching heads of the other clans, with Dair and Nidesha occasionally chiming in. Annaliese, who didn’t speak a word of elvish and was deeply grateful for it, hugged herself and rubbed her arms and wished once again that she dared put on her swanskin. Nobody would miss her.
She took a step back. Another. And another, until she was close to the back door. Nobody looked her way.
They’d forgotten her. It was now or never. She could sneak inside and then leave by the front door. Annaliese reached up to take hold of the pouch and draw out her swanskin.
The pouch wasn’t there.
She felt a gentle tap on her shoulder, soft, unassuming. A slight shift of air across the back of her neck.
And then a voice behind her murmured, “Do not call out. Do not betray by any means that someone speaks to you. Not if you want your swanskin back in one piece.”