The Wizard Becomes a Father
By nightfall, the nesting tower was ready, which was good because Araminta had begun to pull her hair out by the handfuls.
Prava found her in the kitchen, walking in circles around the great hearth.
Araminta did not normally venture into the lower levels of Hush Manor, but brooding had filled her with strange cravings.
The cooks had offered bone marrow stews and hearty loaves full of milled seeds, butter cakes and winter berry porridge. But Araminta wanted none of that.
"Oh, the very thought of such food turns my stomach!" she moaned. "Don't we have any pondweed? Or perhaps salt-marsh grass! Goodness, what I would not do for juicy little tadpoles! And algae cakes! Perhaps a couple of spiders…"
When she began scouring the kitchen for lonely beetles, the cooks fled.
"Beloved!" announced Prava.
Araminta honked. Veritas swans were breathtakingly beautiful women. But their natures were still swanlike and as such they were wildly aggressive and prone to squawking.
"If you have not come bearing a basket of widgeon grass and dragonflies, then I must beg of you to leave me," she said.
"I have something better," said Prava.
He snapped his fingers and a delicate glass staircase appeared at Araminta's feet.
Every time Prava performed magic, Araminta felt the familiar tug of wonder coupled by a small wave of revulsion.
She glanced at her husband, who was smiling.
They had been married for some time now, and from the moment she had fallen in love with him, he no longer bothered to hide his true form.
Prava was tall and lean, with auburn hair that curled around his jaw and accentuated the slender knives of his canines.
His eyes were speckled green with vertical black slits like a serpent.
He was handsome and looked to be somewhere in his third decade though he was far, far older than that.
When he was a young wizard, he had traded one magical text for another and thus figured out how to carve the time out of his bones.
He was still mortal—something which infuriated him to no end—but time could not touch him.
It was one of the many magics he possessed and it was the reason why Araminta both loved and loathed him.
Hundreds of years ago, Prava had found her by the glimmering salt pools hidden in a maze of clouds far above the Isle.
It was unheard of for a mortal to find their way to the sky, let alone know where the salt pools of the veritas swans might be found.
Araminta had been so impressed, she ignored her mother's warning about the Isle's men.
"Bad things befall those who consort with humans," she had warned. "Even worse things befall those who love them."
"What things?" Araminta had demanded.
But her mother only shook her head. "Things that are bad enough that there is no one left to speak of them, my love."
This had seemed like a load of nonsense to Araminta. Besides, she knew she was powerful. She could turn into a swan and fly away whenever she wished. Her voice drew out the truth. The man posed no threat, and besides … he was beautiful.
Araminta did not tell her sisters. She was the middle hatchling of her parents' brood and as such often went unnoticed. All she had she was forced to share. But this … these secret meetings …
They were all hers.
Prava left her gifts of daydreams baked in candies that melted on the tongue.
He wove her a necklace of stars that sparkled at her throat.
He planted a garden of songs that trilled her name in clouds of perfume.
At the time of their courting, he had magicked away his fangs and wore a pair of bright-blue mortal eyes.
Later, he would tell her that he had plucked them from a human prince who had traded his eyes for the ability to taste music from the air.
One day, Araminta sang for him and Prava fell to his knees, weeping. Araminta could feel the magic of her song thrumming through the air. Prava would be powerless before it and forced to tell the truth.
"What do you want from me?" Araminta had demanded.
"Your love," said Prava, humbled. "Only your love."
Little by little, she gave it to him. He would never hurt her. After all, he loved her. It would be years before Araminta realized she had asked him the wrong question.
One day, as they sat by the shore of the salt pool, Prava told her he loved her and Araminta knew in her heart she loved him too.
The moment she uttered the words, a necklace with a small, winged key appeared in Prava's hand.
Araminta felt a pressure at the base of her throat.
It was as if someone had collared her, but when she touched her neck, there was nothing there. For the first time, she felt nervous.
"What is that?" Araminta asked. "Is it for me?"
She reached for it, but Prava closed a fist around the jeweled key. He smiled. For the first time, she noticed the length of his teeth.
"My love, it is you."
Dread settled in her bones, but when Araminta tried to turn into a swan and flee … she found that she could not. She strained to beat the wings she knew were folded tightly within her, but all that flapped were the delicate glass feathers on the dainty necklace.
"What's happened to me?" she asked, choking.
Prava rolled his neck from side to side, dislodging the mortal prince's fair, blue eyes—oh, how many times she had dreamt of those eyes—and revealing his green, serpentine gaze. Araminta still found him beautiful, a fact that he seemed to know, for he smiled widely.
Perhaps she should have left the truth alone.
Knowing would make no difference, and in that moment, Araminta understood that the life she had known was gone.
That she had been imprisoned, somehow. She sang—it would be the last song Prava would permit her to sing in his presence—and her magic sparkled in the air.
Prava shuddered beneath the force of it, and his serpent eyes glazed over.
For a few moments, he was in her thrall.
"What have you done?" she asked. "And why?"
Prava licked his lips. His tongue was forked. She had not noticed until today.
"I have done nothing to you … not yet, at least," he said.
"I courted you in the hopes that you would fall in love with me, for the moment you gave me your heart, you gave me control over you. You did not know such a thing was possible, which I am grateful for, as that would have made this task terribly difficult."
Araminta heard her mother's voice. Bad things befall those who consort with humans. Oh, how she longed for her mother. But she could not call to her. Nor could she reach any of her sisters.
"Few are aware that such a feat is even possible, but I have read the forgotten texts and I know how to find the kernel of truth buried in the heart of a legend," said Prava with a haughty grin.
"I want power, my darling. Endless amounts of it. And for that, I need something more valuable than my own magic. This is where you shall help me."
"You mean to kill me," said Araminta.
"Perhaps at first," admitted Prava. "But the truth is that I have fallen in love with you. Do not breathe a sigh of relief, my love, for there will be times where you will prefer death to my affections. I will keep you close, my darling. But I will keep you in every comfort. If you try to escape, I will break your wings. But whatever cruelty I inflict, I shall endeavor to erase from your memory."
Araminta's stomach turned. "You are a monster."
"I am, but you love me anyway, I can see it in your eyes. You like the sharpness of my teeth. You like that, trapped as you are, I would burn down the heavens to make you smile," said Prava.
"I am a monster, yes, but I will be your monster and yours alone. Now come, my love. It is time for us to wed."
In time, Araminta would understand that the necklace could not control her will, only her form.
If he wanted, Prava could keep her trapped in swan shape for as long as he liked.
But he did not do this very often, for he loved her too much to be apart from her for long.
It did not matter how many times she told herself that he was a monster and that he had destroyed her life.
Prava was too powerful, and he did not resort to the vulgarities of brute force or threats to keep her in his thrall. What he did was far more subtle.
Every morning, he brought her a cup of tea in which he had distilled a drop of hope.
"Drink," he said. "You will die without it."
Araminta had considered death, but Hush Manor was attended by a legion of phantom servants and she had no wish to be tied to him in death as well. She thought of killing him too, but the death of one's beloved was the death of a veritas swan. How cruel a trap was love.
"This is to make your life on the Isle more comfortable," said Prava, holding out the tea.
"You mean my imprisonment."
Prava shrugged. "It could always be worse."
And so, each day, Araminta gulped down the hope. She hoped that Prava would change. That he would free her. Barring that, she hoped that what he said was true.
It could always be worse.
Araminta's nesting tower was a thing of extraordinary beauty.
The glass staircase led to a platform lofted into the clouds themselves, which skimmed the edge of a marble platform shaped like a star.
A carved onyx pillar stood at each point, connecting a hanging garden that arced above the floor.
Araminta spied tendrils of billow lilies and gloom violets, bone lichen and great tufts of drifting roses.
Her heart ached, for these flowers did not grow on the Isle of Malys.
They belonged to the sky realm and grew by the edges of the salt pools.