Page 19 of Of Curses and Moonlight

Yessly chuckled.

“Get on with it,” Elna demanded.

Yessly broke up the plants, mixing them into the mud while she chanted in a language Odette didn’t know. She grabbed a stick barely bigger than a twig and mixed the concoction together.

The spell would tell the direction of the nearest prince. In order to break the swan curse, they needed someone who could make a declaration of love before the world. That meant someone high ranking who had access to dignitaries and other officials across the known lands. Odette’s fingers curled around the swan symbol at her neck. But Rothbart wouldn’t be coming here this evening.

If I stripped back the mask of assassin, what would I find?His words from the night before played through her mind. She wore no mask. This was who Odette was raised to be. A killer. Like her mother.

But it made her wonder, who would she be if she could be something different?

She had no idea.

Tonight Rothbart was going back to Alecta’s. Alone. Something unsettling curled in her gut. Apparently, she and Rothbart were more tied together than she imagined. If she died, so would he. But the curse would be broken. Had he agreed to return to Alecta’s to save her or himself? She shifted restlessly, Yessly’s chanting in the background of her thoughts. Of course, it was for himself. But then she remembered how he’d stood between her and his old lover, how he’d stopped the woman from torturing Odette.

The worry in his eyes.

But he’d also put that damn potion on her without telling her the full consequences. The one that had caused her pain. Her teeth grit. Everything that happened last night was his fault.

Odette shook her head as if she could banish the memory from her mind. She had more important things to focus on.

Yessly finished her ministrations, and the end of the stick lit. It glowed with a fiery heat.

“Is it supposed to do that?” Odette asked.

“Watch.” Yessly picked up the twig and took several steps to the left, then to the right. The soft glow didn’t change. She stepped forward and the end of the stick flared brighter.

A satisfied smile crossed Yessly’s face. “There. Go that way. The glow of the stick will lead you to your prince. ”

“But we don’t know how far she has to go in that direction to find him,” Lina said, concern in her gaze.

Yessly threw her sister an angry glare. “It's worth a try.”

Odette frowned. That was the hiccup in their plan. If she left, Rothbart wouldn’t become suspicious. She’d been gone before when he’d come around. One time, she’d even remained on the banks of the pond, refusing to transform, to spite him. After what happened with Alecta, he probably expected her to avoid him. But she and the others had found that the longer they stayed as swans, the more they lost themselves, their thoughts growing muddy and becoming more and more animal-like.

“We have a plan for that,” Elna said. “No more than three days, Odette. If you don’t find the prince by then, you must turn around. We will have swans waiting one and a half days out to escort you in.”

Three days out, three days back, six days, a full day longer than anyone had ever remained a swan. It was worth the risk. If Elna and the others knew that Odette only had to die to also kill Rothbart, thereby breaking the curse, they’d slit her throat without hesitation.

She was keeping that information to herself.

Elna gave a withering glance, her cold accusatory gaze always reminded Odette of her failure as an assassin. Of how they got trapped as swans in the first place. “This better work.”

Standing, Odette glared resolutely at the glowing stick. Shewouldfind her prince, make him fall desperately in love with her, and free herself and the others.

“I’ll leave as soon as the moon sets.”

Odette soared over the endless forest, the glowing stick clutched between her bill. It hung out long enough that she saw its steady flare. Rows of pine trees stretched out before her in all directions. On and on. Three days. It had been three days already with no sign of a prince. No sign of human life whatsoever. She had flown at a constant rate, only stopping for brief rests and to find something to eat. Despite her breaks, exhaustion pulled at her body. Her mind, thankfully, remained clear.

She landed in the branches of a great cedar tree, watching in dismay as the sun dipped toward the horizon, painting the sky in vivid reds and pinks. Time to turn around. Already, she risked her sanity by coming out this far, which was why the swans would be waiting to escort her in.

She stretched her wings, her frustration boiling over.

Nothing. That was all there ever would be. How silly was she to think this might work? She and the others would be stuck as swans forever.

Not forever, she reminded herself. They’d all be dead from the skull pact in less than six months. But since she and Rothbart had found no leads in locating the person who commissioned the assassination of his stepmother and stepsister, Odette needed to solve the swan curse before the skull pact. At least they did if they planned on killing Rothbart’s sister in order stave off certain death. If they went after her before they broke the swan curse, Rothbart would probably murder them in retaliation.

They had to free themselves from Rothbart first.

---