The black wolf had interfered. Grigori had been touching his swan for the first time. His hands still tingled from the forbidden contact with her skin. The protection her mother had bought from the universe with her blood was almost gone. She’d been softer than silk beneath his hand.
And she’d been so very afraid.
Her fear was an aphrodisiac because it fueled his power like a battery that he could constantly recharge with the mere application of his dark desires. The memory of her trembling and vulnerable beneath his touch was better than any trembling he’d inspired with dreams. Who knows what he might have been able to do to her if the Romanov wolves hadn’t interrupted?
Her mother’s knowledge of hearth magic had taken him by surprise, but it was Elena who had shocked him. He hadn’t been prepared for his little swan to take flight. He’d never imagined she would seek help from the one being who might be able to stand in his way. He’d been so certain she would be his when the power of the blood ran out. He’d never suspected that she might know Volkhvy secrets. The Light queen of the Volkhvy had been practically sleepwalking for centuries. Her anger at her Romanov champions had caused most of the old protections against the Dark to fade away. The old legends were dead. Or so he thought. No one spoke of them anymore. Cell phones and social media had taken the place of books and campfire stories that had armed generations against his kind.
Except one old woman who had taught her daughter and granddaughter the old tales and the old ways.
She’d been too canny and wise for him to kill. He’d had to wait for nature to take her in its own sweet time. But he’d never imagined she’d passed on the legend of the Romanovs to her granddaughter or that a woman born in this time of lattes and laptops would take the legends to heart.
It wasn’t her belief that truly shocked him. It was her determination to travel a thousand miles and climb a mountain in the snow to find a cursed castle and a mythical champion to fight him.
That...and the sapphire sword.
The delicate swan he craved was not a warrior woman. He would put her back in her place...in his cage, under his power, forever at his mercy. The sword would be lost to the Ether and entirely out of her reach. She would be delicate and vulnerable once more. Even if he had to clip her wings and her uninjured leg to ensure that she accepted her true nature.
He preened as he thought, literally soothing his ruffled feathers. They were as black as obsidian, but they weren’t a raven’s wings. They were much larger and more powerful than that. When he shifted, he was larger than a natural bird, just as the Romanov wolves were larger than natural wolves. And just as Elena was a womanly swan with some of her human features intact. She would have feathers on her breast, but they would be full, lush womanly breasts. Her wings would stretch from her perfect, delicately boned shoulders.
His Ether-fueled powers gave him infinite possibilities for his pleasure. Currently, he was a large cob swan anticipating making Elena his mate. He was capable of being fully formed as a bird, but he could also keep his human arms...and other attributes...if he chose.
He would choose with Elena.
And they would mate for life...or as long as her life lasted.
His pets never lasted long once he had full power over them. His appetites always got the best of him once they had free rein.
In order for all of his plans to proceed to fruition, he would need to destroy the black wolf first. The creature had been created by the Light Volkhvy queen to fight his kind, but, in truth, the queen had never fully understood what his kind was capable of becoming. The Dark Volkhvy themselves didn’t know of the power they could channel from the Ether if they were brave enough to seek it. No one had absorbed as much power as he had—not even his father, the king.
Elena hadn’t been his only obsession for the last decade.
It was almost time to solidify the Dark Volkhvy behind a new leader, one who knew how dark they could be.
He would settle for no less than the black wolf’s head, his vulnerable swan slave and the throne.
* * *
The servants who were left in the castle made no preparations for the Gathering. There was nothing like the usual hustle and bustle of a big event about to take place. If anything, the hallways were more deserted than ever as Elena sought out the one person who might be living in the present enough to help her.
There was very little time left to make Ivan see reason. She was down to hoping she could convince him on the night of the ball before Grigori arrived to make his claim. And if she weren’t able to convince Romanov, then her last chance before she chose to leave with Grigori would be the Light Volkhvy queen.
Elena had been a performer her entire life. She knew one didn’t inspire a queen’s intervention in rags or jeans.
“I need help to get ready for the Gathering,” she said when she finally found Bell. The young woman greeted her with a big grin. Her determined good humor was a welcome relief from the hopelessness Elena found in everyone else. “I need a dress fit for a warrior, a wife and a swan. My main accessory will be the sapphire sword.”
Bell was wearing a maid’s gown paired with more modern combat boots and her usual boy’s hat. Her smile tilted slowly with a hint of mischievousness.
“Maybe you’ll be worth all the water I’ve had to carry after all,” she said. “I’d survive the Ether one more Cycle if it means you’ll give those witches hell. This castle needs a new mistress.”
“Romanov doesn’t want me here. And I might not be able to stay. But I’m going to do all I can to change his mind and Vasilisa’s before I go away,” Elena promised.
At the mention of the Light queen’s name, Bell stopped smiling. Her face tightened and her eyes grew grim. Under the shadow of her oversize cap, her big hazel eyes tracked over Elena’s face as if to ascertain if she meant what she said. Elena thought Bell would warn against trying to influence the queen, but she should have known better. Once the young woman seemed to determine that Elena was earnest, a small smile returned to her lips.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us if that’s what you’re trying to accomplish,” she said. “We’d better get going.”
Bell was a survivor. You didn’t survive by giving up without a fight.
Elena stopped her friend with a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Anywhere but the baby’s room, you understand? I promised Lev I wouldn’t disturb that room again,” she said.
Bell nodded. Her eyes softened.
“Trevor was a fine lad. And he was loved by all. You’re kind to care,” she said. She continued pragmatically, “Madeline’s dresses would never fit you. She was tall. Almost as tall as Lev. Well, as tall as he used to be, God rest his soul.”
Bell’s pragmatism warred with all the losses she’d suffered. Elena reminded her of all the people Bronwal had lost, but she also offered a course of action. Staying busy seemed to be something the young woman relied on.
“This place has been reduced to mourning for too long,” Bell said. Elena squeezed the small shoulder beneath her hand. Bell was too young to have to shoulder all the work, responsibility and worry that she must have had to take on since Patrice lost her mind. And yet, more often than not, the young woman smiled.
“I came here for help, but I found a place that needed my help. But I can’t do this alone,” Elena said.
“I can find you a dress,” Bell replied. “The castle is full of clothes that people have left behind.” The other woman walked around Elena slowly. She narrowed her eyes and seemed to be gauging her shape and size. “I always forget how small you are. You seem bigger somehow when you leave a room than when you first come in.”
“There’s more to me than meets the eye,” Elena said. “I’ve felt from the start that the same could be said about you.”
Bell’s eyes widened. Maybe the young orphan wasn’t used to people noticing anything about her. She looked up to meet Elena’s gaze, and her smile grew slightly bigger.
“The first night you arrived I recognized something in your eyes—a feeling I’ve often had. When times are dark, but you know you can put one foot in front of the other as long as it takes,” Bell said. “I haven’t had the easiest time of it since the curse. In the beginning, there were plenty of sane people to keep the first ones who fell apart from harming anyone in their madness. But with every Cycle, fewer and fewer returned. Until one day I was pretty much on my own. Since then, I’ve had to take care of myself.”
“You couldn’t ask Romanov for help?” Elena asked. Bell stood next to her, shoulder to shoulder. They seemed to be close to the same size with only slight differences in the width of their shoulders and hips. Bell was curvier with an hourglass figure. It had been some time since Elena could take to the stage, but her body had been honed by too many years of discipline to soften now.
“He’s been busy the last few Cycles. He has to keep up with his brothers now that they’re in their wolf forms full-time,” Bell said softly. She bit her lip and Elena regretted delving into subjects that made her sad.
“Soren can still look out for himself,” Elena said, trying to lighten the mood.
“The red wolf tries to look out for all of us. But he’s kept busy with Lev,” Bell said. She sounded wistful. Her eyes had gone glassy, as if she was no longer seeing Elena’s measurements, but rather something that made her pensive.
“Lev is a challenge. He’s very dangerous,” Elena said.
“I’m afraid he won’t last much longer. Once he disappears into the Ether for good, Soren... I’m not sure how he’ll survive it. They were born only seconds apart. They’ve been inseparable ever since,” Bell said. The young woman stilled, and suddenly Elena saw behind her smile and her busy behavior. She was a survivor, but how much longer could she survive once the red wolf was gone?
“I’m going to try to prevent that from happening,” Elena promised.
Elena was glad to have Bell’s help. The young girl knew the castle like the back of her hand. There was no corner she didn’t know how to reach, and many could only be reached through back passages and secret doorways that Elena would never understand.
“The Ether changes everything. Including the layout of the castle. It never comes back the exact same way twice. But there are clues to watch for. Landmarks, if you will. A tip-tilted lantern or a mark I’ve left on the wall,” Bell instructed. She pointed at a white mark painted on the wall ahead of them. It almost looked like a flower. “That’s me. It’s supposed to be a bellflower,” Bell explained. Then she continued, “It must be hard for you to imagine what Bronwal was like before the curse. Before it deteriorated. It was enchanting, specially blessed by the Light Volkhvy queen herself. I was the little orphan child who had woken in a storybook.”
“It’s hard to grow up with legends,” Elena said.
Bell had stopped in front of a door. To Elena it looked like every other door they’d passed, but Bell pointed to a swirl in the oak that looked like a leaping frog.
Elena hesitated on the threshold when Bell opened the door to step inside.
“Don’t worry. You aren’t disturbing anyone here. This room was the dressmaker’s workplace. She had a team of seamstresses and they sewed night and day to keep us all clothed—from Soren’s mother, Naomi, and Madeline, all the way down to me. And the men, as well,” Bell said.
Elena followed her into the room. Bell ran her hand along a table and it came away covered in dust. But for the neglect, the room looked as if all the seamstresses had simply stood and walked away from their work for a coffee break. There were unfinished pieces on each station. Scissors and thread, needles and material left where they had fallen when the women faded away.
Bell dusted her hands together and smiled a rueful smile.
“Believe me, I regret not showing my appreciation more for them when they were here. I’m horrible with sewing. I can’t manage one straight stitch,” she said.
“I’ve never tried,” Elena said. Her time had been all for the dance. There hadn’t been any left over.
“The work they completed is stored in these wardrobes and trunks back here,” Bell said. She turned and motioned toward a long line of mahogany wardrobes that lined one entire wall. Stacked around the wardrobes were trunks like the one Elena had helped Bell lug up to her aviary.
“Most of the dresses should have been protected from dust, and the wardrobes were lined with cedar to try to keep the moths away. Not so in most of the living quarters. We used up most of the more practical clothes long ago. That’s why so many servants you see are in rags,” Bell said. “It takes a lot of effort to maintain any semblance of normalcy, but it’s also horrible to not even try.”
She smoothed her skirts as she said it. Elena realized her unconventional appearance was as much necessity as personality. Bell made do with what she could gather and scrounge.
Elena reached to tip Bell’s hat up. The crown often threatened to cover her pretty hazel eyes, although the shadows it caused on her features did tend to make her smile shine.
“I wondered what the hat was about. I guess it’s what you could find,” she said.
But the other woman grabbed for her hat as if Elena was trying to take it. She pulled the rim tight against her brown hair.
“I’m keeping this safe for someone else. When he comes back, I’m going to give it to him,” Bell said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Elena replied. She allowed her hand to drop to Bell’s shoulder and she gave it a squeeze. The wide panicked eyes and somber mouth that had claimed Bell’s face seemed like a glimpse into her true self, as if the forceful cheer she usually conveyed was a persona she used to survive.
“Most of us are waiting for someone or lots of someones. When you lose hope, the Ether takes you,” Bell whispered. Elena understood. If she hadn’t had hope, she thought Grigori might have been able to take her long before now.
“But, look, there’ll be lots of formal dresses here to choose from. The practical things have been picked over, but the most elaborate gowns haven’t been disturbed in ages. The Volkhvy are the only ones who dress for the Gathering. It’s become the grandest occasion for them. They all try to outdo each other,” Bell said.
“That’s why this is important. I want to show the queen that the Romanovs haven’t given up the fight. And I want to show Grigori that his swan is armed and not in a cage. Most important, I want Ivan to give me his heart and the sword. I want to finally claim it fully, empowered with our connection.”
“I want to help you,” Bell said. “The Romanovs have been too disconnected for too long.”
She flung open one of the wardrobes, and a swarm of fluttering moths flew out surrounded by a cloud of fabric dust.
“Oh, well. I was wrong about that one. Let’s try the next,” Bell said sheepishly.
They went down the row of wardrobes checking one after another until they finally found several that hadn’t been invaded by gnawing insects. And in the dresses they found, Elena finally got a glimpse of the scope of Bronwal’s previous splendor.
“I told you...an orphan among legends,” Bell said. But she said it with a smile because Elena’s wonder was contagious.
She buried her hands in the textures of damask and brocade. She feasted her eyes on the sheen of silks and satins. She laughed out loud at the airy lightness of chiffon and organza.
“This reminds me of home. Although these kind of skirts would only get in the way,” Elena said. She lifted one of the full ball gowns out for a closer inspection. It was far too heavy and cumbersome for her needs, but she twirled around in it anyway.
“You were a dancer before you came here,” Bell said.
“I’m a dancer still. Once a dancer, always a dancer. Once you’ve been forged in the fire of the Saint Petersburg Ballet Company, it never goes away,” Elena said. She placed the dress back in the wardrobe. She needed a dress that was light and airy around her legs, designed in such a way that it wouldn’t impede her movements with the sword.
They rifled through trunks and drawers in companionable silence broken occasionally when a dress elicited appreciative or horrified sounds. Until Bell exclaimed, and Elena turned to see the other woman holding a green dress made of liquid silk. As Bell unfolded the dress from its tissue-lined drawer, its train spilled down and thousands of embroidered flowers showed on the backdrop of green.
“They’re bellflowers,” her friend said. There were tears in her voice, as if something poignant from the past had been taken from the drawer.
Elena went to her. Beside Bell’s current patched and worn outfit—a pauper’s clothes—the dress seemed meant for a princess. But, when Bell lifted her eyes up to meet Elena’s, her eyes matched the green dress, not her servant’s clothes. The sheen of the silk had turned her eyes from hazel to a forest green.
“That dress was made for you,” Elena said.
“I never went to dances or parties. Some thought I should,” Bell said softly. Elena immediately supposed that by “some” Bell referred to Soren Romanov.
“Of course you should have,” Elena said. “He was right. Did he have this dress made for you before the curse fell?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Bell said. “I’ll never know.”
She folded the dress back into the drawer. She covered it carefully with the tissue paper. Maybe it would have been too painful for her to try it on.
“Besides, we’re looking for something for you to wear to the Gathering,” Bell reminded Elena.
There was nothing she could do for her friend except respect her wishes to forget about the green dress. Elena turned back to the project at hand, but her mood had been tainted by yet another reminder of how cruel the curse had been to the people of Bronwal. She was silent for a long time, until a brush of feathers against her hand caused her to cry out and pull away.
“What is it?” Bell asked. She’d been lost in thought in front of the drawer she’d closed on the green dress, but she rushed back to Elena’s side. She reached for the hand Elena was cradling to see what had caused her to emit the cry of distress.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine. The feathers startled me, that’s all,” Elena said. She forced herself to reach into the wardrobe and bring out the dress that had frightened her. It was weightless in her hand, crafted almost entirely of layers of chiffon. The feathers decorated the bodice and the shoulders, and they’d been expertly applied. They would lie crisscrossed over the breasts in a smooth pattern exactly as they would lie on a bird’s chest. The feathers on the shoulders were looser and accompanied by down so that they conveyed the idea of wings when they fluttered with the slightest air currents.
“This one, you’ll have to try on,” Bell said. She touched the soft down on the shoulders with one finger.
There were several screens in the room decorated with enameled nature scenes. Elena would have been perfectly comfortable changing out in the open, but she didn’t want to startle the young woman who came from another time. Maybe the Middle Ages had the equivalent of locker rooms or dressing rooms, but Elena couldn’t be sure.
Besides, there was something of her nightmares and her shattered dreams in this dress, and she was too shy to face it in front of curious eyes. She’d worn feathers many times before. She’d been feathered in her nightmares many times before.
But she’d never donned them for a purpose that was completely her own.
The appropriate undergarments had also been in the wardrobe, but Elena chose to wear nothing with it but the panties she had on. She wasn’t so curvy that she needed the support, and she wasn’t inhibited enough to need the coverage. The dress would fit her perfectly with no help. It settled against her as if it had been made to ride her bare skin.
The feathers provided enough modesty so she didn’t feel like an exhibitionist when she came from behind the screen. And her shyness had faded away. This wasn’t a nightmare where she was trapped in a swan’s body. This wasn’t a reminder that she’d lost the dance of her dreams. If anything, it reminded her that she would always have the dance in her heart. Because she walked gracefully in the flowing layered skirts. They didn’t impede her movements at all.
Bell sighed out loud when Elena came into view. She’d been looking at the other dresses, but she turned around and her eyes went wide again along with the sigh.
“You’re no foundling,” Bell said. “You would have fit in at Bronwal before the curse.”
She slowly walked to Elena’s side. In her hand, she carried a delicate cap of white. She set it on Elena’s head and then placed her hands on Elena’s upper arms to turn her around toward a large mirror. The cap was little more than a wisp of lace shaped like a tiara. It softly framed her forehead with delicate swirls of feathers on either side of her temples.
“This is it. There can be no better choice,” she said.
It was true. Elena could face Grigori in this dress. She could make one last plea to Romanov about her place by his side. And she could face the Light Volkhvy queen.