The Princess Swan
an excerpt

Rothbart stormed up his tower, a string of obscenities flowing unbridled from his lips.

"Foolish, foolish girl! What was she thinking?" he bellowed. His cape fluttered dramatically behind him as he climbed the last dozen stairs and come upon his magical chambers. He marched right past the ceiling-high bookshelves and beyond the worktables littered with papers and artifacts without so much as a glance. He came upon the window that looked back down upon the castle and found himself searching for her room.

He saw her, pressed up against the glass, her face illuminated by the glare of the setting sun.

"Dammit." He pounded his fist against the pane. Minutes passed, and still he stared, taking comfort in the cold that was seeping into his hand. "Odette..." he sighed, a look of pain smeared across his countenance.

He finally pulled back, lured to his desk by his need to answer the magical query that had been plaguing his mind for hours. If she could speak, things would be so much easier. He could, perhaps, understand a little better what was going through her head. And why she hated him so openly.

He threw a few leather-bound books to the floor in his search for the text in question. A snap of his fingers and the half-melted candles lining his work space ignited themselves.

"Aha," he exclaimed, finally happening upon the book. Languages of Man and Beast. Though he himself hadn't the ability to communicate with animals, through the ages a few mages that could had been known to exist. He knew of one in particular that inhabited his own time - the last he saw her was at the Queen's Palace for a Midwinter celebration.

"Magdalena... I think it is time we meet again. I will need your help on this one," he said aloud to himself. Brightened by the prospect of victory, he walked to the center of the room and pulled the circular tapestry to one side. Beneath it he found the ebony mirror, upon which no light was reflected. It was as if the glass were a void, sucking in the light from without.

He stood, staring, and allowed his vision to grow blurry - separate shapes in his peripherals began to melt into each other. His focus, however, remained perfectly sharp.

"Yes?" a voice replied from thin air.