Excerpt: Swans Wing

Colum awoke to see the last of the feathers vanish from his arms. He was human again, at least for this hour. He stood on his legs and stretched, grateful for feet that were not webbed, for arms and fingers instead of wings.
“Marcus, wake up.” He shook the brother sleeping next to him. “Marcus, we’re human, wake up.”
“Go away, I’m tired.”
“But Marcus, don’t you – “
“Go away!” Marcus didn’t even open his eyes. “I don’t care what my arms and legs look like, I just want to sleep.”
Colum sighed as Marcus rolled over on the bed of ferns. When the change had been new, his brothers had been as eager as he to spend their one hour a night awake, but now they just slept through it, tired of the reminder of what they did not have.
Three years, he thought. Three years since their stepmother had changed the seven of them into swans and taken their father’s throne as her own. Three years their sister Moira had been silent, weaving the shirts which would break the spell and let them return home. He lived for this one hour of humanity each night, for his dream of the future. Moira would finish the shirts, they would take back the throne for Padraig and he would walk upright again, able to sit a horse, to draw a bow, to fight with sword and shield. He would be a man.
He couldn’t wait.