I sip tea from the earless teacup, studying my sisters from over the gilded brim. They know I have a plan. They know I haven’t shared it with them. It is for their own good. What they don’t know, they can’t reveal. I count the clacks. The train’s speed is constant, but eventually it will slow down. When it does so, my sisters and I will flee.
Elise combs her red-gold hair, one long stroke at a time. She studies her reflection in the silver hand mirror, lush lips pursed, gray eyes narrowed. I want to tell her to hurry, but it isn’t yet the time. I must remain in full control of myself. I can’t afford to act hastily.
Sibilia reads the scriptures, elbows leaning against the marble-topped table. Her hair is braided against her scalp, her fingers buried in between the strands as if she is struggling to understand the passages. I don’t blame her. I know the scriptures by heart, but our father’s wisdom evades me. Perhaps when I marry him, he will reveal to me the secrets no mere mortal may possess, what he has seen from the sky.
That is one of the reasons why we ended up here. It was I who failed the empire when I fell under Gagargi Prataslav’s spell. If I had been wiser, it would have never happened. I think.
“Jump here, Rafa,” Merile calls at her dog from her usual spot on the sofa at the other end of the carriage. “Up here.”
The brown dog jumps. It lands on the sofa, tail wagging wildly. My sister laughs.
“No, here.” Alina pats the cushion on the sofa opposite to Merile’s. “Come back here, silly dog.”
And the dog lands on the floor, and then up it goes again.
My smile is a faint crescent, one I want to cherish, one I don’t want anyone else to see. My sisters, they are the future of the empire. Once I thought this role was for me to fill. Now I know that it will not be. Not for long.
If my plan works today… No, not if, but when. When my plan works, we will be free, but there will be a lot of work to be done, to bring my people together, to repair the damage the gagargi’s plot has brought unto the empire.
“You look thoughtful,” Elise says between two long strokes. The golden strands caught between the comb’s spikes glimmer under the timid light of the osprey chandelier.
I lower the half-empty cup and reply, “It occurred to me that you understand well indeed this empire: what we need, what the people need.”
Elise’s hand pauses mid-stroke. Her head cants to the right. Her lips part as if she wanted to say something, but then changed her mind. She isn’t the same girl who she was before, at the palace. The weeks in the train have changed her. “Perhaps I once thought I knew it. Now, I’m not so sure.”
Mother, the Moon bless her soul, always said that a wise person is the one who can admit that they don’t know everything. That is why even the empresses have advisors. But mother, oh mother, you chose your advisors poorly. You should have never let Gagargi Prataslav stay at the court, not when it became so obvious, so soon, that he could influence everyone he spoke to.
But mother is dead, and hence beyond blame. If anyone should be blamed, it is me. It was I who fell under the gagargi’s spell. It was I who…
I have rid myself of him. I have bled myself off his seed. I am no longer under his spell. Today, I will soar across the blue skies, over the frozen lakes.
“Sibs, won’t you close that terribly boring book and come and braid my hair?” Elise calls at our sister.
Sibilia stirs from her thoughts. She uncurls her fingers from her hair and tenderly presses the book of holy scriptures shut. “Sure. I need a break anyway. The thing is, I have this nagging feeling that some of the passages contain genuinely important knowledge. But I just can’t figure out which ones.”
“Oh, Sibs!” Elise’s laughter chimes like silver bells. “I’m sure that no one aside from the gagargis can.”
Sibilia bangs her knee against the table’s leg as she gets up. She curses under her breath, then blushes. She is neither in full control of her body nor her mind.
“What sort of braid would you like to have?” Sibilia inquires once she stands behind Elise.
Elise glances at me, as if asking how much time we have left. The clacks still come regularly. I nod minutely.
“Try something new, will you?” Elise replies. Though I haven’t told her that today is the day, she senses that the time has come. Soon we will fly free.
Fly. That is my swan-self’s thought. No matter how I pretend, I am not in full control of myself either. The gagargi still holds a strand of my soul, what he managed to breathe in that night I shattered the bead. What I shelter in my body contains traces of the swan he killed that night.
That swan has become my companion. I have lost some of my own memories, but gained ones that aren’t mine. At times I imagine I have wings and remember only when I move my arms that I will never be able to take to the air again. At times I tilt my head, only to find my neck too short. At times I think of nesting.
I lift the teacup to my lips and close my eyes. It was my own choice to swallow the witch’s potion, though she warned me of the price. I will not cry. I will not fret. It was I who made the decision. No one else.
“The train is slowing speed,” Sibilia says.
I realize it then, too. How long did I dwell on my thoughts, in my regrets? Elise’s braid is complete, a red-gold crown circling her head. Too long.
I take a deep breath and lower the cup onto the saucer. The moment we have awaited for weeks is upon us at last. That is all that matters. “Gather around me, my sisters. Come and hear my plan.”
For a moment, they just stare at me. Gray eyes, brown eyes, dark eyes. Elise quickly picks up the silver mirror and slips it inside her dress. Sibilia pockets the comb and claims the book of scriptures with the fountain pen clipped against its spine. Merile dashes to me, Alina at her heels, the dogs bouncing after them.
“Finally!” Merile gasps, beaming at me. The rest of us have paled during our confinement, but her skin still bears the hue of endless summer days. “I thought you’d never tell us.”
I smile at her despite myself. She is eleven and impatient. She deserves to run through meadows with her dogs, unguarded, unrestricted. “But now I will.”
My sisters listen in unwavering silence as I outline my plan to them. It is based on the routines we have established during our weeks of imprisonment. Since Alina’s seizure, we have been allowed out to stretch our legs while the train is refueled and watered. There are three reasons for this: the guards think us docile now; the unrests never reached this far north; and, finally, they fear how the gagargi would react if we were to succumb to the ill health that I hinted might follow if we were kept indoors for too long. Elise has a fourth reason, one I am not quite sure I believe. She claims the guards think that they are keeping us contained for our own safety, that they are… protecting us. Could the gagargi really enforce such by tampering with a man’s mind? If that is the case, there is even more reason for us to abandon this train today.
“I have something for each of you.” I pull the pearl bracelets out from the pockets I added to my gown the night before. What once was Elise’s ball gown is now our means for funding our escape. “Keep them hidden. Use them only when you must.”
Elise knew of this part of my plan. There is more: the necklaces made of silver sequins. She raises her right eyebrow at me, but doesn’t ask aloud. She can guess the answer. I am saving the sequins and my dress in case… No, we shall not fail. But a wise empress always has a contingency plan.
Alina snatches her bracelet and loops it twice around her thin wrist. She raises her hand up and admires it, beaming. “It’s very pretty!”
Sibilia turns the bracelet in her hands. Ink stains her pale skin, but doesn’t dim the sheen of the pearls. “What is one pearl worth?”