The Black Swan by Mercedes Lackey

Author:Mercedes Lackey
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ODILE woke slowly to the sounds of birds and an empty “room.” She stretched lazily, considering the slant of the sunlight outside the door, left open by the departing swans. She had slept the night through and long into the day; she guessed, as she rose from her bed of bracken and used a touch of magic to freshen her dress, that it was probably mid-afternoon at the earliest.

She brushed a few stray bits of grass off her skirt, and went out into the daylight to see what the lake looked like under the sun. If this is going to be our home for a while, I hope it isn’t as grim as it looked last night.

Though sunlight and birdsong helped, the scene she surveyed from the shelter was not particularly welcoming. Around her, the forest seemed empty, without the little sounds of life that small creatures made, scurrying about the underbrush. The lake’s dark waters did not shelter much in the way of waterfowl, either. The forest surrounding the lake was predominantly of black pine—tall, with heavily drooping boughs and needles of the very deep green that gave them their name, for at any distance, they looked black. There were other trees growing amid the pines, more oaks, some hazels, chestnuts, walnuts, but they were decidedly in the minority and didn’t do a great deal to disperse the general air of solemn gloom. The clearing she now stood in actually extended right to the shore, though not to the spot where the low bank had allowed them to clamber out of the water. Her view out into the lake was thus unobstructed, and included a picturesque, high cliff at the point where this arm of the lake joined the main body.

The flock was nowhere in sight, but Odile wasn’t in the least worried that they had fled. This was the place where Odette would have her chance to win them all free of von Rothbart’s spells; wherever they had gone, they would be back, for that chance alone.

Probably they’re off foraging, but I don’t think they’ll have a great deal of luck. There wasn’t much sign of the water plants and wild grains they needed for real feeding on this arm of the lake, and Odile rather doubted that the other arms would prove any different.

And speaking of foraging. . . . She turned back to the shelter, her stomach grumbling. There were more than a few things she needed to fetch from the manor, and after the first decent sleep in weeks, she finally had the strength she would need to get it all done in a single afternoon.

But first of all, food. I could eat a pine bough at this point!

She didn’t want to waste any time, however, so after she appropriated a good stock of commonplace foodstuffs taken from the manor’s pantry, she made a portable luncheon of chunks of bread, sausage, and cheese that she could eat while continuing to work. Within an hour, she had brought more creature-comforts to the shelter, linens, for one.

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