English · Intermediate
A princess works in silence to free her brothers from an enchantment that turns them into swans.
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Scene 1 · Intermediate
Far away, in the land where swallows spend the winter, there lived a king with eleven sons and a daughter named Eliza. The princes went to school wearing stars on their chests and swords at their sides. They wrote with diamond pencils on golden slates and learned so quickly that no one could doubt they were princes.
Eliza sat on a little glass stool, looking through a picture book that had cost as much as half a kingdom.
The children were very happy, but their happiness did not last. Their father married a wicked queen who had no love for her new stepchildren. They discovered this the day after the wedding. While the palace celebrated, the children played at welcoming guests. Usually they were given the cakes and apples left over from a feast.
This time, their stepmother handed them a teacup full of sand.
“Pretend it's cake,” she told them.
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