The Faceless Woman by Emma Hamm (i love reading .txt) 📕

dies, so does the other. It means we’ll be all the more careful in taking care of ourselves. Sounds like a good deal to me.”

His gaze cut toward her, fierce and piercing. “You aren’t afraid of dying?”

“I’ve never been afraid of death. We’re old friends, he and I.” Aisling placed the pack underneath a pile of leaves at the base of a silver tree. “Shall we?”

“Witch—”

“Save it for when we return.” She gave him a smile she hoped wasn’t as shaky as she felt.

“You are the strangest person I’ve ever met,” he said. He opened his mouth as more words hung at the edge of his tongue, then shook his head and changed the subject. “We walk through a portal in the trunk of a tree. This god is sacred, unnamed, and ancient. He should be alone and unarmed.”

“I thought you said he was dead.”

The Unseelie licked his lips. “In a sense.”

Aisling groaned and stomped forward. “Blasted faeries and their twisting of the truth. If you’d just told me, I might have been able to help.”

“I couldn’t tell you the entire truth of it.”

“Couldn’t, wouldn’t, or shouldn’t?” she tossed the words over her shoulder. “All of it’s the same. You endanger this entire mission by not telling me the whole of it.”

“Even if I had told you, you wouldn’t be prepared for what we’re about to face.”

“You underestimate me.”

Blasted man and his ridiculous ideals. He should have told her everything there was to know about this entire ordeal. The binding curse affected her too, no matter that he felt it was a curse on him alone.

She didn’t want to be tied to someone else. She wanted to be free, as she was used to. Untethered, Aisling could travel wherever she wished, disappear into the world whenever she chose. And now?

Now she was stuck with a foolish man who hid the truth so she wasn’t frightened.

She slapped a branch out of her way. Trees groaned around her, tentatively tucking their branches closer to their bodies.

The path merged into a rolling hill with a single tree on the highest peak. She stalked toward it, all while grumbling about men and their flaws. Neither the Unseelie nor Lorcan stood in her way.

Perhaps the men were more intelligent than she gave them credit for. She likely would have chewed on them if they dared to step in front of her.

Aisling found herself lost in her thoughts until she paused in front of the tree. It wavered around the edges as though it wasn’t really there. Narrowing her eyes, she stepped closer. “Well,” she muttered, “that’s a bad omen.”

She heard the soft steps of padded feet, followed by the faerie’s careless steps. They stopped just behind her and stared up at the tree as well.

Lorcan audibly swallowed. “Is that what I think it is?”

Aisling nodded. “Looks like.”

The Unseelie stepped forward, his hand hovering over her shoulder as if he wanted to touch her. “What is it?”

“A hanging tree.”

For a moment, she saw hundreds of bodies swaying in the breeze. Tied at their necks, they all stared at her with hollowed expressions. They screamed she wasn’t one of them, that she would never be accepted within their coven, that she was little more than an unwanted mistake.

Aisling shivered. “Trees like this only form when dark deeds are performed over and over again. They’re a rift, in a sense. They appear in every dimension in the same place.”

They were a sign of bad tidings for any who walked by their dark branches. Wind whistled through them, rattling dead limbs as the lingering magic reached out for her. The tree desired more death, for that was what nourished its roots and helped it grow.

“We don’t have witches here,” the Unseelie said.

She gulped. “It doesn’t matter. Dark magic like this always finds someone to hang.”

With fear settling on her shoulders like a well-worn cloak, she rounded the thick trunk. A shimmering curtain of darkness split the trunk open on the other side. It looked like a woman parting her skirts for a lover, but Aisling knew better.

Smooth wood framed the portal, the bark split open by water-worn pieces that drifted into ash where the portal touched it. Dark webs of power blanketed the beyond from view.

“Just walk through it?” she asked.

“That should do.”

“Lorcan? Stay here.”

The cat spluttered. “How dare you! I might be of assistance. You have no idea what a cat can do that humans are incapable of—”

“Lorcan,” Aisling interrupted. “I know you don’t want to go. Stay here and patch either of us up if we make it back.”

Her constant companion was anything other than brave. He had never lived a life of danger, never wanted to even though he practiced magic. Quiet happiness and a warm fire was the only thing he’d ever asked for. She wouldn’t drag him into the Unseelie’s half-brained plan because of her mistakes.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “But be careful. I’m partial to your head.”

The Unseelie’s attention whipped toward the cat. “You can see her?”

“It stands to reason that he’d be able to,” she replied with a quiet cough. “He’s not Fae.”

His brows drew down severely, and he jabbed the air in front of her with a curved finger. “When we return, we’re talking about this curse of yours in more detail.”

“No, we aren’t.”

“Don’t argue with me, witch. We’re stuck together until this binding curse is broken. Your curse is just as bad.”

“It isn’t.” She snorted. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” She stared pointedly at his raven eye until he gave in and looked away. The golden gaze did not stray from hers, however, and she met its intensity with her own. “To our death then?” she quipped.

“Don’t say it like that.”

Rolling her eyes, Aisling stalked toward the portal, shook off the tingling feelings in her fingers, and stepped through.

She had expected a tunnel or a gateway, but she hadn’t expected to find herself in a cave so large she couldn’t see the top. Bats whispered through the air,