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

“Duchess! I have returned with my faithful servant. We seek an audience with your esteemed self, husband and, if you insist, your court, although I’d rather they watch from a safe distance.”

“What are you doing?” Aisling hissed.

“Getting us captured.” He looked over his shoulder and grinned. “I did tell you that was my plan.”

She dropped Lorcan to the ground. “Hide, come for us when you can.”

As the cat dashed away, dark figures lunged from the shadows where they had hidden. Apparently, all he needed to do was request they slink out of their hiding places. It was everything he could do not to roll his eyes.

Bran held his arms causally at his sides. He knew better than to tempt those who were in the Duchess’s personal guard.

The guards were too similar to the Duchess. For them, pain was a pleasure, darkness was light, and screams were music.

“Don’t touch me!” Aisling growled as shadows grabbed at her.

“Let them, servant. They won’t harm you without an audience.”

“Servant?” she growled, lurching forward to stand by his side. “I’m going to kill you for this.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’ll make your life hell, at the very least.”

“I cannot wait to see what you come up with.”

And surprisingly, he couldn’t. This little witch intrigued him with every choice she made and every threat she tossed into the air. She made every nerve ending in his body stand on end. It wasn’t that he was frightened of what she might do.

On the contrary, he was looking forward to it.

She growled as a creature pushed her. It was covered in warts, only stood to Bran’s waist, and had a mouth full of pointed teeth.

“Goblin,” he acknowledged.

It sniffed at her and pushed Aisling forward again.

Bran felt a calloused hand touch his back and knew immediately who it was.

“Daragh,” he grumbled. “I thought you would have died by now.”

“Hard to kill an immortal.” The voice was the grit of the earth, the shattering of bone against rock, and the echo of a dying groan.

It grated on Bran’s ears. He’d forgotten how much he hated the bodyguard’s voice.

“It’s a shame. I think you’d be welcome into the Sluagh.”

“I will not join their ranks,” Daragh replied. He shoved the center of Bran’s back, although Bran refused to shift. “Move, Unseelie.”

“Is that not what you are?”

He turned, another blue faerie light bright in his hand. It cast the cavern in stark relief, revealing the scarred man standing next to him. Daragh had never been a pretty man. His entire body was pockmarked, horrifically scarred, and he limped from an old wound. Silver hair was pulled back from his ugly face in a swinging ponytail, slicked back by its own oil.

Bran arched a brow. “You still have one arm?”

Daragh lifted the stump in acknowledgement.

“Shame,” Bran murmured. “I thought he might have given it back when he was done with it.”

“The Duke is never done with our memories.”

“What memories does an arm hold, I wonder?” He let himself be shoved forward, talking the entire way. “Perhaps how to hold a sword? What the best angle is to wank yourself off—”

Daragh smacked him in the back of the head. “Shut up.”

“My servant threatens to cut my ear off when I tell her that.”

The creature’s hand fisted in Bran’s hair, yanking his head back so Daragh could hiss in his ear, “I’m going to take yours if you don’t keep your mouth shut.”

He shoved Bran’s head forward. Dark hair fell in front of Bran’s vision, and it took all his concentration to stay his hand. He could kill them all in one fell swoop. But he didn’t dare. Not until he was close enough to the Duchess to take her heart.

They exited the cavern and walked into Underhill. It was as beautiful and decrepit as he remembered.

Bran hurried forward to walk by Aisling’s side as they strode down the carved stone steps in the center of the mountain that descended into the valley below.

Each stately home was carved out of rock, decorated with bones, and looked as though no one had lived in them for centuries. Cobwebs covered their path, and the entire chasm was eerily silent. Not a single person spoke, no laughter echoed from children, not even an animal dared to make a sound when the Duchess of Dusk was waiting for her prey.

“Cannibals?” Aisling whispered under her breath.

He noted she was twisting her fingers together. As carefully as possible, he reached out and tucked her hand into his. “Cannibals.”

“Are they going to eat us?”

“I won’t let them.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

He flashed a brief grin. “Have I let anything bad happen to you yet? Trust me a little, witch. I’ll get us that heart and out of this mess without any problem.”

They paraded toward the palace, their personal guard growing as they reached the tall doors. Each beast was stranger than the last. She couldn’t make out individual features, only a wave of warts, callouses, and scarred skin. The stained glass windows must have once been an impressive sight, but now, the glass panels were cracked and broken, littering the ground with rainbow shards.

The gates shrieked as a tree-like guard placed his shoulder against it and shoved hard. Bran noted this man was missing both of his arms.

A great honor, he was certain, although he couldn’t understand how it was. The Duke’s followers were oddly religious in the way they admired the man. If he wanted a new body piece, the faeries would scramble to be the first in line.

The last time Bran had seen such a ceremony, they were euphoric. Losing a limb became a drug, giving a piece of themselves to their leader was the highest enlightenment, and they laid their bodies prostrate in front of him in thanks.

Throughout the entire ordeal, the Duchess had looked on with a pleased gaze. She fed off chaos and had married the perfect man to create such mayhem.

Cracked cobblestone marked the path to the palace where a small group of people waited for them. More