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

as he stepped forward and tugged his ancient suit lapels, “call off your familiar. We’ve work to do.”

“Work,” she repeated. “That’s what you’re calling it? After all I’ve done for you and your kin.”

“What have you done but curse us with your black magic?”

“I’ve helped you survive!” She pressed her fists into the ground.

“No, you haven’t,” he growled. “Witches aren’t capable of doing anything but harm. Now tell that wee beastie of yours to get off our witch hunter.”

She spat at his feet.

“Or we could kill him. Your choice.”

Icy tendrils ran down her spine. Lorcan meant too much to her. He looked after her, and it was far pastime for her to do the same for him.

“Lorcan,” she croaked. The curses and weak cries from the witch hunter paused. “Let him go.”

Harsh thumps suggested the cat sidhe stomped on the human as he removed himself, and the witch hunter moaned.

Aisling glanced over her shoulder and wiped away the blood dripping into her eyes. “Run.”

He gave her an offended look.

“Run now and don’t stop until you can’t hear me anymore.”

“That’s enough, witch.” Master O’Connell grabbed the rags at the back of her neck and hoisted her up. He twisted her arms sharply behind her and tied a rope around her wrists that bit into her skin.

His chuckle made her grind her teeth together.

“She’s marked!” he shouted. “Eyes in the center of her palms, like the devil himself!”

“You wouldn’t know the devil if you met him on the street, you goat-brained idiot!” She struggled against his hold, pulling and twisting as he shoved her forward. “Those marks aren’t from the devil.”

He ignored her and pushed her into the waiting arms of the crowd. They pulled at her clothing, crowing when they yanked bits of fabric off of her form.

She stared up at the night sky, floating scraps of fabric obscuring her vision of the stars. Hands tugged at her flesh, stroking the long lengths of her arms, palming her breasts, trailing along the delicate lines of her collarbone. Not the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.

“Lookee here!” Rosamund shouted. Since Aisling regularly delivered a cure for her spots, the woman now had claim to porcelain skin. “Not an old woman after all, are you witch? And here I thought you covered your face because of pox scars!”

The first nail hammered into her coffin, sending gooseflesh down her arms.

“A young woman?” The voice of old Hamish was easy to recognize. She’d helped his goose lay more eggs just last summer. “But she’s been here so long. It’s not possible she’s this young.”

“How long has she been here? She showed up out of the blue years ago. Maybe she’s always been young.” The man was one she didn’t recognize, and he twisted her arms painfully behind her, voice deepening to a growl. “Or maybe she was just a child when she arrived.”

“Or she’s a bride of the devil!” a woman shouted, her nails digging into Aisling's arms. “He’s kept her young all this time!”

If she knew the devil that well, she wouldn’t be in this situation.

Aisling was thrust through the crowd and fell onto her knees in little more than a raggedy shift she’d had since she was a little girl. It hit the middle of her shins and no longer had sleeves. They’d left her dressed in next to nothing for the men to jeer and call at.

She curled her fingers into the dirt. A spell, any spell, something with the earth and blood… There had to be something she could do.

A hand twisted in her hair. “Oh no, we’re not taking any chances. It’s too late for that, witch.”

He brought her head up, and she saw what had taken them so long to reach her hut. They had piled bundles of kindling around an ancient dead tree. It waited for her with ominously raised limbs sticking straight up into the air and rattling in the wind.

“A bonfire?” she asked. “I thought it was customary to hang witches.”

The witch hunter stumbled in front of her, blood staining his white collar, and his perfectly pressed clothing was shredded. “I’ve found when it comes to witches, the old ways are best.”

Her heart stuttered and her palms slicked with sweat as they pushed her toward the tree. She didn’t want to burn alive. Lorcan screamed but kept his distance. She could hear him in the woods, cracking through broken twigs and hissing his frustration. There were too many people between them. It was too risky for him to try to help. Instead, he was forced to watch.

They were going to tie her to the tree and burn her.

Aisling couldn’t breathe, as if the smoke had already filled her lungs. “Don’t do this. Don’t make me prove you right.”

“We already know you’re a witch!” someone shouted from the crowd.

“I’ve helped you. I've given you everything you ask for, everything you desire. What more can I do?”

She didn’t listen to their screams of rage and justification for what they were about to do. Spells boiled at the tips of her fingers, curses that would turn them inside out, set boils to ravaging their skin, or vomit spewing from their nose. So many missed opportunities she regretted as they tied her to the tree.

She couldn’t remember a single spell. They leaked out of her ears in the wake of terror and fear so raw her knees quaked.

Bark bit into her arms, drawing blood that smeared her skin with violent streaks. The rope tore at her sensitive flesh, and the twigs pulled at her shift as they piled the wood higher and higher around her. It must have looked as if she were some strange faerie growing out of the tree. Locks of her dark hair tangled on the trunk, pulling at her scalp in pinpricks of pain.

Aisling tilted her head back and rested it against the bark as the witch hunter preached his nonsense.

“Witches must return to the hell from whence they came! She will say things