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

“I thought my maids had destroyed those rags,” the duchess finally said. “A shame that they still exist.”

“They’re my clothes, ma’am.”

“And why is that you put them back on? You’ve been gifted the finest gown the faerie court can make, and you choose”—she waved up and down—“that.”

“They are comfortable.”

“You mean you are more comfortable hiding behind rags. Is that it?”

Aisling bit her lip. The duke moved a pawn forward on the other side of the board. Not a particularly good choice, but enough that Aisling could form a plan. “You see right through me, Duchess.”

“It’s foolish for you to hide. You are a powerful creature in your own right. Your outward appearance should match that power.”

“I disagree,” Aisling murmured, shifting a chess piece forward. “I think the most powerful creatures are those who don’t appear to be. The smallest spider is the most poisonous. Such is the way of the wild.”

The duke snorted. “The drab spider is no less deadly than the flashing bejeweled fish. Poison is poison, ladies, no matter the form.”

He plucked one of her knights off the board and leaned onto the table. She recognized the look in his eyes. He thought he had her, but Aisling was never one so easily trapped.

She nudged a piece to cover her queen and arched a brow. “Would you not agree that poison is most effective when it is a surprise?”

“No.” The duke shook his head. “What you’re describing is personal satisfaction. There is a certain enjoyment in knowing the person has no idea you are the one killing them, or that they were going to be killed that day, but poison is effective no matter what form it is dispensed.”

She carelessly moved a pawn forward, frowning down at the board.

The duchess smoothed a hand down her skirts. “Little witch, have you given more thought to our conversation?”

“Which conversation is that? We’ve had plenty.” The surliness in her voice was perhaps a little daring, but Aisling refused to show weakness with these faeries.

“You removed your curse.”

The blunt words made Aisling flinch back. She curled in on herself, feeling suddenly weak and vulnerable. Her curse had always been her sanctuary, and it was still uncomfortable to remember people could see her face.

“You already knew that.”

“I did, but there was another thing I said long ago. You are a thrice-cursed woman, and I wonder if you have discovered the third.”

“I have only been cursed twice.”

The duchess lashed out a hand, quick as a snake, and wrapped her thin hand around Aisling’s forearm. She saw vividly the gnarled skin underneath the duchess’s glamour. She was a creature made of roots and bark, earthen and coarse. Then the glamour slid back into place, and a beautiful woman stared back at her.

With surprising strength, the duchess flipped Aisling’s hands over to reveal the eye tattoos still in the center of her palms. “You relieved yourself of one curse and freed the next, little witch. Now, the question is what this mysterious curse is.”

Aisling hissed out a breath. “What twisted magic do you speak of? I was only cursed twice.”

The heart thudded, the low sound echoing in the garden. Each thump drew Aisling closer and closer to the Duchess. Her lungs seized, but she couldn’t struggle against the duchess’s magic.

“Show me your secrets,” the duchess murmured. “All that was promised to me, little witch. Show me the stories written in blood magic upon your skin.”

Power crackled in the air, surrounding them, building and lashing out at their skin until it finally burst with a blinding green light. Aisling closed her eyes and threw her free arm over her face, but it was too late.

She experienced the memory all over again. The blistering pain of magic searing into her hands, the ache, the agony, the raw edges of flesh that could never be cut from her skin. Over and over again, she saw the memories until it suddenly was all clear.

Badb turned her tiny hands over, stroking her fingers over the eyes, but she wasn’t creating the tattoos. No.

She was tracing them.

The eyes had been on her hands long before the addition of the black tips. Aisling’s eyes snapped open, and the green light burned into her eyes, but it didn’t matter. The foundation of her world had shifted.

Badb hadn’t been cursing her; she had put the tips on her fingers to lock away a curse which had already existed in the palm of her hands.

She yanked her arm away from the duchess, chest rising and falling with panicked breaths. Why hadn’t she remembered it that way? The memory had always been in her head with Badb placing all the tattoos on her. Who had meddled with her mind?

“Ah,” the duchess mused, “so that’s who you are.”

“You know nothing of who I am.”

“Tell yourself whatever lies you need to feel better, little witch. But I see you as none have seen you before.” She leaned against her husband’s shoulder and sighed happily. “Do you remember him, my love? Before he was sent to Underhill, locked away with a key sunken at the bottom of an impossibly deep lake?”

“Who?” Aisling asked, her stomach twisting in knots.

The duke leaned back and tucked his wife against his side. “Ah, of course it would be him. He was magnificent in his day. And now? Ruling an empire of rot. A shame, really. He might have been something great if they had given him the chance.”

“Such a shame,” the duchess replied. “He was highly entertaining but also so incredibly powerful. I suppose it makes sense why they chose him, and even more why he chose her. Odd they would send her away to be a changeling, though. Can you imagine? The audacity of her family.”

Aisling slapped her hand down on the table, chess pieces rocking with the force of her anger. “Tell me!”

An odd spark glinted in the duchess’s eye. “Why the Raven King, of course. Or did you not know you were chosen to