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

his sisters, so she skittered forward, slipped a hand into his, and allowed him to drag her through the molding library.

They raced between the monolithic stacks of books, pausing only when one of his sisters dropped down from the ceiling. Sometimes it was because they made noise accidently, other times his sisters simply lowered themselves to find yet another book.

Aisling watched their movements carefully every time she had to freeze. They weren’t protecting the books. It didn’t seem like they cared if they were harmed, so what were they doing?

At one point, Bran pressed her into the shelves and shielded her body with his. Arms braced on either side of her, he stared down into her eyes and didn’t move until his sister was pulled back up to the misty ceiling above.

“They record everything that happens in the Unseelie world,” he murmured, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.

Aisling arched a brow, silently asking why.

“My mother likes to know everything that happens in the Unseelie court. Nothing gets by her.”

A little overprotective if anyone cared about Aisling’s opinion, but who was she to judge the choices of a queen? She’d never been one. Who knows what she would do if she was given a court to watch over.

Likely something as crazy. Aisling would want to know each and every one of them, try to remember their names and families. She wouldn’t want anyone she was responsible for to feel as she had while growing up.

They were foolish thoughts. Bran would never be king anyways. He had too many siblings ahead of him in line for the throne. He’d said so himself…

She froze for a moment, her fingers curling into a fist and her stomach clenching. What in the world was she thinking? She wasn’t going to marry Bran. She certainly wouldn’t be his queen if he ever—

Aisling stopped herself again. There were dangerous paths down that road, and she refused to allow herself to wander them.

He slipped past a stack of books taller than him, their pages leaking onto the floor in a waterfall of bright colors and stained ink. She watched for a moment, waiting for him to peak his head back around as he waited for her.

This time, just his hand appeared, gesturing her forward.

Snapping his fingers at Aisling was only going to get her to walk slower. Her brows furrowed before she meandered toward him, slowing when he gestured faster with his hand.

They weren’t making any sound. His sisters weren’t screeching, and she didn’t hear the strange hushing sound as they slid down their webbings. They were fine. Why was he trying to rush her?

She made her way to stand next to him, rounding the corner to reveal a great darkness spread out before them. And so the library ended, and the throne room began.

It was a massive room filled with smoke and fog. The center was strangely lit with an eerie blue glow. Magic coiled around the giant thrones, one larger than the other. They could easily have fit ten humans standing side by side. She’d never seen anything like it.

Bats flew around it in a swarm, their high pitched cries reaching her ears like the chiming of bells. This was not a safe place.

She glanced up at Bran and realized he hadn’t intended to bring them here. His jaw had dropped, his eyes were wide, but most of all it was the first time she had ever seen his hands shaking.

Aisling reached out and took his hand, squeezing it firmly in hers.

He looked down at her, starlit eyes glowing with an emotion she couldn’t place.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“This is where my mother lives.”

Rustling began above them, somehow similar and yet infinitely different than the sound his sisters had created. Her spine stiffened. Aisling made the mistake of looking up, and her blood chilled in fear.

The ceiling was made of webs. Great swaths of sticky residue, stretching as far as the eyes could see. It was beautiful in a sense. Glimmering silver with blue refractions that bounced off the shinier pieces, reflecting light back onto the floor until it look as though it were underwater.

The webbing stretched in places where a bulbous form had once rested. Her stomach churned in realization. Bran had said his family weren’t normal. She hadn’t realized just how distorted their figures would be.

A gap in the webbing draped over the throne. Strands of web hung in great loops, carelessly left in snarled hanks.

Aisling gaped at the overly large shadow that walked among the webs. A long spider leg reached out of the darkness, gently tapping the throne before it slid down into the seat. Another leg followed, again and again until all eight limbs were gracefully poised on the throne.

Spindly hairs rose in spikes along the arachnid’s appendages. Light gleamed from their points, reflecting off the smooth plates that covered its legs. The swollen belly lowered into view, spinneret flexing as the Queen of the Unseelie Court descended into view.

Vomit rose in Aisling’s mouth, and she turned away so the queen wouldn’t see her gag. No creature should look like that.

The queen was a combination of woman and spider. Where the eyes should be on a normal arachnid, a human torso grew. She was obscenely muscular, almost masculine in each ridge that rippled along her stomach and stretched across her shoulders.

She settled on the throne. A few of her legs extended forward, perhaps in an attempt to be comfortable on a seat designed for creatures with only two limbs. She placed her arms gracefully against the rests at either side, shook her dark hair forward until it covered her chest, then flicked a finger toward them.

“So, the wayward boy returns.”

“Mother,” Bran gritted through clenched teeth.

“I always knew you would come home. The question was simply when.”

“It wasn’t by choice.”

“Of course, it wasn’t. It never is with you.” Again, she flicked her fingers. “Come, my son. Let me look at you.”

He pushed Aisling back as he stepped forward. She sank into