The Faceless Woman

by Emma Hamm

  “We all discover that, some point or another in our life.” Bran stared down at his hands and wondered when they had become these people. He had forgotten how to be confident. She had forgotten how to be a person. And yet they both waited at the door of a fortress for a woman neither knew.

  “Did you know of her?” he asked. “Your sister?”

  “Illumina left us very early in her life, but not as most changelings do.”

  He lifted a hand. “Illumina?”

  “It is her name.” Elva’s eyes narrowed. “She never told you her name?”

  “She said her name was Aisling.”

  “That is the name she chose for herself, but not by birthright. Her name is Illumina. She is my youngest sister and the last of our family line. Our parents kept her for as long as they could, but it was clear she would never be one of the Seelie Fae. They could not stand such a slight upon the family name.”

  “So they got rid of her.”

  “It was late in her life to do so. We had to call upon…less than savory familial contacts to take her to the human realm. I remember it being very painful for her.”

  Bran ground his teeth, jaw creaking as he held himself still. “Such practices were outlawed a long time ago.”

  “Yes, they were. And yet, we still did it.”

  “Who helped you?”

  “My grandmother.” Elva glanced up, her eyes burning with the same rage he felt coursing through his veins. “Badb.”

  The great Tuatha de Danann, perhaps the most mysterious of them all, was Aisling’s grandmother? He should have known. Only the speckled goddess of war could create a spell so profoundly confusing and infinitely simplistic as that which bound his witch.

  Before he could ask another question, Scáthach’s deep voice interrupted them. “She will live, but she must stay in your tent until she wakes.”

  The tall woman strode toward them with Aisling limp in her arms. He rushed forward, only to have Elva overtake him. She held her sister carefully, propping Aisling’s head against her shoulder. “It will be my pleasure to watch over her until she wakes.”

  “She may stay as long as it takes,” Scáthach said, “but he must go.”

  Bran shook his head and suppressed a growl. “Where she goes, so do I.”

  “Then you will both leave when she wakes. My charity extends only to women. I have housed a man on this isle before, although perhaps not the same as you, Unseelie. I know well the bitter betrayal of man.”

  He wouldn’t question it. All knew the story of Cú Chulainn, who had come to Scáthach for training, then had lain with her twin sister and begot a child. There was bad blood between Scáthach and her sister after that, but her nephew was beloved. She sent him to fight with his father as he desired above all else. But Cú Chulainn slayed his son by mistake. The aching wound of guilt never left Scáthach alone, even in her dreams. Now she remained on her isle and trained women to fight, renouncing all men.

  Elva shot him a dark look. Perhaps she didn’t want them leaving, but he had not forgotten their purpose. He was so close to freedom that he could taste it. Even Aisling’s wound would not stop him now.

  She would do the same if it were her curse. He was certain of it.

  He followed Elva into her tent, nearly stepping on her heels in his haste. The sour taste in his mouth and the rolling of his belly would ease if he could just see her. Or perhaps feel her. He had the strangest desire to hold his hand above her mouth to feel her breath on his palm.

  That wasn’t normal, was it? He didn’t know what was happening to him. He’d never cared about another person before, not like this. He hardly recognized the emotions when he’d thought his entire life that he had already been in love. And now, he couldn’t focus until he knew she was all right.

  He didn’t like it.

  The tent flap quietly shushed behind them. Light filtered through the small holes in the fabric, creating a pattern of stars all around them. Leave it to Elva to make a tent in rural Scotland beautiful.

  He rushed to the small cot where Elva had laid Aisling down. Hovering behind her, he reminded himself that Elva was family. She had a right to see her sister, to make certain she was alive and well.

  Elva huffed out a breath. “If you’re going to lurk behind me, just see her already. You’re driving me insane with all that nervous energy.”

  Bran barely waited for her to shift before he crouched beside Aisling. He hovered his hand above her lips, waiting for the faint puff of breath. When he felt a brush of air against his fingertips, all the tension eased from his shoulders.

  When he was a younger man, he would have been embarrassed to come apart in front of Elva. He had wanted her to see him as nothing more than a man. Someone who was strong, capable, and impossible to shake. Now, he barely noticed she was in the room as he let his forehead drop to rest on top of Aisling’s sternum.

  He felt her heartbeat against his forehead, felt her chest rise and fall, and all was right in the world.

  “You scared me,” he whispered. “I know you’re fine, I could feel you were going to be fine, but I still couldn’t shake the dread.”

  Slight movement shuffled behind him. “You weren’t like this. This isn’t how I remember you.”

  Bran tilted his head to the side so he could see Elva. Discomfort marred her usually beautiful expression. He should sit up, but Aisling’s heartbeat calmed him. Instead, he left his head on her chest and spoke to her sister in quiet tones. “I wasn’t. I was a different man back then, even after you left me. Selfish. Unkind.”

  “What changed?” She swallowed. “And don’t give me that bullshit answer that she was the one who changed you. We all know that love doesn’t do that.”

  “I’m not sure you’re right about that. But no, it wasn’t her.” He shook his head. “It was you. You changed me because I knew what it meant to lose someone. To piece myself back together in a way I was comfortable with. It was the first time in my life I had to decide who I wanted to be, and not what other people wanted.”

  “Losing someone will do that? Force you to become a better person?”

  “I didn’t lose you, Elva. I never had you to begin with.”

  Bran refused to feel guilty when his past lover spun on her heel and ducked out of the tent. If she wanted to run from their past, he wouldn’t try to stop her. Hell, he’d been running from it for as long as he could remember.

  Thankfully, he no longer had to run.

  Aisling shifted under his head. He felt the world tilt sideways when one of her hands lifted and settled on top of his head.

  “Bran?”

  “You’re awake.” He lifted his head, sliding her hand down to his cheek and holding it there.

  She was groggy, and her eyes didn’t focus the way they should, but it was good enough. She was awake, alive, and he felt an immense amount of pleasure to know she was still by his side.

  “Where are we?” she asked. “I don’t remember this place.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “The Duke…” She shook her head. “I don’t think he wanted to be what he was.”

  “No. Some people try to change the fabric of their being so the person they love will return their affections.”

  “Is the Duchess even capable of love?”

  “Was she?” He shifted her hand until he could press a chaste kiss against her fingers. “That’s a question neither of us can answer. How are you feeling?”

  “Groggy,” she whispered. “Like someone hit me over the head with a tree branch. What happened?”

  “The Duchess poisoned you.”

  He watched her eyes clear slightly. “Nightshade.”

  “Likely, it was always a personal favorite of hers. I brought you here when we couldn’t wake you.”

  “We?” She struggled to sit up, but he pressed a hand against her shoulder to keep her lying still. “Where is Lorcan? He should be here. He would know how to heal me.”

  “He s
aid nightshade was beyond him.”

  “It’s not beyond him,” she said with a snort. “He’s healed countless people who suffered from poisoning. It’s how he learned how to be a witch. Nightshade is no less challenging than belladonna.”

  Bran cursed. “That lying little— He’s the reason we came here.”

  “How did we get here?”

  “I—” He cleared his throat and leaned back. “I might have opened a portal.”

  “You can open portals now?”

  “Well…yes?”

  Even weak with exhaustion, she gave him a look that chilled him. “Could you always, or is this a recently discovered talent?”

  He swallowed. “Recent.”

  “Bran, you can’t go around stealing spells from people! What if you had seen the rune at the wrong angle? What if—”

  He let her continue to scold him, but stopped listening. A grin spread across his face. He never thought he would be so happy to have someone berate him for being foolish, but here he was. It meant the world that she could yell at him because it meant she was alive and well. She was still breathing, and was all that mattered.

  Finally, he refused to take the beating anymore. He leaned down and covered her soft lips with his own, pressing his grin against her still-moving mouth.

  “Aisling, stop talking.”

  “And another thing!”

  He mock groaned, framed her face with his hands, and willed her to silence with every lingering kiss. He relearned the textures of her mouth, the velvet softness of her lips, the delicate shape of her teeth and slight hesitation of her tongue. He lingered, rediscovering the pieces of her he should have savored far longer than one single night.

  Finally he pulled back and inhaled her soft sigh.

  “You foolish man, you could have gotten us both killed.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time I put us both in danger.”

  “Hush.” She reached up and ghosted a fingertip over his brow, gently setting his feathers back in order.

  He licked his lips. “I brought you to the Fortress of Shadows. It was the only place where I knew they could heal you. I apologize if this is the last place you want to be. I didn’t know who your family was, and I—”

  She pressed her hand against his mouth. “I woke up a little earlier than I let on. I heard what you were saying to Elva. All of it, really.”

  If she had cracked the earth open under his feet, she wouldn’t have surprised him more. His jaw fell open, but he didn’t know what to say. How could he explain he had loved her sister? Should he? That was hardly a conversation anyone ever wanted to have with someone who had become important to them.

  She nudged his jaw closed. “It’s okay, Bran. We all have a past, and I fully intended on telling you mine before this. I never expected the Duchess to try to kill me, or my sister to have a history with you, or to realize I could have met you a long time ago if my parents hadn’t given me away.”

  He hadn’t thought of it like that, but it made him infinitely angrier to realize he could have met her from the first moment he stepped foot onto Seelie lands. He would have known her face as a child, watched plump cheeks with rosy peaks change into the graceful planes he now adored.

  “I wish we had more time.” He touched a hand to hers. The raven eye shifted and locked upon her gaze. “We have had little chance to get to know one another.”

  “I think I know you fairly well, Unseelie.”

  “Do you, witch?” He leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers. “I suppose you know me more than anyone.”

  She yawned, her jaw cracking with the sheer force of her exhaustion. “I thought they healed me.”

  “You’re awake, aren’t you?”

  “Barely.”

  He pressed a kiss to her cheek and stood up. “I’ll see if I can buy us one more night.”

  “We aren’t staying?”

  “I can’t.” Bran hesitated in front of the door, wondering just how much he should tell her. “Men are not welcome here.”

  Would she push? Would she try to wiggle her way further into his life until he revealed every secret he kept?

  “Oh. Well, that’s foolish.” Her words shaped around another yawn. “It’s too bad, but we’re a pair for the time being. Where you go, I go.”

  And damned if he didn’t love her in that moment. She didn’t question him. She didn’t wonder why they had to leave so quickly when she was injured. Aisling was a strange and unusual woman. It was a shame he was going to lose her.

  He ducked out of the tent and smoothed a hand down his belly. It would all be over soon. He would take her to the Unseelie Castle. They would remove the binding curse, and then they could figure out what they were going to do. If his mother didn’t try to eat her, or worse.

  The shattered pieces of her trust would be difficult to put back together, but he had centuries to win her back. Now that he knew she was a faerie, he could make his plans more concrete. He wouldn’t have to watch her die. He wouldn’t have to see her slowly age. No, they would gracefully age together over the span of immortality.

  “Please don’t ask me.” Elva’s voice cut through his revelries. She sat on a log across the fire, forearms braced on her knees. “There is much I can take, but you and my sister spending the night in my tent while I am out in the cold is not one of them.”

  “What? What do you think we’re going to be doing in that tent?”

  “Please. I know what men and women do in private.” She rolled her eyes. “I was the Seelie king’s consort for centuries, Bran. Give me a little more credit than that.”

  “I will ask you for the same then.” A row of feathers spread down to his fingers, only disappearing when he flexed them. “I don’t know what that king did to you, but Aisling and I have traveled a very long way. She’s injured, tired, and still unwell. I ask for nothing more than time to rest our heads before we travel. That is it.”

  It sickened him to the core that she thought he might try anything other than to rest with Aisling in his arms. There was too much to do, too much to think about, and she was still injured. For all that he was Unseelie, he was still a gentleman.

  Elva stared at him, and he was certain it was confusion in her eyes. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Scáthach didn’t seem all that interested in letting me remain a moment longer.”

  “She won’t know. Just stay quiet tonight, and I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”

  He turned to duck back into the tent, but hesitated. Casting a brief glance over his shoulder, he branded the image of her into his mind.

  Elva had tied her hair back in a braid. The mass of golden locks coiled, twisted, and turned, glimmering in the firelight. She was so flawless it almost hurt to look at her. Perhaps that, more than her kindness, was her curse.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I want to take care of her, you know.”

  “I can see that.”

  “And it bothers you?”

  She looked up, ghosts swimming in the aquamarine pools of her eyes. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”

  “People can change, Elva. Strange as it seems.”

  He brushed the tent flap aside and plunged back into the darkness where past memories didn’t make his heart ache. There was nothing he could do for the stunning faerie woman. She had made her choices, and lying in them sometimes stung.

  “Bran?”

  Aisling’s quiet voice soothed his tired mind. He could do nothing for Elva. There wasn’t time, and she wouldn’t accept any help from him. There was perhaps another who could open her heart to love and kindness, and maybe Bran could help her find him.

  For now, Aisling’s sister would remain a fragile, broken image of what she might have been if she hadn’t wasted so much time with someone destructive. If he remembered the Seelie king, and he certainly did, there was more to Elva’s story than she was telling anyone.

  He stepped toward the small cot and let his shoulders finally droop. “
We can stay the night.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we go to the next place. It is the last, and hopefully our binding curse will be broken at that point.” He rubbed his chest, which suddenly ached.

  “Bran, where are we going?”

  Gods, what would she do when she found out? He didn’t want to put her back into a dangerous situation, but they were so close. So close to finally breaking this curse and being themselves once again.

  He sat next to the cot with his back against the rungs. It was too small to contain the two of them, and though he desperately wanted to hold her in his arms, he also wanted to make sure she slept. Of the two of them, she needed it more.

  “We’re going to the Unseelie Castle. Unfortunately, I cannot keep you away from my family much longer.”

  “I’m not afraid of them.”

  “They’re all half animal. Beastly creatures who are more magic than man or woman. Surely, you’ve heard tales of my parents?”

  Aisling shifted, and her fingers played with the long tendrils of his dark hair. “I have heard the stories of the Unseelie king and queen, half spider and half Fae. I have heard every story told to scare children in the middle of the night. But I am not frightened.”

  “You should be.”

  “Are they going to hurt me?”

  He’d kill them if they tried to lay a finger on her. Family be damned, he didn’t like them that much anyways. “I won’t let them.”

  “Will they curse me?”

  “Never.”

  “Will they somehow break us apart so that I will never see you again?”

  Bran turned slightly and narrowed his eyes. “Would you want that?”

  A piece of him broke off at the mere thought. She wasn’t just a conquest he had found, but the first person he considered a friend. She didn’t look at him as though he was some kind of faerie abomination, and he liked that. Bran liked being a person in someone’s eyes. How could he ever survive losing such a feeling?