A Veil of Truth and Trickery by Analeigh Ford
Chapter One
There wasa curse over this world.
That curse was me.
I came out of the womb colored like starlight—skin blue and hair spun from sun-bleached bones. I was fae-marked in that instant, damned forever to live beneath the sideways glances and whispered words that all said the same thing.
Cursed, was their whisper. Cursed, was in their eyes.
The incarnation of the fae shone through me, and for that I would never be allowed to rest.
Long after my skin flooded with more human color, my hair remained a brand of my affliction. That affliction led those most superstitious to believe me a changeling, a creature of the fae realm itself. Those less so simply believed me unlucky. Most of the villagers fell somewhere in between, a place where they didn’t quite try to burn me at the stake but still crossed the street when passing, just to be sure.
One thing remained constant.
Wherever I went, I was unlikely to be trusted. Even less likely to be accepted.
And I couldn’t blame them. Not really.
Not when the fae that marked me were known for their trickery, for the games they played with humans and the treachery that was sure to follow. It didn’t matter that the fae had barely been seen in decades, that in some places their kind hadn’t been sighted in as long as a century.
They’d made their mark in the time that they were here. That latest mark, it seemed, was me.
In all the years that followed the unfortunate circumstances of my birth, I’d yet to discover a curse over me, but I supposed there was still time left. Most curses lifted on the day of one’s twenty-first birthday, and mine was fast approaching. The closer the day grew, the more whispers and stares I drew in my direction. The whole village was waiting, watching on with bated breath as the moment of truth drew near.
Me, more than any… but not for the reason they might’ve imagined.
For them, they waited to see if they were finally free from the fear of my curse.
But me … I secretly hoped for the curse.
I’d have hated to learn after all the years I’d been treated as an outcast for it all to have been for nothing.
“Delph, if you don’t get that bottle out soon Raful’s going to have your head, you know that.”
It still took me a moment to snap out of my stupor, my hands stuck working an endless circle of polish into the already streak-free silver platter laid in front of me on the buffet. At the rate I was going, I was a bit surprised I hadn’t polished a hole straight through it.
As it was, I shuddered a bit at the flash of my own reflection when I went to set it back up on the shelf where it belonged—one of the last tokens of the wealth once amassed by the Otto estate. An estate long since fallen into ruin.
Ruined or not, the estate had given me work when no one else would… and despite the dwindling staff over the years, had continued to employ me against the advice of the other voices in the village. I’d lost track of the number of times I’d overheard the same questions. I’d taken to tuning out any words that followed a surreptitious glance in my direction, since it always turned out to be the same question.
Why keep a fae-marked girl so close?
“What is it with you, today, Delph?” Ascilla’s voice cut through my thoughts again, the hand reaching out to knock some sense into me only stopped because Leofwin, the lord’s valet, materialized in the narrow cellar between us.
“Tsk, tsk, Ascilla,” he hummed, mock disapproval in his voice. “Is that any way to behave this close to Midsommar? Let Raful catch sight of that, and little Delph’s slow table service will be the least of your worries.”
Ascilla’s eyes rolled back toward the beams crossing the low ceiling overhead, their dark wood marred by centuries of hooks dug into them for hanging meat and herbs to be dried.
“Hey, Leofwin,” I said, whirling to deal Ascilla’s intended blow to the back of his head instead. “I can fight my own battles. Maybe worry about your own damn business for once.”
I may have misjudged my own strength, however, because he pitched forward far enough to have to catch himself. Of course, the thing he found to catch himself on was me—his hand wrapping around my ankle while the rest of him nearly disappeared beneath the tangle of my skirts.
“And here I was thinking you’re all bark and no bite,” he said, one hand clamping onto the edge of the buffet to start the clamber back up onto his feet.
I had no opportunity to respond to him, not when his other hand had ventured so dangerously far up the back of my skirts that I could feel his fingers teasing my bare thigh above the top of my stockings.
I was grateful for the dim light of the storeroom, otherwise there’d be no hiding the stark contrast of red against white as blood rushed to my cheeks. This wasn’t the first time Leofwin’s hand had found its way to parts of me it had no right to… if only in the strictest sense. Parts of me had found their way to parts of him as well in the last year of my service here at the estate. There was a mutual understanding between us, a secret that was spoken more in sighs and soft moans than it was with any actual words.
It was better that way—especially when most of the words that dropped from Leofwin’s lips made me want to murder him more than it made me want to take him to my bed.
Still, I swore and fumbled with the wine bottle now in my hands, nearly dropping it as Leofwin’s hand slipped just a little higher.
“You’re the one who should be watching out,” Ascilla said, the disapproval thick in her voice. “You’re not as subtle as you think you are, you know.”
“Yeah, well, I won’t have to be subtle soon. After today we’ll be lost in Midsommar with the rest of the village. And I’ll be happily lost elsewhere.”
Even the dark couldn’t conceal the raging red in my cheeks now. “Not a chance. I won’t be there. Not when Lord Otto needs me.”
“Oh, and that’s such a good thing? He might not be so afraid of a little fae mark soon.”
Not once Midsommar’s passed, and I’ve aged out of any chance of a curse.
It was no secret that the current lord of the estate had a weakness for two things—wine too old for his coffers and women too young for his own good. The wine I could handle. The women, well, I had no fear of that. Lord Otto’s wayward hands had never made their way over to me. I’d come to look forward to the holidays where the rest of the staff left the estate to the two of us, when the lack of wandering eyes and wagging tongues meant the lord and I spent most of our evenings sitting by the fire together. He never spoke of the marks that branded me, and I, in turn, never stopped filling his cup.
This quiet companionship couldn’t last forever, I knew. Lord Otto would marry another woman too young for him, one that didn’t like the look of the fae-marked girl she spotted in the hallways, or he’d eventually run out of things to pawn and would have to let go of the already meager staff. I just didn’t like to think of what I’d do when that day came.
I certainly didn’t like to think that it might come sooner, rather than later.
A hollow feeling welled up in me but wasn’t allowed to settle, not when Leofwin’s hand made a less than subtle dart further up my skirts, making me shriek as I tried to bat him away.
“You little—”
“What’s going on in here?”
This time, the voice joining us in the already cramped cellar made all three of us snap to attention.
Raful, the head of the lord’s estate, stood in the doorway looking on, his own disapproval putting Ascilla’s to shame. I’d never seen Leofwin straighten up so quickly.
“Nothing, sir,” he said, hastily moving a step away from me.
Raful’s eyes only narrowed further, but he wasn’t here for Leofwin. He was here for me.
He snapped his fingers together and pointed at the bottle in my hands. “That won’t do for today. Lord Otto has a visitor.”
I glanced down at the bottle. “This is what he always serves guests.”
“Don’t argue with me, girl,” Raful snarled. The corner of his mouth turned down, not unlike that of a disgruntled frog. It would’ve been funnier if it wasn’t accompanied by the crackle of a leather riding crop stretching between the two hands tucked behind his back.
All three of us—Ascilla, Leofwin, and myself—flinched a little at the sound. There was only one man who’d dare lay a hand on me in this house, and it was him. Even Otto was more afraid of Raful than he was of me.
“This is no ordinary visitor,” Raful said, his eyes still searching me in the way they did when he was trying to decide whether or not a beating was necessary. It usually was. “You’ll serve the top shelf.”
My eyes flickered up to the shelf in question, and despite the crackle of leather, I wasn’t able to stop myself.
“Are you sure? There’s only one bottle left. Otto—”
“Lord Otto.” Raful’s reminder carried as much of a snap as the memory of leather on my skin. I felt, rather than saw, Ascilla and Leofwin slink back a half step as the butler stepped down from the door to close the space between us. My own eyes had fallen to the floor, where they settled on a particularly interesting crack in the boards. “Unless you’ve forgotten, that’s who you serve here in this estate. A Lord. The rest of the world might be falling to pieces around us, but that title still means something.”
He drew himself up beside me, a man impressive only in his height. For someone made seemingly entirely out of sinew and bone, he’d left enough bruises on my back to make my skin smart when he so much as stood this close to me.
“You of all people shouldn’t need reminding,” he said, his breath stinking as he drew near to my ear. “If it were up to me, you’d have been removed from this estate years ago. If it were up to me, you’d never have been allowed to step foot in here in the first place.”
“Well then,” I said, wishing in that moment that I could bite off my own tongue and be done with it, “I guess I’m lucky it isn’t up to you.”
I’d seen Raful’s face darken before, but never like it did now.
I could practically already feel the welts beginning to form on my back. I knew what was coming. Raful’s hand lifted, and I braced myself against the blow that was sure to come. And it did.
Two blows stung the space between my shoulder blades, carefully placed below the back neckline of my gown so that Lord Otto wouldn’t see. I gritted my teeth, willing myself not to let out so much as a single syllable. I wouldn’t give Raful the satisfaction.
My silence only bought me a third blow, this one less carefully placed. I felt the shift in Raful before the leather crop hit my skin, too high this time—no fabric to soften the sear of pain that erupted across the surface of my skin.
I bit my tongue to keep from crying out, the taste of iron in my mouth bitter as bile.
Raful’s face was flushed when he straightened back up, a wicked glint in his eye. He made no secret of the fact that he enjoyed our abuse. He lifted one hand to wipe the froth from his lips before jutting his chin back toward the last remaining bottle still perched on the top shelf.
“Bring it to the west sitting room, and then go straight to your quarters and stay there. Lord Otto has strict orders that his guest is not to be disturbed by the staff. Besides, you’re in no condition to be seen, anyway.”
Gums red with blood and a long red welt across the top of my shoulders, he means.
Of course, Raful never intended for me to serve the lord. He came here looking for his own twisted satisfaction, and as usual, he’d found it.
“I’ll have a word with Lord Otto. You’ve grown far too comfortable here. I always warned him you would. Now, hurry to it. You’ve already kept the lord waiting long enough.”
I stretched on the tips of my toes to reach the bottle, but my fingers didn’t so much as graze the bottom of the shelf. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Leofwin twitch toward me, as if to help, but one glare from Raful left him shrinking back.
“Surely you have work left to do before the estate closes for the holiday. Unless you’d like to be left here with Delph.”
There was only the briefest hesitation before Leofwin stepped back, nodding once. “Whatever you say, Raful.”
Neither Ascilla nor Leofwin could meet my eye as they left. The moment we were alone, Raful was suddenly at my side. Under the guise of reaching for the bottle above my head, he pressed his body against mine until my stomach was pinned against the wooden furniture. His chest pressed into my back, the buttons of his uniformed dragging across the fresh welts on my skin.
Breath hitched excitedly in his chest when I couldn’t hold back a wince of pain. His hot breath, stinking of stolen wine and rotting fruit, drew too close to the back of my ear.
“Only days now until Otto realizes you’re nothing special,” he said, not bothering to keep his voice low. “You think he’ll protect you then? I’ll have you out of this great house and back on the streets where you belong. Mark my words.”
His free hand clamped onto my shoulder, thumb placed carefully so as to dig into the freshly made welt there. Hot tears sprung to my eyes against my bidding, and with it rose my maddening temper.
“Say what you like, Raful,” I snarled back, finally managing to tear myself free of him. “But this isn’t a great house. Not anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time—and it has a lot more to do with cowards like you then it does me.”
I pried the bottle from his hands and stormed off before he could deal me another blow. I knew it was a foolish response, one that I’d pay for later.
I didn’t care. I’d never been good at holding my tongue.
I forgot in my blind rage which sitting room I was supposed to be delivering the bottle to. I knew the moment I opened the door that I’d picked the wrong one, because suddenly, my concern over the butler’s retaliation seemed the very least of my worries.
Not when the first fae sighted in decades was standing right in front of me.