A Veil of Truth and Trickery by Analeigh Ford
Chapter Three
The moment Ascillasaw the women on horseback, she moved to block me from view.
For once, I followed her lead, swearing under my breath as my hands fumbled at the cloak I’d used to tie up the few things I’d had the time to bring with me from the estate. A cloak hood would be useful right now, something to hide the silvery strands of hair that had started tumbling over my shoulders in the summer heat.
I didn’t need to see the emblem stitched into the saddlebags at the horse’s side to know who these women were. Still, the shape of the flame-engulfed circle was enough to make a pit form in my stomach.
I’d dealt with their kind before.
I knew them all too well. These were self-called truth-bringers, though what they truly brought was fear. As if our world, our kingdom, needed any more of it.
“Traveling home for the festivities?” the woman holding the reins called out from her place atop the horse, her voice carrying the unmistakable tone of disapproval.
“Just let us pass,” Leofwin said, stepping forward as he hoisted his own bag a bit higher up over his shoulder. “We’ve no quarrel with you.”
He stopped for a second, glancing sideways at the grumbling cart-bearer and Lavinia at his side.
This first woman, younger than her companion, though with the same hair streaked gray far too early, let her gaze come to rest on Leofwin. “We’ve not come to quarrel. Just to bring news.”
Even Lavinia sucked on the inside of her cheeks, her eyes flickering forward up the path anxiously. We were still at least an hour’s walk from the village, and darkness would be falling soon if we didn’t hurry. There weren’t exactly bandits in these parts, but drunk and belligerent festivalgoers wandered off from the village were almost as bad.
Especially when the rest of us were still violently sober.
“The end of this kingdom is nigh. You must repent. End your bargains with the fae and their old ways, or else be caught up in it.”
It was the same message they’d been speaking for the last twenty-one years. The same message they’d been speaking long before that.
It was always the end of the world. It was always just around the bend, waiting, like a bad bedtime story, to snatch you up and carry you away.
I almost pitied the young girl holding the reins. Almost.
Ascilla shifted her weight again, concealing me behind her a bit more. Her hands wrapped back, nudging me slightly toward the shade of the trees closer to the edge of the path where we stood.
“Unless you have some actual news to bring, then let us pass,” Leofwin said again. Beside him, I could tell the cart-bearer was considering running straight into the truth-bringer’s horse if that meant we’d get moving sooner.
“You can’t ignore the end of all things. You have to face it head on as we have. The fae set into motion things we can only begin to understand. Just because you can’t see them before you doesn’t mean their poison won’t one day drain you too.”
When Leofwin’s face didn’t change, the young woman’s attention flickered over to Lavinia instead. “It’d be such a shame to see a pretty young thing like you waste away, just because you’re too vain to listen.”
The rest of our party flinched at the words, knowing the woman’s mistake well before Lavinia’s mouth spewed her own venom.
“Just let us go, hag,” Lavinia snapped, eyes flashing. She reached back and grabbed Leofwin by the collar, a motion that made something hot and angry flash up inside me for a moment. He didn’t flinch back from her touch. Didn’t bat her away. He just let himself be led several steps forward, halfway around the truth-bringers horse before the woman holding the reins spoke again.
But not to her.
They’d finally spotted me.
“Stop, you there. Fae girl.”
I froze, as did the rest of my party. Leofwin’s eyes flickered back to meet mine as the younger woman urged the horse forward through the middle of our party. He had to step back to let her pass.
He made no move to stop her, not even when she drew the mare so close that the horse’s hot breath blew short strands of hair back from my face. He just stood there, collar still being tugged by Lavinia, as the cart-bearer started rumbling forward.
Then all of them did.
No use waiting for the fae-marked girl.
“You.” It was the old crone’s voice that cracked as she looked over me across the shoulder of her companion. The sight of me, my black eyes and contrasting hair so obvious even now in the fading light, somehow filled her with the strength to straighten in her saddle. One crooked hand raised from her side to point into my face, her own twisting up with each word that followed next.
“You will be our undoing. You cursed kind. You fae-marked abomination.”
Words like that might have drawn a reaction from someone else, but I was used to them.
“I’d heard there was a marked girl around here, but that was years ago. I’d assumed the village would have already put you out of your misery.”
I did twinge a bit at those words. For one moment, the old woman’s eyes flickered first to Ascilla, and then to the retreating backs of Lavinia, Leofwin, and the others.
“Did no one ever test her? See if she was a changeling? You know how it’s done?”
Her eyes turned back to me then, and there wasn’t a single ounce of kindness in them. All I saw in its place was hate. For me.
She leaned forward, spit flying from her cracked lips as she made sure to pronounce each word with cruel purpose. “You hang them outside in the dark, overnight. Even the creatures won’t touch a changeling. If the babe lives, then it’s one of the fae, and can be dealt with before it grows to curse all that touch it.”
A bitter laugh bubbled from Ascilla’s mouth. “Or more likely the human baby is picked apart by wild animals, or simply dies from the cold.”
“Better that than to allow a single changeling amongst us,” the old woman spat back without a second’s hesitation. “You know, they say the fae blood bleeds blue. I wonder …” One hand reached for the side of her bag, where I spotted the silver hilt of a long knife peeking from between the flaps of leather. “If I were to cut you… what color would you bleed?”
The horse drew closer, forcing both Ascilla and I to stumble back or have our feet crushed beneath its powerful hooves.
Up ahead, I caught sight of Leofwin pausing for just a second. He glanced back at us, concern furrowing his brows as the old woman’s hand wrapped around the knife’s hilt.
But then he glanced back at the others, at the way Lavinia’s eyes narrowed in disapproval, and he turned back. He left us.
He left me.
The brief flash of jealousy I’d felt earlier was nothing compared to the hot anger I felt at the sight of his back turned to me now. I’d told him I could fight my own battles, but this wasn’t what I meant. He knew that. He knew what he was doing when he walked away.
Bile rose in the back of my throat as Ascilla and I were left to these two women, one of whom had started to draw a wicked blade between us.
For a second, I thought she was going to slash me with the rusted blade, but in the moment before she did, her eyes lifted up to the old estate barely visible in the background, and something she saw there made her pause. Her eyes grew wide and her lips parted. The horse breathed out a hot snort, its head bowing low enough to force both women to hold tight or risk being thrown as it pawed the leaf-strewn ground.
By the time Ascilla and I glanced back, not so much as the usual light shone in the estate windows, but whatever it was the women had seen still left its mark. The blade returned to its sheath, however hesitantly, and the two of them shared a pale-faced look. A whisper passed between them, so quiet I couldn’t make out more than the flicker of fear mirrored on each of their faces.
They glanced at me one last time before the younger girl tugged hard on her mare’s reins and they turned to disappear off the path in the same direction they had come.
“Wretched old bitch,” Ascilla grumbled.
“Yeah …” I agreed, casting one last look over my shoulder at the fading estate. “Wretched.”
But it wasn’t the old crone’s words that left me seething as we quickened our footsteps to catch up to the rest of our party. That I could handle. That I was used to.
It was Leofwin’s betrayal that stung the most.
Though soon his would feel like nothing, not compared to the one that came next.