Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
When the maid helps me dress, she smiles. “I like what you’ve done with it.”
“Sewing used to be my favorite hobby.” I take a seat in front of the mirror. I don’t even mind seeing myself with the fae ears tonight. I want the glamour to let me pretend that I’m someone else. Someone who isn’t broken. Someone who didn’t trade everything for a ring.
I close my eyes and shove down my unwelcome thoughts. My handmaid sweeps my hair off my neck and into a twist she holds in place with pins. “If you could take that needle of yours to my wardrobe,” she says, “perhaps I’d be able to find myself a husband.”
I laugh and meet her gaze in the mirror. She’s my size, but without quite as much fullness in the bust and hips. She’s fair, with auburn hair and sparkling hazel eyes. “You’re beautiful. Surely a daring wardrobe wouldn’t make the difference.”
She casts her gaze downward. “That’s sweet of you to say. In truth, I’m standing in my own way. I hoped I’d be home before starting a family. My mother likes to point out that it can take decades to be blessed with a babe, and that is if the gods are even kind enough to give me one.”
I frown at her in the mirror. Decades? What a strange way to say it. I suppose there are couples who try for a family for ten or fifteen years before accepting that it’s not to be, but decades? Only fae, who live hundreds of years and have a notoriously difficult time conceiving, would speak of fertility in terms of decades.
“I noticed that not all the humans in this village wear a glamour,” I say carefully, studying her elven ears.
Her brow wrinkles with her frown. “What kind of glamour would you have them wear?”
“I thought they might be glamoured to appear fae,” I say. “As I am. For protection.”
She lifts her chin in understanding. “Perhaps before your sister took the crown and ended the golden queen’s curse, but not since. There are enough humans in Faerie—brought in as changelings or during the years of the curse—that the humans from home don’t concern themselves with being noticed.”
Strange that Kendrick and the others still believe it’s safer to travel as fae. That we might be targeted if we traveled as humans. “How old are you?”
She blushes. “Only five and thirty years. Young for my kind, it’s true.”
“So you truly are fae? This isn’t a glamour?”
She laughs softly. “No glamour. I would give myself some curves like yours if I were to bother with a glamour.”
My shoulders loosen as some of the tension drains out of me. I was worried that maybe I was being lied to, so her sincerity is a relief. Still, I have questions. “And you were born in Elora?”
She meets my gaze. “Yes, milady. My family didn’t flee to Faerie until I was a girl. Easier to hide in plain sight here than to hide entirely there. And being able to use my gods-given magic instead of passing everything off as mage magic—well, it’s a relief.”
I shake my head. It doesn’t make any sense. I spent the first fourteen years of my life in Elora—how could there have been fae around me without me ever knowing?
“About ready?” a deep voice asks from the door.
I turn to see Kendrick, hair tied back, resplendent in crisp dark brown breeches and a sable tunic with dark embroidery. Knowing I’m going to spend the evening on his arm sends a riot of anxious butterflies through my belly and up into my chest.
“Just finishing,” my handmaid says, sliding a final pin into my hair. “I hope you have an amazing night. Perhaps I’ll see you at the celebration.”
I stare at myself in the mirror—my faerie self with the ears and bright eyes and glowing skin—and feel a hard tug of regret that I’ll never know the female I could become if I hadn’t traded my immortality for a magical ring. I still don’t know what that life would look like, but maybe I should’ve had the courage to find out.
I close my eyes and bow my head. Now is not the time for this.
Callused fingers gently scrape up my exposed spine. I draw in a ragged breath and meet Kendrick’s gaze in the mirror.
“Let me look at you,” he says, voice as rough as those fingertips.
Swallowing back a sudden rush of nerves, I stand and smooth down my dress as I turn to him.
Kendrick’s eyes darken and his nostrils flare as he looks me over. He scrubs a hand over his face, but when his gaze returns to the smooth, pale flesh of my exposed thigh, he bites a knuckle. “If you’re trying to slowly kill me, this is the perfect way to do it.”