Fair Deception

Prologue

It was black. Yet in the darkness, rippling shadows started to spread across the expanse of a room like whispers of dusk. Eventually, a hall appeared in the gloom as flames of murky, emerald green flickered weakly from chandeliers on chains. Frozen objects sat along the floor; statues and chairs, tables and bones, all casting obscure, dancing shadows as the light grew against sandstone walls.

A small, watched, figure ran beneath the dappled light. Reaching the bottom of angular steps, it fell to its knees and pulled a small bundle of cloth from beneath a blood-stained cloak. Without looking at the empty throne, the figure held the bundle out as an unquestionable offering.

A rustle in the rafters was followed by a gust of wind. As they descended from the eaves above, long, bony fingers tore at the bundle and pushed the figure to the ground. The bundle squirmed as the silvered hands clutched it. They tugged on the grubby, white material, releasing the object within.

The Unseelie Faerie smiled, his black lips drawing back to reveal teeth filed to sharp points. "Your debt is paid," he announced and the cloaked figure turned and fled from the hall. The Faerie dropped the cloth onto the floor and held a squirming babe at arm's length. Soft, black fur covered its tiny human-shaped body and bright blue eyes stared into his.

"Come here," he ordered with a voice of honeyed poison. A bent old woman hobbled out of an archway hidden in the gloom.

As the hag shuffled out of darkness her figure stirred into a more upright position, her hair flowed down her back turning golden and her skin seemed to melt into an alabaster smoothness. While she transformed into an exquisite, young woman, gliding across the floor, her still bent shadow grew darker. Other shadows were pulled across the stone walls, detached from the inanimate objects they had once belonged to, and swallowed by the still bent shadow of a black hag.

Finally arriving at the bottom of the steps, she paused and bowed her head before stretching out her hand and resting it on the skull of the babe. The child's tail whipped from side to side as her eyes looked uncertainly between the hag and the Faerie holding her. Because the babe was watching the Faerie's crimson wings flutter over his shoulders, she did not notice the hag pull a twisted knife over his silver wrists.

Blood dripped onto the child's fur as the woman began to murmur. The words of the incantation slipped fervently through the hag's now plump lips and the babe let out a growl which was followed by whimpering mews. As the silver Faerie joined the chant, the child began to hiss and spit. The fur covering the little one's tiny frame withdrew beneath her skin and her tail retracted painfully into her body, alongside her spine. The claws at the end of her outstretched fingers flattened into nails and her pitiful mews turned into the wails of a crying baby.

A wicked gleam crept into the silver Faerie's eyes. He sneered at the bawling child in his hands before turning to the hag, "The Seelie?"

"They won't be able to find her, Your Highness. My glamour will prevent it while she is young and then, when she reaches age, the spell will draw on her own glamour abilities," the hag replied, her head bent, eyes on the floor.

"Will she change back at adulthood?"

"No," she promised as a malicious smile lit up his face.

"Good." He dropped the female baby into the arms of the hag. "Swap her with the human."

"And the human child, Your Highness?"

He looked at the hag with a lazy expression, "Kill it."