Page 26 of Beauty

A low wail pierces the night. Will the hags never be done?

“You allow a single incident to color your life, Torin. Itwas one group of goblins and trolls who nearly killed you,” Seamus points out.

I turn away. I never think about the day. I don’t thinkabout how the small band of monsters delighted in beating me and making mebleed. “Well, I think they would all pause before attempting to harm me again.”

“You’re a big man, oh yes. King Torin kills brownies andgnomes.” Disdain drips from my brother’s voice.

“Yes, and you embraced them all.” I turn back to the ghostof my brother. “You were so fucking kind. You beat your own child.”

If a sluagh can pale, Seamus does it. His form fades a bit.“I thought I was helping him. I thought I was correcting his bad behavior asour father corrected mine. I see things differently now. This side allows for afull accounting of all that is true if one is open to it. I hate you forkilling my wife, but one good thing came from it. Beck was freed from my rigidmorality. He can become the man he always should have been, and Cian can getover my ignorance. And they’re both definitely better off without your bride.”

Maris. Lovely, blonde, frigid as an iceberg. And seeminglyas fertile. She was promised to the symbiotic twins, the bondmate who wouldhave bridged them, but she loathed the idea. She was more than willing to helpme in an effort to get out of a hated marriage.

At the time, she seemed a perfect bride. Thirteen years in,I gave up going to her bed, but she still has her value. She’s a bondmate butsuspicious of psychic powers. She managed to make the other bondmates somewhatcomfortable, until they figured out I want to use their powers to enhance myown. “You didn’t vet your pick properly, brother, or you would have known shehates non-sidhe as much as I do.”

“Your Highness?” A throaty voice breaks through the quiet.Una. One of my hags bursts into the room.

And just like that, Seamus is gone. There is no doubt in mymind that my brother is still hanging about, listening in and gatheringinformation to torture me with later.

“What is it? Do you have the spell?” They’re working on aspell to kill the sluagh. I need to be rid of my troublesome brother.

Una is one of the singularly least attractive women I eversaw. Even in her human form, there’s an air of decay that hangs about her noglamour can ever mask. On the surface she’s in her middle years, a plain womanwith fair skin that no one should really notice, but once I stare at her fortoo long, the wrongness can’t be denied. Her sister Liadan was the most skilledat glamour, but she’s dead, and the hags suspect the renegade royals did herin.

Una shakes that salt-and-pepper hair of hers. I noticethere’s blood on her hands.

My head aches. The wailing won’t stop. Glannis, Una’sremaining sister, joins her. Like the other hag, Glannis has streaks of bloodmarring her clothes and hands. Why are the stupid fucking brownies wailing whentheir torturers aren’t busy torturing them?

The noise sounds like it’s coming from the walls themselves.“I’m making a new rule. Cut the prisoners’ tongues out before you starttorturing them. I can’t stand to listen to the bastards scream anymore. Why isit so loud? They’re in the dungeon, are they not?”

Glannis wipes her hands on her skirt, seeming to not carethat blood soaks the cotton. Her hair hangs in clumpy strands, sweat drippingfrom her brow. “It would be rather hard to get any information out of them ifwe cut their tongues from their heads. Do you be expecting them to talk out oftheir arseholes?”

I don’t hesitate. I slap her, adding to the blood on herclothes. Her head snaps back and a brutal cut opens on her lip. “You will watchyour tongue around me, hag.”

“Aye, Your Majesty,” the hag replies, her tongue coming outto swipe at the blood on her chin.

The wailing reachs epic proportions, threatening to shakethe walls. I put my hands to my ears. “Go down to the dungeon and shut them thefuck up! Or I’ll have your tongues.”

Una shivers a bit. “It ain’t the brownies.”

I think about plowing a fist into her face, but I still needthe bitches. “Then shut the goblins up. I don’t care who it is.”

Glannis points out the balcony toward the river that runs bythe White Palace. “I think you should care, Your Majesty. It’s why we came uphere. One of the guards saw her.”

I looked out, a cold chill invading my limbs. There’s asingle woman standing by the water’s edge, a piece of clothing in her hand, awash basin at her side. She gets to her knees, soaking the garment in the riverwater.

“What in all the planes is that dumb bitch doing?” I turnaway only to see my brother standing in the background, a wicked smile on hisface. I ignore Seamus. “Get the guards. Tell them to shoot that woman and hangher corpse up for all to see. And shut that wailing up.”

“The guards won’t go near her,” Una says. She won’t come outon the balcony. Una isn’t afraid of much. Her magic is based in blood. Shekills with a perfection I see in very few, but she is scared of a single womanwashing her clothes?

The wailing. The washing. That eat-shit grin on my brother’sface.

“Bean sidhe?” The words come out on ahushed sigh. Even speaking the name makes my stomach revolt.

“It can’t be too important.” Unlike her sibling, Glannisdoesn’t seem impressed by the legendary washer woman. “There’s only one ofthem.”

Una is nearly out the door now. “But they only wail forroyal lines when death is near.”

For royal lines. I know the washer woman’s tale. She’slegendary across the planes. Some called her banshee, but here she is beansidhe. The bean sidhe has three forms, the virgin, themother, and the crone. Three forms of the same woman. She shows up beforetragedies. She sings her song when a royal death is coming. I was smart enoughto have my hags cast a spell over the palace three nights before the coup. Thewasher women came—all three, but no one heard them.