Page 28 of The Faceless Queen

“I think so.” He coughed again. “It’s dead? The chimera?”

I shook my head. “It’s dead.”

He nodded slowly, his lips quivering. “By the Gods,” he said, his voice full of sadness. “I thought I’d drowned.”

“I pulled you out. It’s over now. I promise. You’re safe.”

He squeezed his eyes, though they remained closed. Tears gathered in the corners, and I sat forward, taking his hand in mine.

“Brennan.”

“Drowned,” he said, looking stunned before finally opening his eyes, cloudy and confused as they met mine. “And here, I thought…” His chest heaved, his movements heavy and labored as he placed his hand over his heart. “I thought we’d agreed … that I …” He sucked in a breath and shuddered. “That I was coming back to save you.”

I laughed, tears blurring my vision. “Well, change of plans.”

“You did tell me,” he coughed again, “that you would keep surprising me.”

“I did, and like you, I’m keeping my word.”

He rubbed his hand over his eyes and stared up at the moon as if in a daze, shivers wracking through his body. Then he propped himself up onto his elbows, shaking lake water from his hair. His gaze met mine, and he paled, fear washing over him, his mouth opening. He pulled his hand from mine. “I—who—what?”

I frowned, my entire body on alert. “What happened? Brennan, what is it?”

I looked over my shoulder, frantic to find the threat. Another chimera? But there was nothing there. Just the field, the trees. Birds chittering in the distance.

“You—you!” he stammered. And suddenly his emotions for me poured out of him with such strength and ferocity that I wasn’t just feeding from him, or hearing his thoughts. I was in his head, seeing through his eyes.

Seeing me. Seeing exactly how I looked at that moment.

And what I saw left me cold. Because the girl before him wasn’t the one he’d just met. She wasn’t the dancer from Geoffrey’s, or the whore who took him upstairs. She didn’t have brown curly hair or possess any of the curves or features I’d so carefully cultivated and maintained the last two years.

Who he saw before him was the real me. Princess Samara.

No. Princess Shamhira. The first daughter of the Witch Queen of Azeal. It was she who sat before Brennan, wearing my soaking-wet black tunic and pants, sitting exactly where I sat.

Somehow, Brennan was staring at a face he’d never seen. A face I hadn’t seen myself in seven years. Not since I was twenty. My skin was pale, almost translucent. My eyes were ice blue, with thick brows, rounder eyes than I’d been wearing the last few years. Rounder cheeks, too. Full and pink with the flush of everything that had just happened. And my hair, Gods, I’d forgotten. My hair was straight, a pale honey blonde, soaking in thick, wet strands over my shoulders.

No. No! It wasn’t possible. I wasn’t drained—I was close, but I wasn’t there yet. If I’d shifted back to my original form, I would have felt it. I would know.

I pulled myself back from his mind and looked down at my hands, at my hair, straggly and soaking wet across my chest. It was still chestnut brown and curling. And while my skin was pale with cold, it was still far more tan than my birth body had ever been.

I shifted closer to the lake’s edge, using the moonlight to see my reflection. I was right. I was still Samara the dancer, still the girl he’d just met. My power wasn’t gone. Only weakened. Yet my chosen form remained.

So how the hell had he seen my real face?

Brennan blinked rapidly, shaking his head like he’d just woken up. His feelings of fear and confusion seemed to fade, and his eyes widened.

“I—I’m … Sorry,” he whispered. “I …” He frowned, taking several rapid breaths as if he wanted to remind himself that he could. “I think I—passed out for a second.”

“But you’re okay now?” I asked.

“Thanks to you. You saved me,” he said. “You killed the chimera. How?”

“The eyes are its weakest point. But its heads hold its strength,” I said. “You have to destroy all of the heads first—or you’ll never defeat it.”

He took a deep breath. “And you were able to do that.”

I nodded, my stomach turning.