Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,77

nearest looking glass. The reflection therein. The scrawny, pale girl with her broken nose and hollow cheeks, sitting beside a woman who might have been one of the statues in the room come to life. This was lunacy. No matter how sweet her perfume, how delightful the nothings she might whisper, Mia would never be a beauty. She’d resigned herself to that fact years ago.

“I’ve looked into the mirror harder than most, believe me,” the girl said. “And while I appreciate the sentiment, Shahiid, if you sit there telling me I need to learn to love myself before others can love me, I think I might spew this O, so fine whiskey all over your pretty red rug.”

Laughter. As bright and warm as all three suns. Aalea took Mia’s hand, pressed it to blood-red lips. Despite herself, the girl felt a blush creeping into her cheeks.

“Dearest, no. I’ve no doubt you know yourself better than most. We plain ones always do. And I don’t mean to say you must learn to love the face you see in the mirror now.” Again, Aalea touched Mia’s cheek, eliciting a dizzying rush of warmth. “What I mean to say is, you must master the face you see in the mirror on the morrow.”

“Why?” Mia frowned. “What happens this eve?”

Aalea smiled. “We give you a new one, of course.”

“… A new what?”

“That nose, those eyes, no.” Aalea tsked. “Far too remarkable, you see. A crooked beak might prompt questions about how it was broken. Bruised hollows might make a mark wonder what you do with your nevernights instead of sleeping like a faithful daughter of Aa should. And the places we shall soon send you…” The Shahiid smiled. “For now, we need you pretty, but forgettable. Likeable, but unmemorable. Able to turn a head should you choose it, or fade into the background when the needs rise.”

“I…”

“Would you not enjoy being pretty, my love?”

Mia shrugged. “I don’t give a damn how I look.”

“And yet you pay a pretty boy to love you?”

The Shahiid leaned closer. Mia could feel the warmth radiating off her skin. Her mouth was suddenly dry. Breath coming just a little quicker. Anger? Indignity? Or something else?

“It may not be right,” Aalea said. “It may not be just. But this is a world of senators and consuls and Luminatii—of republics and cults and institutions built and maintained almost entirely by men. And in it, love is a weapon. Sex is a weapon. Your eyes? Your body? Your smile?” She shrugged. “Weapons. And they give you more power than a thousand swords. Open more gates than a thousand war walkers. Love has toppled kings, Mia. Ended empires. Even broken our poor, sunsburned sky.”

The Shahiid reached out a hand, brushed a stray hair from Mia’s cheek.

“They will never see the knife in your hand if they are lost in your eyes. They will never taste the poison in their wine when they are drunk on the sight of you.” A small shrug. “Beauty simply makes it easier, love. Easier than you have it now. It may be sad. It may be wrong. But it is also true.”

Mia’s voice was a tight whisper. Anger waiting in the wings.

“And what would you know about how I have it now, Shahiid?”

“I’ve worn so many seemings, I can scarce remember my first. But I was no portrait, Mia.” Aalea leaned back and smiled. “I was much like you. I knew want. The ache of it. The emptiness. Knew it like I knew myself. And so when Marielle gave me beauty, and I learned how to give that want to others, there was no stopping me.”

“Marielle…,” Mia breathed.

The flesh weaver.

It all made sense now. Aalea’s unearthly beauty. Mouser’s young face and old eyes. Even the Revered Mother’s facade of homely warmth. She understood this room’s name at last. The Hall of Masks. Daughters, it might apply to the entire Mountain. Killers within—killers all—hiding behind facades not of ceramic or wood, but flesh. Beauty. Youth. Soft maternity. How better to maintain a cadre of anonymous assassins than by reshaping their faces whenever the need struck? How better to seduce a mark or blend into a crowd or be met and instantly forgotten than by crafting a face suited to the task?

How better to make us forget who we were, and shape us into what they want us to be?

Flawed as it might be in other’s eyes, this was her face. Mia wasn’t sure how she felt about these people