"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - The Fey 02 - The Rival" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

Arianna wished her mother had lived. If her mother had lived, no one would
call Arianna demon spawn. No one would look at her sideways as she went down
a hall. No one would say that she wasn't really Islander, that she was pure
Fey.

But it was easy to see how they thought that. Arianna didn't look like her
father. She had dark skin like the Fey. She had pointed ears and up swept
eyebrows like the Fey.

And, most importantly, she had magick.

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A Like the Fey.

Her birthmark was the sign of that. It identified her, according to her Fey
guardian, Solanda. Only Shape-Shifters had such a mark. It was the sign,
Solanda said, of the most perfect Fey. Yet no matter what shape Arianna
Shifted into, the mark remained on her chin.

Sometimes it was a faint outline, a suggestion of a mark, and sometimes it
was a stamp, as vivid as a charcoal slash against the skin.

And it was ugly, ugly, ugly.

She was the Islander Princess, the most perfect of the Fey, and she couldn't
get rid of the mark on her face. Solanda said she should look on it with
pride. But Solanda wasn't fifteen. Solanda didn't understand how the boys
stared at the mark, and how the girls giggled at it. Solanda didn't know
that Arianna had overheard all the conversations about the King's strange
daughter with the witch's wart on her face.

Maybe if the witch's wart went away, people would see Arianna for who she
was, instead of who they thought she was.

Demon spawn. , She glanced around the room a final time. No cats, no maids,
no hearth boys. She was still alone. She leaned over and pulled open a
drawer in the bottom of the vanity, i ' The pot was still there, untouched.
, She smiled, wrapped her hand around the ceramic, and pulled the pot out.
She set it on her dresser, pulled off the lid and winced at the sharp tang of
al iota leaves.

The cream inside was a muddy brown. An awful color for skin. Skin should be
a pale golden white, like her father's. Then her blue eyes wouldn't seem so
startling, so out of place.

She dipped her fingers in the cream, and rubbed some on the back of her left
hand, as the dressmaker had instructed her to. The cream blended in, hiding
the tiny cut she had gotten the day before. She held her hand in front of
her, tilting it at different angles, trying to see the blemish. So far it
seemed natural. If it looked good in the light, she would slather some on