Betwixt the ruins of kingdoms from myriad years past, the Splinter Queen held Her profane court to her coterie of fellow fae. The lands were once adorned with illustrious names, but now they were known only by virtue of Her association. She who was a mere fragmented shed name of one of the true fae gentry. A fae that Marrow had invested her twilight years to injure in some way that matters.

 The curse-riddled Marrow stood resolute at the mirror lake threshold of the Splinter Queen’s domain. As she bore into her reflection, traced the path of each deep line etched into her world-weary face, across swatches of magically marred skin creeping up her neck and past the green-tinted sclera of her left eye, she couldn’t help but smile with all blackened teeth. A right proper mess I am, she thought to herself teasingly. So easily she could have felt herself a fool draped in the loose fabric of her gown, a garment alien to her usual armoured ensembles, but Marrow was not so divorced from her femininity that she would sneer at the affectations of those of her gender with kinder lives.She could only hope that She would find some fortunate amusement in the contrast of her. A woman of years, irreparably marked by fair folk brutalities still carrying one of their names.

 With a sharp inhale, Marrow plunged towards the immaculate lake surface and it swallowed her whole without so much as a ripple. The transition into faerie was hardly ever a kind one. Instead of an onslaught of water, Marrow’s skin was assaulted by a barrage of pressures. Unseen forces combating her entrance and coaxing her forward in equal measures. She felt as if she would be torn asunder, immortal spirit from frail body. Only when she thought she could bear the strain no longer did fluid rush past her parted lips, filling her lungs. Smothering the childhood drowning panic, she planted her bare feet firmly on the surface below her and pushed her body upwards with all her might as she broke the surface with a gasp. The first thing she heard was the cheery clink of glasses and flutters of idle chatter. Despite half of her body still submerged in the eerily still twin of the lake at the court’s entrance, Marrow was bone dry with exception of a lone tear trickling down her scarred and tattooed cheek.

 The folk milling around the lantern-lit glade she was taking inventory of paid her no heed, far too invested in their petty gossip and unfathomable trifles to mind mortal intrusion. Even an interloper such as Marrow would fall by the waysides of their attentions until it was far too late. The few party guests who spared mere momentary glances would think her a desperate mortal hailing from the Iron Citadel in pursuit of some elusive boon. Nothing worth paying any mind until the show started, when the foolish creature beseeched their Queen. Marrow toyed with the idea of playing into their presumptions. She slunk her way through the court without drawing further notice past that which was advertised plainly on her curse-ridden body. If only she were content with shrinking.

 Instead she strode past finely dressed courtiers whispering to one another with malicious glee and mischievous sprites trailing one another between unperturbed legs. She carried herself as if she were still fully armed and armoured. Even the plainest fae garbed in little more than rags and plant matter appeared more lavish than her. There was a refined, deliberate quality to the placement of stray straps of fabric caressing a slender pixie’s body, a profound sense of precise intent communicated through an unspoken language older than the Iron Citadel. Only the scrappy youths lurking in the fringes, their peering yellow eyes wide with voracious curiosity, attired themselves with Marrow’s same fledgling grace.

 The awe-inspiring eldritch manner of the fae court was nearly oppressing enough to eclipse the marvels of the environs. Nightmarish collages of bastardised mortal art strung high above between towering birches like colourful banners. Nestled between valleys of suspended sculptures and flapping painted canvas hung wooden cages containing mortal artists in the throes of their respective crafts, grotesque masks painted on their faces. Marrow would have shuddered at the sight had she herself not personally been subjected to worse over her durance, though she was lucky to have not cultivated a craft that would have rendered her irreplaceable to her gentry captor. Illusory, wisp-like lights twinkled overhead beneath a convergence of branches fluttered enticingly as they guided the throngs of fae towards the heart of the court.

 The Splinter Queen was unattended at Her dais when Marrow forced herself past a displeased selkie into the clearing before Her. Immediately the Queen’s eyes were on her. Only through the tremendous breadth of Marrow’s experience with the fae did she resist the gasp threatening to escape her throat. She expected marvellous beauty, beauty so wickedly sublime that mortals of all ilk have been known to slit their throats in response to its resplendent unattainability, but she had not expected a nightshade-tinted mirror of her younger self. The Queen’s horridly beautiful face fractured into a gleaming smile, framed sharply by gashes of lank black hair sloping past her cheek. A creeping desperation lingering in Marrow’s gut pleaded with her to register the fae’s visage as an unseemly familiar twin as opposed to a true image of a younger Marrow, a Marrow who no mortal no longer recalls a name for. With a swallow of bile, the old woman had to expect the truth of the mirror She was. Marrow had long rendered herself immune to all but the fiercest of fae glamours, a boon and curse alike festering in her eye jelly. Her appearance could only be the product of a most adept glamour-forge or a wretchedly cruel coincidence. One that, had Marrow not known any better, she might fear to be a design of the former Mistress she sought to annihilate.

 Recalling herself in the brink of time, Marrow forced her limbs to curtsy despite uproarious protests. The Splinter Queen dipped Her head in recognition.

 “You are redolent of curses,” cooed the Splinter Queen, Her voice dripping with heady delight as opposed to the revulsion Marrow was accustomed to. Her voice could have only generously been called a voice, more akin to a riot of harsh string instruments entangled in a frightful collage of music that only registers at words within some deeper part of her.

 “My hope, confessedly, is that they are an aroma that might please you. Please you so greatly that you might be moved to mercy.” Marrow’s own voice was gruff with disuse and bordered on offensive gracelessness, a trait that is alas attributed to character flaw rather than a curse.

 “Mercy?” She mused, sinking into the bleached grotesquerie of her throne. A throne of bone, how creative, Marrow couldn’t help but think. “Why is it that you would, of all the folk denizens of my domain and that of my revered kin, would you seek my mercy in particular?” Her smile still consumed the landscape of Her lovely reflected face. Marrow noticed that apart from the clutter of jewellery encircling the fae’s throat, She wore no clothing apart from a massive skirt that obscured the entirety of Her lower body in ruffles.

 “You are legendary, my Queen, across all the fractured lands. I had to muster the courage and excuse alike to gaze upon you.”

 “Empty words from creatures of lies. How can you expect the folk, much less one such as I, to believe your potential falsehoods?”

 Marrow’s face bloomed with an easy smile. “My Queen, I bear myself plainly upon my face and figure. You have scented the truth on me.” Marrow reached out with her right arm, an arm not of flesh, but of twisting branches. Hunger flared in the Splinter Queen’s eyes. She enveloped the gnarled hand with Her own hands of porcelain youth. She trailed a finger up Marrow’s arm and she shuddered. Pleased, the Queen tugged the other woman closer towards Her.

 “You human creatures are endlessly fascinating, what with your powers of creation and spinning of uncouth falsehoods. A pity you select interesting morsels cannot be elevated to the ways of the folk.”

 “It would be an unparalleled honour to ascend to your sublimity, to shed this accursed flesh. Alas, all I might endeavour to do is entice your kindness.” Marrow could feel faerie eyes boring into her back. The court is watching. Her eyelids drooped in satisfaction of having an audience.

 “Though it is within my power, you cannot expect me to grant you freedom entirely from your accursed flesh. Who among us knows what political turmoil with the other courts you might thrust upon me for such an undoing? But perhaps… I could be persuaded for one.” A sultry note slithers into Her amalgamation of a voice. The tune makes Marrow’s head spin.

 Marrow gestures towards her lower lip with her free, hale hand. The lip was grotesquely puckered and flaring, engulfed by a deprived blue-tint. “This curse, insidious thing, was bestowed upon me by a solitary fae whomst desired that my names be forgotten by any mortal with whom I cross paths the moment I step out of their sight. As fine as the company of the fae may be, life in the Iron Citadel amongst my own kin has become troublesome.”

 “Most pitiful a plight,” She remarked, Her eyes locked on the lip as she inched closer as one might towards a delicacy to be devoured.

 “Would the Queen take pity on a creature so low as I?” said Marrow, bordering on pleading. Her eyes were likewise tethered to the Queen’s own lips which She licked indulgently.

 “For a price.”

 Performatory shyness split Marrow’s grin, as if she had a chance of convincing the Queen of her innocence in such dalliances, before she closed the distance between them, capturing the Queen’s lips with her own accursed ones. The theft elicited a deep growl of pleasure from the fae queen who grabbed at the back of Marrow’s head with immaculate hands, burying Her fingers in the few shorn strands She could gain purchase on. With no more than a questioning drag of her tongue across the Queen’s own in warning, she bit down fiercely into the flesh of Her lip and jerked her head back to tear off a sizable chunk. The Splinter Queen wailed in disbelieving outrage. Marrow tilted her head back and laughed after forcefully swallowing Her lip, hot blood coating her curse-blackened teeth and smothering the blue expanse of her own lip.

 “Ahh, my Queen, this colour is most excellent indeed. A vast improvement.” Marrow could feel a festering sensation in some indeterminate part of her body. Where oh where might this new curse manifest?

 Marrow made to caress the bleeding Queen’s cheek before She shoved her aside. She landed in the dirt with a sharp hiss that bled into its own bark of laughter.

 “YOU WRETCH. Come to add to your menagerie of curses? You will rue your disrespect every time you set eyes upon none other than the Splinter Queen’s curse mark if I do not deign to slaughter you outright.”

 “I wouldn’t be so hasty,” began Marrow, her grin lopsided and childishly delighted, “Your flesh appears to have already left its mark. How curiously potent.” Indeed a dark crevice had appeared encircling the ring finger of her formerly only clean hand.

 “You–” the Splinter Queen cut Herself off abruptly, realising the gravity of Her error. Her shortsightedness. A realisation of exactly who this peculiar mortal might be and her rumoured immunities.

 “...are now immune to all your ill intentions,” she finished for the Queen. “And that of your entire sworn court.”

 “Nonsense! I have unsworn guests who would stumble over themselves to come to my aid.” She said with an edge of desperation. Her eyes raked across the assembled courtiers who appeared to be deliberately making an effort to avoid Her gaze as much as they avoided the accursed stranger.

 “You underestimate the number of other courts I have visited. The number of other fae Lords and Ladies, echoes of the Gnarled Empress, who privileged me with their curses.” Silence shackled the entirety of the Splinter Queen’s court at the utterance of the Empress’ name. Even a lesser name carried with it an immense power not so easily dispelled in all those fae who happen to hear it used in their presence. The courtiers stared at Marrow with an emotion that was a cousin to human hate, even such a base emotion was cut of entirely different cloth. She withstood their glares with her own unrefined grace. Curious thick globs of dark red blood spurted from the hollow of the Splinter Queen’s mouth, running down as far as Her bare breasts. What of Her face remained unbloodied was ghastly in its contortion.

 “You mean to–” Her voice cut itself off with a shrill pluck of strings. “How could a mortal stand to gain any advantage under so many curses?”

 Marrow could only smile. She always found it quaint how the fae she tricks insist upon asking her these questions. Always after establishing herself a lying thing. Not that the fae were inherently truthful, deception was as much of their nature as capriciousness. It was the mortal capacity to tell outright lies that always infuriated them. That she never passed up the opportunity to weaponize if only for her own pleasure. “I mean to do exactly as it seems I mean to do. I have simply far less to lose after the first curse.” She curtsied mockingly. “It is now that I must take my leave. You have my gratitude for your kiss. In another life, snared by other flesh, you would have been an unparalleled paramour.”

 Marrow turned before she could see the Splinter Queen muster a reaction. She had been played the fool plainly in front of the entirety of Her court. By a mere elderly mortal no less. Oh, how the courtiers will talk after this, she delighted to herself as she made her way back towards the lake portal. One step closer to the Empress, one step closer to avenging the woman I used to be. At that thought, Marrow nearly looked back to the Splinter Queen, to steal a final glance of a twisted incarnation of all that was taken from her when she was imprisoned. Instead she peered down at the glassy surface of the mirror lake and once more took in the woman she was. A lying creature of vengeance.