Cursed by Fire by Jacquelyn Frank

gray, the veil on it longer than that on the previous one, the stiff netting covering the entire left side of her face. She had grownquite used to seeing the world through the threads of a veil and would probably feel naked without it. It might be considered silly, she supposed. Everyone knew what was hiding beneath the camouflage. Everyone knew she was burned and scarred, and ugly because of it.
    But … but that man. That strange and strong man who had defeated the brute in the shivov fight, who had taken a purse but not the humiliating kiss that Grannish had offered as a prize … In spite of his rejecting the kiss, he had somehow made her feel as though she were … beautiful.
    He had no courtly manners, had no grasping desires. And if she allowed herself to think it, it was possible he had joined the shivov fight … 
for her
. Simply so she would not have to kiss a pig of a man.
    “Foolish girl.” She tsked to her reflection. “Romanticizing a man covered in mud.”
    But he had not been just any man. He was big, as tall as any man she’d ever seen, towering above them all. He’d had tremendous muscle definition underneath all that mud plastered to his skin. She found herself eager to see what was underneath the crust of it. As it was, two things had stood out to her. One, that he had eyes as green as the greenest clover in the fields. She had never seen such a green on a person before. Her people, they were dark of hair and dark of eye. She was one of the few in the city with eyes of blue, and she had them only because her mother had come from a land apart from this one. But her mother was dead. Her eldest brother, also blue of eye, was dead. Now only she remained, her youngest brother dark-eyed like their father, and if the trend continued, he too would soon be dead. It seemed she was cursed with fine health, she thought fatalistically.
    The other thing she found startling about the man were his burns. She had never met anyone of such strengthand vitality before, and somehow it was as though his burns did not even exist for him. He had not let them hinder him. She couldn’t tell just how extensive his burning had been—she hoped to see more clearly once he was divested of all that mud—but somehow … with those eyes and that full head of dark hair, he was still amazingly handsome. More so than Grannish, that was certain. Grannish had a narrow sort of pinched look about him, as though he were constantly smelling something that was a little bit off.
    Then again, compared to Grannish she would find anyone to be more handsome, possibly even that pig at the shivov fights. Her vision was colored by contempt for the jenden. Whether it was deserved or not, whether it was fair or not, she hardly even knew anymore. The whole business had made her weary and endlessly unhappy. She had come to realize her future was a bleak one unless something extraordinary happened. The future was bleak for them all unless something extraordinary happened.
    She refused to dwell on that just then. She had found a diversion in this man and she was determined to use it to its fullest extent. She needed some activity, some excitement for her mind. Even if it was just an exercise in curiosity, it was a distraction from the painful responsibilities of her life.
    “Hanit, color my lips. I wish for them to stand out.”
    Hanit stood and blinked for a moment, looking as though she were unsure she had heard her mistress correctly. That made some sense of course. Hanit had been trained to play down anything and everything that might draw attention to her mistress’s face. Selinda could not have explained the desire even if the pagette had found the voice to question it. Instead Hanit went in search of a coloring pot and brush, appearing with them shortly and proceeding to paint her mistress’s lips the colors ofthe setting sun, from blue to lavender to violet. Selinda’s mouth glistened with color.
    “A beautiful job,” Selinda