Mask of Poison (Fall of Under Book 1) by Kathryn Kingsley (great novels to read txt) 📕

The woman was already dead. Six corpses had made quick work of her. One was already bent over her face, eagerly eating the tender parts there.

“By the Ancients,” someone gasped. It might have been Ini.

Ember didn’t turn to see. She rammed the end of her spear through the head of the corpse that was devouring the woman’s face. It fell to the side, twitched, and lay still. The other drengil didn’t look up or respond to the threat. They only had one goal—one purpose—and no care for their own well-being or those of their “compatriots.”

A second one fell to her spear a moment later. Another blow through the skull. Bone shattered and fragmented. Dark liquid poured from the hole as she yanked the metal rod back out of its head.

The third fell beside her, but not by her hand. Its head was ripped clean from the neck and discarded quickly from a golden and armored claw.

Lyon.

Armor—elegant and vicious at the same time—had appeared over both his arms. The fingers of each ended in long, pointed, talon-like blades. Blood dripped from the digits of his right hand. He reached down and picked up another one of the drengil by the skull. He crushed it easily.

The sound of death had long since ceased to make her ill. Which was good. Because that was a pretty vile one.

The fifth fell to her spear. The last again to Lyon.

The puddles of blood, some darkened and coagulated and some fresh, looked out of place against the bluish-white marble. Lyon’s armor vanished, shimmering and disappearing as if it had never been there.

Magic. Real magic. It was just one more impossibility to put on the list of what she had seen in the past few hours. It was hard to be impressed with Ini floating a few feet away, a hand pressed to the painted lips of her full mask.

Maverick knelt near the victim’s head. He turned her face from one side to the other and sighed. “Her marks were destroyed.”

Ini wailed and flew into Lyon’s arms. The tall, pale man comforted her, looking for all the world like one of the statues that lined the walls.

“That means she can’t come back like the rest of you can?” Ember asked Maverick quietly.

The man in gray nodded solemnly. “She is truly dead.”

Ember sighed. She knelt next to the woman’s body, careful to avoid the puddle of blood. She placed her hand to her heart in salute to the dead. “Megir thu taka thetti gomlu guthaenum ieth vild theirra.”

“What did you say?” Lyon asked.

“May you join the old gods in your rest.” She stood from the ground and pulled a cloth from her belt to wipe the gore from her metal spear. “My gods are not here, nor are they yours... It’s a foolish thing to say. But it’s an old tradition.”

“It is appreciated all the same.” Lyon smiled at her gently. “These are the drengil of your world?”

Ember nodded.

“Fantastic.” Maverick stood from the ground and pulled a square of cloth from his breast pocket and began to clean his hands. “So, your new friend has not come alone, I see?”

“And that is not all that has come with her,” Lyon explained. “There is…a new altar in the sanctuary of the cathedral.”

Silence.

Maverick just stared.

Ini was the first to respond. She reached up a hand and placed it on his cheek. “By the Ancients…you are not lying. An eighth altar? How—but how?” She sounded afraid.

“I do not know.” Lyon took Ini’s hand and clasped it in a way that was meant to be comforting.

She’s a queen—an ancient, powerful creature—and she’s afraid? Ember chewed her lip and took a step back from the pile of bodies. There was a crowd forming. A dozen or so people stood nearby, whispering to each other nervously.

“I wish to see this new altar,” Maverick folded his square of fabric meticulously and tucked it back into his suit pocket. He paused. “Wait. If there is an additional altar, that means there must be an additional royal.”

“I suppose so,” Lyon answered. “Unless the position remains vacant, and therefore the void has returned.”

Maverick grunted and rubbed his fingers over the part of his forehead that was unobscured by his mask. “Fantastic,” he repeated. “Another royal. Another headache to deal with.”

“I take exception to that.” The pale blood-drinker smirked.

“I am sure you do.” The scientist fought a smile and lost. “That is the point.”

Ah. They banter. I get it. There was an odd comfort in seeing friendships between the strangers into whose presence she’d been dropped. It meant that they were more than the mindless corpses who lay crumpled at their feet.

But there was still one thing she had to do. “Before…um.” Ember sighed. “I’m sorry to say this. But we must either remove the head of the woman or put a hole through her brain. If we don’t, she’ll…rise as one of them.”

“That isn’t possible, is it?” Ini floated back into the air, her hair swirling around her. “The Ancients wouldn’t allow such a corruption to take—”

The dead woman sat up. She bared her teeth and hissed loudly. She reached her bloody, chewed-on hands toward them.

Ini sighed. “Never mind.”

Blam!

Ember jumped several inches in the air, startled by the sudden noise. In the same moment, a jagged and bloody circle appeared in the woman’s head. She crumpled back to the floor.

Maverick was to blame. A pistol was in his hand. The casing fell to the marble with a clatter. He waited a moment before tucking it back into a holster on the inside of his coat. “Pardon the noise.”

Ember fought the urge to lecture Maverick about creating noise and wasting ammunition on a single drengil when a spear or a knife would be a far more effective method of dealing with it. But then she reminded herself that this was not Gioll.

“I do hate that you carry that thing,” Ini whined. “It’s so terrible!”

“Yes, yes. It goes against our culture. I understand. But since the