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

off her hand. It was thick and hot. She might have been sick if adrenaline hadn’t been pounding through her system.

“What do you want, Rxa?” Lyon reached out a golden claw and pushed Ember behind him. “Why are you doing this?”

“To destroy Under and everything in it. And now I have an army to do so.” Rxa looked around him at the pile of bodies. “Hey, you killed Fred! Poor Fred. Oh, well. That’s all right. I have a lot more where he came from.”

“Rxa, you have to stop all this carnage. Call off your creatures. Let me take you to the Great Hall. Ini and I can—”

“Ini! How is my wonderful floating elf? How is my charming, beautiful, sexy Queen of Fate? Do you think she could tell me why this is happening? Why the Ancients saw fit to do this to me? To torture me even further?” Rxa growled. “Or does she not know the answer either?”

“Rxa, please. I know this seems like torture, but the Ancients—”

“What else could this be?” Rxa began to unwrap the bandages on one of his arms, hissing as he pulled the cotton from the open wounds. Then he ripped at the bandages covering his chest. He exposed raw flesh, bone, and pulsing organs. Ember covered her mouth with her clean hand.

His hiss turned into a wail as he ripped the cotton loose from where it had healed over. Blood, black as pitch and shining yellow in the streetlamps, dripped to the cobblestones beneath him. His voice cracked from the agony. “What else is this but torture? Why have they done this to me? Look at me, Lyon!”

For the first time, Ember was glad the drengil didn’t feel pain.

Because now she knew what it looked like when they did.

Ember cringed in sympathy as he revealed just how bad his injuries were. Tears stung her eyes. “You poor man…” She didn’t realize she had spoken until she noticed both Lyon and Rxa were looking at her.

After a long pause, Rxa spoke again, and his voice was once again gentle. “Come here, little dove.” Rxa reached a hand to her as he stepped forward. “I have more questions for you. I want to know about this world of yours and these drengil that plagued you. I can keep you safe. Come to me.”

“No. She will go nowhere with you.” Lyon struck his arm out to block his path to her. Not like she had any intention of taking Rxa up on his offer.

Rxa snarled, and his hands turned into fists. “What is this to be, then? Another fight where neither of us wins? My corpses will shortly overtake this city, and all those they’ve killed will fight in my army. Your only hope is to evacuate with whatever survivors you can wrangle up. You cannot beat me.”

“Perhaps not here, perhaps not now. But we will stop you, Rxa. Mark me.” The armor on Lyon’s arm disappeared, and he took Ember’s hand and pulled her closer to him.

“We’re not done, Ember. We’ll talk again real soon. I promise.” Rxa chuckled and waved a bony hand at her. “Ta-ta for now, little dove.”

What was he talking about? They were still standing in the middle of—

Lyon exploded into a swarm of white bats.

And so did she.

Ember might have screamed.

14

Rxa hummed as he sat on the edge of the stone planter that ringed a large tree in the street. He kicked his feet idly. “Alas, poor Fred! I knew him well, Horatio.” He giggled as he held up the skull in his hand. It was dripping weird, murky gloop out of the spine. It had ceased to be blood a long time ago, and now was simply some kind of liquified organic material.

It also smelled terrible.

Rxa sighed and hurled the head away. It hit the wall with a quiet thump and rolled along the sidewalk into a gutter. “Oh, well.”

Maybe it wasn’t the head that smelled terrible. Maybe it was him. He sniffed his arm and wheezed. “No wonder she didn’t like me!” He frowned. Or he tried, anyway. He still wasn’t sure that he fully owned lips. He owned enough to talk, but they felt…sticky.

Could have been the smell that scared her off.

Could have been the blood.

The open wounds.

The army of mindless, shambling undead.

He sighed again, more wistfully than the first, and began to walk up the street. “You, there—Fred Two. Find me somebody to eat. Someone fresh and alive.” He gestured a hand aimlessly at the pack of corpses next to him. The ones on the ground that Lyon had re-killed stayed re-dead, but there were plenty more where that came from.

He knew this because he could sense them. Little by little, his head was starting to clear. Nothing made sense—things were still jumbled up like a bad jigsaw puzzle. But at least he could see the images on all the little pieces, even if he had no idea what order to put them in.

He suspected they were from all different puzzles.

Knowledge was buzzing around in his head that he didn’t remember having before. I was dead. I was in the Pool of the Ancients. Who knows what kind of shit they used to put me back together?

“Maybe you could have included the rest of my organs?” He was shouting at the sky. He knew it was pointless. But he didn’t care. “And what the fuck is a meme, anyway?” With a grunt, he shook his head. He didn’t expect an answer.

The Ancients never talked to him. Not once, in all his years. No matter how hard he prayed. No matter how devoted he was to them. He was never blessed to hear their voice. He assumed it had been because they wished to protect his sanity. He had seen what happened to all the Oracles who had come and gone through the House of Fate. They never lasted long, carrying the burden of the visions the Ancients gifted their Oracle.

But now he knew it was