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

could understand her. Why make him deal with her tugging on ropes attached to his head? “Could you go ahead and follow Lyon?”

The King of Blood was a long way down the road already. He hadn’t once glanced back to see if she was following him.

Cricket whinnied again, and Ember screamed as he took off unexpectedly. She grabbed hold of his carapace as he “galloped” down the road toward Lyon. She clung on for dear life, flattening herself as low as she could, and prayed she didn’t fall off.

Meanwhile, the horse seemed to be overjoyed. He slowed to a happy prance and then a trot as they grew closer to Lyon, and finally let it turn into a walk as they fell into pace beside the man in white.

He took one look at her and laughed. “First time on a horse?”

“First time on a giant insect.” She glared at him. Sitting up, she put her hair back into a ponytail and straightened her clothing. “You creatures don’t like to warn me when you’re going to randomly take off or burst into bats.”

Cricket shook his head, clearly laughing at her again.

“I get it. It’s fun to tease the inexperienced one. Just don’t make a habit out of it.” She reached down and petted the mane of strange, dark purple hair that grew from the crest of his neck like a normal horse.

“Ah. You’ve already pieced together that they can understand you?”

“Wasn’t hard.”

“You’d be amazed.” Lyon smirked. “Many people go hundreds of years of life without discerning that fact.”

“I tend to talk to inanimate objects and animals.” She shrugged. “They were the only things I had to talk to for the past few years. When I asked Cricket a question and he answered, it was pretty easy to sort it out. How is it that they can understand us? Magic?”

Lyon looked away his expression troubled again. “Yes. In a manner of speaking.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” She leaned forward to try to keep eye contact with him.

“Nothing important, I promise you.” He waved off her concern. “I’ll tell you when we reach our destination.”

“Which is where, exactly? You never did really tell me.” She paused. “Although I guess it doesn’t really matter when I don’t know where we are. Or who anybody is. Or how anything works. I guess you could tell me we were going to the moon and it’d be all the same to me.” She chuckled. “Still nice to know, I guess.”

“We are going to the estate of another royal.” Lyon’s tone had grown grim again. “We are going to meet with Aon, the King of Shadows.”

15

Lydia plucked another shard of glass out of Aon’s chest and dropped it into the porcelain plate he was holding with a quiet tink.

“Ow.”

Tink.

“Ow.”

Tink.

“Ow.”

She rolled her eyes. “Stop being dramatic.”

“You’re terrible at this. Weren’t you a nurse?”

“I was a forensic autopsy technician.”

“Ah, yes, I remember now. And your lack of precision makes much more sense.”

She pulled another piece of glass from his chest with the tweezers. It was a long thin one, and she made sure to take her time with it and glared at his metal masked face the entire time.

He hissed in pain. “Point taken, my dear. Do not taunt the surgeon at work.” He leaned his head back against the pillows of the lounge in his library.

“You’re just grumpy you were under that chandelier when everything dropped.” She smirked. “And you’re taking it out on me.” She plucked another piece of glass out of his chest and dropped it into the plate.

“I dislike being made a fool.”

“The chandelier wasn’t aiming for you.”

“Wasn’t it, though?” Tink. He growled. “Ow.”

She laughed and leaned forward to place a kiss against the smooth metal cheek of his mask. “Cheer up. I’m almost done.”

“I am also ‘grumpy’ because there has been a cosmic upset in our world, and I lost precious time discerning what had transpired when I was crushed to death underneath the weight of my own décor.” He began tapping the pointed nails of his black metal claw on the back of the wood trim of the sofa, pinky to pointer, over and over again. The telltale sign of an irritated King of Shadows.

Lydia always found the fact that he kept his metal claw—a prosthetic to replace his missing hand—utterly fascinating. And it was the single thing that, against all proof to the contrary, showed that he had regret for what had happened four hundred years ago. Or that he ever felt any regret for anything at all.

He claimed that he kept it because he enjoyed the certain something that having a metal claw for a hand gave his appearance. But she knew he carried the scar of Edu’s death. He would never admit to it, but she knew.

She saw it in his quiet moments. She knew how to read him, even when he wore his mask. Four hundred years of being with someone would do that. They couldn’t ever be officially married, but if the two of them weren’t husband and wife, she didn’t know who was.

“What?” He lifted his head to look at her. “Are you done?”

“No. Just thinking.” She went back to carefully plucking the glass out of his chest. The chandelier that had hit him had been an enormous, elegant piece made of cast iron and a great deal of stained glass. Now, much of that stained glass found itself embedded in Aon’s chest and arm. She had already plucked the biggest pieces out. He’d heal eventually, but it would take much longer and be far more annoying if all the glass bits were still in him when it happened.

“You have that smile on your face again.” He tilted his head, the dark tendrils of his hair falling along the equally black mask he wore. “What are you thinking on?”

“You. Us.”

“Are you worried?”

“About what?”

“That the world seemingly toppled. That we cannot fold through space. Indeed, that much of my magic seems unstable at best, unworkable at worst.”

“Mine seems