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

The man wailed and began to cry. “Please, please, no…”

“Miss Ember?”

She gestured, telling Lyon to wait, before taking the man’s hand in hers and holding it. “May the Grandfather find and keep you in the land of the dead.”

“This isn’t my fault,” the man argued. As if she were death itself and could be convinced to leave him alone. “I’ve been so careful. And then—and then the world fell—and I don’t know where I am, and—”

“It’s all right. I understand.” She tried to soothe him. She knew, like everything else she did, it was doomed to failure. But it was her duty, all the same. “This isn’t your fault, you’re right. But I can’t stop the poison. You know what comes next.”

The man wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I don’t—I don’t want to die.”

Lyon took a small step forward. “Miss Ember…?”

“The bites were too deep. The poison has already made its way to his heart. It’ll infest his brain soon. He’ll be dead in fifteen, twenty minutes. An hour, tops. And when he dies, he’ll get back up from the ground and become one of the creatures that are overtaking your world.” She stared down at the bandage on her hand, watching the red seep through the cloth. “I will put my blade through his brain and ensure that it doesn’t happen.” She kept her voice even, trying not to reveal how badly she wanted to scream.

“I don’t want—I don’t want to die, please,” the man whimpered.

“I am sorry I failed you, brother…forgive me.” She shut her eyes.

She braced herself to listen to him argue about how they could save him. But instead, there was a crunch from beside her. She turned to see Lyon standing over the body, having twisted the man’s head around to the side, snapping his neck. He crushed the man’s skull in the same fashion that he did the drengil lying dead in the dirt a few feet away.

Now they were all one and the same. Rotting meat.

Gesturing a gold claw in a strange pattern over the corpse, Lyon whispered something to the man’s body. She couldn’t quite catch what it was, but she knew the intent. A prayer. He is their equivalent of a priest.

She said her own quiet prayer that the man might find his rest, along with those who had mindlessly been responsible for his death.

Lyon stood, his golden armor disappearing from his arms, shimmering into nothingness like it was never there. She would love to marvel over the display of magic—it really was incredible—but it was outweighed by her need to get the fuck away from what had just happened.

Walking to Cricket, she patted the neck of the purple insect-horse. “Good job with the drengil. I like having a killer horse around, I think.”

The horse puffed and nudged her shoulder with his nose.

Smiling, she plucked a piece of ripped fabric from his horn. It must have come from the drengil he had rammed into. Even their horses were deadly. Suddenly, with no small amount of dread, she pondered what an insect-horse in a world of monsters actually ate.

He seemed a little too practiced at killing.

“Miss Ember?” Lyon interrupted. “What…may I ask, just happened?”

“We’ll talk while we ride.” She climbed up onto Cricket’s back. “The smell of blood might attract more of them.”

Lyon obeyed without comment, and they rode in silence for a few moments.

“Go on.” Ember sighed. “Go ahead and ask. I’ve pestered you with enough questions.”

“What did I just witness?”

“You mean when I failed in trying to save him?” She gave up trying to hide her bitterness.

Lyon rode up closer to her. “Your blood is the cure for the disease.”

“Yeah.” She shut her eyes. “If I get there early enough, I can stop the corruption of someone’s body by the poison.”

“Why have you not mentioned this earlier?”

“It isn’t really important since your kind can’t be poisoned without your face marks—”

“Soulmarks.”

“—being removed first.” She smirked at his patient correction. He must be used to it. If Under only took people from other worlds, they must be accustomed to explaining things to the newcomers.

“How are you able to do this?”

She pointed at her black and white split hair. “This isn’t exactly natural, is it?”

“I did not know what to think, as you are from another world. Inhuman colorings are not so uncommon here in Under. Someday soon, you’ll meet my wife. Then you’ll understand.”

“That’s fair.” She found herself smiling faintly at the idea of meeting Lyon’s wife. She had no idea what to expect. “Well…hunters are inoculated against the disease. I cannot become a drengil, even after death. Moreover, my blood works as a sort of…antivirus if given to the ill early enough in the process. It became harder and harder for our scientists to create the serum as time went on, but it was still possible. It has odd effects. At least only my hair changed colors.” She wrinkled her nose. “Some hunters were not so lucky—skin discoloration, blindness, hearing loss, loss of taste, and so on.”

“Why simply the hunters? Why not cure your world?”

“The chance of surviving the serum is less than half. Someone is more likely to become one of the monsters than to become immune to it. Also…” She paused. It was personal, but what was the harm in saying it? “Also, in all cases, we are rendered sterile. If we were to cure the world with the serum, we would also ensure our own downfall. My world—my home—was as good as dead long before I came into it.”

“I see…” The look on his face was one of pure sympathy and sadness. She wondered if that was why he always looked so forlorn. If he was constantly shouldering the weight of the pain of those around him. He reached out and placed his hand on her arm. “Perhaps this place could be your home.”

“If I survive.” But she smiled at him all the same. “A mortal in a world of hungry immortals.”

He winced. “Yes,