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

well. Forgive me. I am frequently told I am terrible at platitudes.”

She chuckled. “No, thank you. I appreciate it. And from what I’ve seen of your world, it’s beautiful. Eerie, terrifying, but beautiful.” She gestured to the forest. “Too bad our disease has come to ruin your world as well.”

“We will recover. We will deal with this catastrophe, and we will move on. It will not be the first time Under has come back from the brink of extinction. I myself have witnessed Armageddon at least twice. This will be my third.” He smirked at her.

“You have me beat! And I thought witnessing the end of the world twice was impressive.” She laughed. “You have my life story. Now tell me yours. Someone who has survived two apocalypses to greet a third must have something interesting to say.”

“I suppose. I do not much speak about myself. It is not in my nature. But I will do what I can to try. I apologize, it might be quite long. My wife quite frequently reminds me that I am incapable of summarizing anything.”

“I love stories. The longer, the better. And besides, it seems like we have some time to kill.” She cast him another warm smile.

“Indeed, we do.” He smiled back at her.

Hope once more swelled in her heart. Hope that this world might survive the destruction her world had brought to it. Hope that the drengil might be defeated by these powerful creatures that called Under home.

Hope that she might find survival.

And worse yet, hope that she might find something more than survival.

Because in the stoic, tall, inhuman, dangerous creature riding the insect-horse beside her in the dark nightmare forest filled with monsters the likes of which she could never have possibly imagined…

She might have found a friend.

17

“And that is it. As much as I can remember.”

Lyon despised talking about himself. He despised talking in general. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried to avoid either, he inevitably found himself suffering through both. And although he had managed to traverse the obstacles this time without making a fool of himself, he still felt embarrassed.

And Ember, the strange and tragic girl from another world, hung on his every word. Her dark eyes were wide and glittered in fascination. She listened to his memories of serving in the Roman army. Of the shattered glimpses he could recall of a wife and son who were now long dead. He spoke of his conversion to an upstart religion that followed a prophet that would later come to be seen as a son of god, and how not long after he had converted, a creature he had believed to be an angel had appeared and taken him away.

Now, he knew that angel had been Rxa.

But at the time, it had been quite the spectacular moment.

Lyon would always sympathize deeply with those who found themselves a little confused and overwhelmed upon arriving in Under.

He had expected Ember to focus on his human life, like all others seemed to wish to do when he allowed them to broach the topic. Instead, she seemed far more intrigued by his life after arriving in Under.

It had taken the better part of an hour, but he finally gave her as much of a summary of his life as he was capable. She sat there in silence for a long minute, turning it all over in her mind. He waited patiently for her to dredge up questions for details about the Great War that nearly ended their world, or the Rise of the Ancients that had nearly done the same.

But she was an unusual creature.

It seemed she preferred to focus on the logistics.

“Wait. Wait. This ‘Ceremony of the Fall’ you talked about when you make people like you. You throw people into a lake?” She had her face scrunched up on one side, wrinkling her nose as she looked at him in disgust and disbelief.

“No, no.” He laughed. “The phrase ‘fall’ is merely rhetorical, I assure you.”

“But you…get into the water as a mortal, and come out like that?” She gestured at his face.

“More or less, yes.”

She paused for a moment. “Where do I sign up?”

Lyon laughed again. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for individuals to decide that a new life was preferable to their old ones. Ember certainly had an excuse. “Unfortunately, it is not so simple. You must be marked by the Ancients before you enter the pool. Otherwise, exposure to the blood of the Ancients is deadly.”

“The pool is filled with their blood?”

“They reside at the bottom of the lake beneath the cathedral, yes. For endless years, they were free and ruled the world. But the kings and queens of old turned on the Ancients and imprisoned them. Bound them in chains at the bottom of the lake where they remained for five thousand years. It was Rxa who held them there. He was their greatest devotee, their most faithful son, and the keeper of their chains. He truly was their archangel.”

“What’s an archangel?”

Lyon blinked, and then remembered she came from another world. “I will give you an unabashed simplification, as they are symbols used in religion, and any such topic is fraught with disagreements.”

She chuckled. “Fair enough.”

“An angel is a being of pure light. A blessed creature of faith. Often depicted with wings, they are seen as largely benevolent creatures. When they are not, it is because they have been tasked by God to be so.”

Ember frowned. “Rxa didn’t seem so angelic to me.”

“I fear what death has done to him.”

“I used to wish that Ash would come back. Now that I see what I was praying for, I don’t think I would want that for anyone.”

Lyon smiled thoughtfully at the young woman. “Then you are wise, Miss Em—”

He never finished his sentence. Instead, his words ended in a grunt as something tackled him from the back of his horse, sending him crashing painfully to the ground with the weight of his attacker on top of