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

But weird.” She turned to Cricket. “But I suppose being an ancient, inhuman, powerful immortal would do that to you.” She paused, studying the insect-horse that was still contentedly chewing on her. “Are you sure? You sure you want to keep following me around?”

Cricket let go of her hair to nod. She appreciated his forethought. She didn’t really much want to have her hair yanked.

“You know I’m probably going to die soon, right?”

Cricket stomped the ground with one of his hooves, and then nodded, if smaller than the first time.

“All right. Well…fine. As long as we have an understanding.” She rested her forehead against the horse’s cheek. “I’m still just…this is all so much in such a short span of time. My world is gone. Everything I’ve ever known is gone. Magic is real…floating blue naked women are real. Werewolves are real. And you’re real.” She shut her eyes. “I’m holding on by a thread. But I guess that’s all I’ve ever had—a single thread.”

Cricket nudged her shoulder, letting out a loud puff of air through his nose.

“We should go. Before we get left behind.” She patted his neck. “But this comes off, right here and now.” She removed his bit and bridle and tossed them aside. “We go together. You aren’t my slave.” She climbed up onto his back. “And thank you, friend. Let’s go get Maverick before his feet fall off.”

She was answered by a loud whinny and a sudden burst of speed as Cricket, quite happily, charged through the group to catch up with the others. Ember did her best not to scream.

And she mostly succeeded.

“What in the name of the void?”

Lydia walked up to the window next to Aon and looked out at the yard of his estate. And blinked. “Oh. Um. Shit.”

Streaming out of the woods and along the road that emptied into the front grounds of Aon’s home were people. A lot of people. She could recognize Dtu from a distance, and several of his other shifters that were in their full forms.

But following along with them were figures huddled together as they moved. They were hard to see clearly in the darkness.

Aon let out a long, disgruntled sigh. “We have guests.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. Aon had packed so much loathing into that one word, it might as well have been a dead rat he dropped onto the carpet. “Fine. I’ll go say hello.”

“What? No. They are uninvited. Under no circumstances should you greet them.” Aon turned to face her. “Dtu and his ilk do not enjoy being indoors, and as for the rest, I do not know who they are. I am under no requirement to be hospitable to them.”

She raised her eyebrow at him.

Silence ensued as they stared at each other.

“The world fell. They might know what’s happened.” She opened the window. It split in the middle, the two panes swinging outward on hinges. “I’m going to go say hi. You can stay here or not.” She climbed up onto the jamb and jumped out the window without another word.

The woods slowly turned to a field. The road they were riding on transitioned from wilderness into a huge estate. Grass stretched in two directions, marked with winding stone walls and oddly shaped hedges. And at the end of the road, she saw an enormous building. Light shone from the windows, glittering in the darkness of the constant night.

“Where are we?” She turned her head to ask Maverick, still mounted behind her.

“Aon’s estate,” he replied with no small amount of dread. “The home of the King of Shadows.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Pray to your gods that you don’t have to stay here long.”

“Why? I—” Ember watched in horror as a creature unlike anything she had ever seen soared up into the air. It was an enormous, winged snake, as far as she could tell. Turquoise wings with glowing feathers filled the night sky. With each flap of its powerful wings, it left swirls of light like the auroras she had seen in the winter. It had seemingly come from the building itself, somehow.

Its face was a ghastly, glowing white skull. Its body was black, only discernible against the sky because of the absence of visible stars. And at the end of its long, tapered tail, was another tuft of those glowing turquoise feathers.

She shrank down in fear, unconsciously leaning back against Maverick.

“Oh, thank the Ancients.” The Elder of Words let out a sigh of relief. “We might not all be dead before the morning.”

“What—what do you mean? What is that thing?” She couldn’t take her eyes off the creature that flew over them, swirling slowly. The other survivors of Gioll screamed and cowered together. A few tried to bolt back into the woods but were stopped by Dtu’s people. The strange shapeshifters seemed to be accustomed to playing guardians and shepherds at the same time.

They’re used to hunting and rounding up mortals. Just not in their own world.

The snake flew lower before landing on the road some distance away from them all. The creature was easily two hundred feet long, and the tips of its wings acted like claws, like a great wyvern, as it looked down at them. More glowing feathers flowed from its head like a mane behind its glowing, ghastly skull.

“That, my dear mortal, might be the single reason you and your kind survive our visit to this place.” Maverick patted her on the shoulder and then dismounted Cricket. “Come along.”

Several others were already heading toward the snake. Dtu, Ini, and Lyon led the way. “I…um…” Just because the royals of Under didn’t view the snake as a threat didn’t mean it wasn’t to her. “It…what is it?” She hopped off Cricket all the same and kept her hand on her new knife as she walked along behind the Elder of Words.

Cricket followed her anyway.

She watched in astonishment as the giant snake seemed to…shrink. In a matter of seconds and a small burst of turquoise light, the snake was