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

this matter with Rxa is dealt with, we should take the mortals to her.” Dtu sniffed the air. Someone was sneaking around the hedges. A mortal. He knew the man by his scent. Odd. “She will take care of them.”

“I agree. The first chance we get.” Kamira grinned. “Meanwhile, you seem to have a new little friend.”

“Why do you insist on taunting me at every turn?”

“Because it’s fun.” She sat up and jumped from the top of the statue. She landed gracefully and headed off down another path, her tail swishing. “I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to go locate my husband.”

Dtu stayed silent for a long moment, his ears twitching with the mortal man’s pathetic attempts to sneak around him. “You can come out, Jakob.”

There was a crunch of breaking sticks as the man fell over, Dtu having startled him out of hiding. He stood quickly, brushing the dirt and bits of leaves off himself. He looked as though he had been trying to sneak around inside the hedge. “Oh. You heard me?”

“And smelled you.” Dtu lowered himself down to rest on all fours, sitting like a canine might. Hopefully, it made him less alarming, even if Jakob seemed utterly unfazed by everything around him. “Why are you not inside?”

“I wanted to see if you were okay.” The young man smiled. His eyes shone with bright curiosity.

“Why would I not be?”

Jakob’s expression faltered. “I—I don’t know. I guess…all right, I’ll confess. I just wanted to talk to you.” He smiled again, moving toward the base of a statue near where Dtu was sitting, and plopped himself down.

“Why?”

Jakob’s warm smile flickered again. “Why not? You seem nice.”

“Hm.” He turned his head to look toward the estate. “It grows late.”

“I’ll go inside soon. Are you coming? I heard someone mention that your kind don’t like being indoors.”

“We don’t. And no. I will stay out here and keep watch. Sleeping outdoors does not trouble me.”

“Me neither. That’s good! I mean, I suppose it wouldn’t trouble you, since you’re a Varúlfur and all.” The mortal chuckled. “But something does seem wrong. Am I bothering you? I—I can go away.”

“No.” He sighed. “I dislike it here immensely. I dislike the master of this place even more so.”

“Why?”

“There is bad blood between myself and the King of Shadows.”

When Jakob stayed silent, clearly expecting more, Dtu wasn’t quite sure what to do. The mortal was watching him with that sweet, warm smile.

Dtu lowered his head to his paws and turned his attention fully to the man beside him. He was so unassuming. So friendly. So optimistic.

Everything Dtu wasn’t. Or at least, everything Dtu had ceased to be for a very, very long time. “It’s a boring story.”

“I doubt it. I’m not sure anything in this world of yours could be boring. I mean—I think I saw a flower with teeth just a minute ago. I think it was trying to eat me.” Jakob laughed.

“How can you be so cheerful in a situation like this?”

“I’ve spent my entire life knowing I was one second from dying. Every minute might be my last. Either from drengil or from other people’s cruelty. When you know that, and accept that, you can either be mad about it, or enjoy every second you have left. At least now my death’ll be something interesting.” He looked up at the stars and the moons, marveling at what he saw. “At least I’ll die to something more beautiful than a rotted corpse.”

“I wouldn’t count on that just yet. It seems your rotted corpses are trying to do the same to Under as they did to Gioll.”

“But my world didn’t have someone who could save it. We tried. Hunters like Ember, they tried their best. But it wasn’t enough.” Jakob was still smiling, and his blue eyes looked like the ocean in the dim light of the lanterns nearby. “We didn’t have anyone like you.”

“I cannot keep you safe.”

“I know that. I’m not saying you can.” Jakob turned his attention back to Dtu, and there was a tenderness in his expression that caught him off guard. “I’m saying you might try.”

Dtu shifted. “I will do all that I can.”

“That’s all anybody can ask.” Jakob shrugged. “Now, tell me this boring story of yours. Why do you and the King of Shadows hate each other?”

“He does not hate me. I do not think so, anyway. No more than he despises everyone around him, save his lover.” Dtu shut his eyes. From Jakob’s perspective, the green flames that were the only things visible in his empty eye sockets simply blinked out.

It was easier to picture his memories that way.

“There has never been any love lost between he and I. He is egotistical, grandiose, and sought to reshape the world to his own desires. Nearly two thousand years ago now, he began a war. A great and terrible war that divided us and pitted the houses against each other. It was all a ruse. It was all so that he could have the opportunity to take Qta, the King of Dreams, as his prisoner. He brutally tortured Qta. Broke his mind, his body, and his soul. And then, when nothing was left of his victim, murdered him.”

“Oh…I…I’m so sorry.”

Dtu continued. “In doing so, he doomed our world. Each of the houses must be served by a royal, or else the balance of Under is upended. Without a King of Dreams, the void came to crush us all. And it nearly did. Only at the last second did the Ancients see fit to replace Qta.”

“With who?”

“Lydia. Aon’s lover.” He couldn’t keep the growl out of his voice. “The fallout of her arrival nearly destroyed the world again. Rxa, rightfully suspecting Lydia to be an abomination and a work of Aon’s manipulation, bound her in chains and sent her to the bottom of the lake of blood where the Ancients were imprisoned. To free her, Aon would have to murder Rxa and free the Ancients. And out of love