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

He raised his hand to try to calm her. “It is not as it sounds. Our gods—the Ancients—mark those who are meant to come with us. We gather them and induct them into our society. They become as we are.” He motioned to the marks on his face. “We are given a link to the power of the Ancients. That is what keeps us immortal.”

“Immortal…you can’t die.”

“Oh, we can. But one must remove the marks first. That is why some of us wear masks, as you likely noticed.” He shut his eyes as he talked. He looked even more like a statue. “Time was once that we were split evenly in two castes—those with masks and those without. The more marks one bore on one’s face, the more mask one was gifted to protect it. Kings and queens wore full masks.”

“You said you were a king. You aren’t wearing a full mask.”

“Indeed.” He smirked and opened his eyes to watch her again. “I never much cared for them, and it has become…more acceptable as of late to be seen without them. Many now choose to go without a mask as a sign of familiarity and openness to those around them.”

“I…see.” No, she didn’t. But she put it on the list of things that didn’t make sense today. “More marks, more power…more mask. Got it. I think.”

“The marks come in seven colors, as well. White, like mine. The House of Fate, who call the Great Hall their home, wear blue.”

Seven colors. She tilted her head curiously. “White, black, green, red, blue, purple, turquoise?”

“Indeed. How did you know?”

“The statues in the cathedral. Those are…those are your gods? The Ancients?”

He smiled, as if he were proud of her. Or impressed. She didn’t know what to make of either. “Yes. Indeed.”

I don’t think I much like the look of your gods. “But you aren’t right. There are eight, aren’t there? Yellow, as well.”

His expression fell. And she watched as his eyes flickered with something like uncertainty—or fear. “Yes…that is why we must go to the Great Hall. That statue was not there this morning. I fear it arrived precisely when you did.”

She remembered that terrible statue with the rotted flesh. She might not recognize the face of the god, but she was worried she might recognize what it represented. She chugged the remainder of the tea, and more importantly, the honey and alcohol. “Let’s go.”

“Pardon?”

“I don’t like sitting around.” She stood and slung her spear over her shoulder with the leather strap that attached to the body of it. “If my arrival is connected to that statue, and where we’re going might have answers to that…then I want to know those answers, too.” I might not have fallen from one world to another alone.

“Good. Come.” Lyon stood, and she fought the urge to shrink away from him. The man was so freakishly tall. Easily well over six and a half feet. He might be pushing seven. He strolled past her and, after opening the door, motioned for her to follow.

But something was nagging her as she trailed him down the dark hallway.

What could possibly make an immortal, inhuman man who is twenty-three hundred years old afraid?

Why do I get the feeling I’m going to find out?

Lyon could not help but glance behind him from time to time. Not only because he was utterly convinced the young woman would bolt from his side at any moment, but because he also found her confounding.

She was so afraid, but she was the one who declared they would go to the Great Hall, and they would do so immediately. She was accustomed to working through terror. It was clear—painfully and personally so—that she was the kind of person to “shoot first, ask questions later.”

But why? What had made her like that?

Every unexpected sound sent her hand to her knife. Her gaze darted this way and that. She was a frightened deer, but she was not cowering. She was not weeping in the corner, or insisting that what had transpired was impossible, and could not be, and this was all a dream.

The Ancients knew how many times he had heard that in his life. As the King of Blood, as the high priest of the Ancients, it was his duty to greet the new marked souls from Earth. He had met, and consoled, and convinced many a terrified mortal that Under was now their home.

They reacted in every possible way a person could. Defiance, denial, anger, sorrow, violence…and all born from fear.

But Ember seemed to take each new impossibility and throw it behind her in order to move on to the next, as though fear were an old friend.

It is as if everything that does not mean to kill her is not important. “Miss Ember?”

“Hm?” She was back to clinging to the leather strap of her spear. It was more of a metal rod, sharpened at both ends, than anything else. It looked crudely made, but well cared for.

“Might I ask you a question?”

“Sure. Don’t see why not.” As they walked past another intersection of hallways, she grabbed the handle of her knife upon seeing a few people gathered there, talking.

“Was your world a dangerous one?” He slowed his steps to walk beside her. Oft, he forgot how long his legs were. Kamira was fond of complaining over that fact.

For the first time, he saw an expression on the young woman’s face that was not fear. And it was sadness. But it was the kind of grief that had grown hard with time. She could not be barely more than twenty years old, but he saw in her the weight of many years or horror lived in that short time, like a soldier who had fought too long on the front lines.

She nodded once, curtly.

“Will you tell me about it?”

She opened her mouth, as if she were going to say no, before shutting it. After a pause, she shrugged. Her hand left