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

and a slit in the surface that ran down his cheek from the bottom of the circle. But other than that, nothing.

He didn’t speak.

Nor did he take Jakob’s offered hand.

Jakob smiled and lowered his hand, shrugging it off. They must have strange customs here.

The man in black turned on his heel. “Rxa will be here within the hour. His army approaches. You will do as I say, Dtu. Or the resulting casualties will be on your rotten, hollow head.”

Dtu growled low, a sound that reverberated in his chest, but said nothing in retort.

“Who was that?” Jakob asked the Varúlfur. “A friend?”

“No. Not even close.” Dtu was shirtless, wearing only a pair of ratted canvas pants. He tried not to stare and failed. The man’s muscles were tense, and they twitched with unspent anger.

Jakob frowned and offered Dtu back the coat that he had woken up on. “Is this yours? If so, thank you.”

“You may keep it. You will need it.” Dtu cracked his neck loudly, the bones popping. He sighed, and his shoulders slumped as if conceding to something. “It will grow cold on the march.” He began to walk toward where the rest of Dtu’s people were gathered, sleeping or chatting quietly among each other, some few hundred feet away by the tree line.

“Oh?” Jakob jogged to catch up to him. “Where are we going?”

“North.”

“North? What’s north?” He shrugged on the fur coat. It was soft against him, and already he felt cozy in it.

“A friend.”

“Fantastic! It’ll be great being on the road again.” He hugged Dtu’s right arm. The action must have startled the Varúlfur, as his steps hitched. “Thank you for the coat.”

“You are…very welcome, little mortal.”

“You must tell me more of yourself on the way. And of this world. Does the sun not rise here? It’s so dark.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

Jakob laughed. “Amazing!”

Dtu turned to look at him, the wooden holes of his eyes betraying nothing but darkness underneath. It must be some kind of trick they all shared. “Did you not like the sun?”

“No, I loved it. But there is so much magic here. So many impossible things. All we had were the drengil. Under—this place—it has so many wonderful things.”

“All of which could kill you.”

“Eh.” Jakob shrugged. “Everything can kill me. That’s nothing new.”

“You are a very odd mortal…” Dtu shook his head.

“I’ve heard that a lot, too. Well, not the mortal part, really. Oh!” He let go of Dtu’s arm to pull a medallion from around his neck. “Since you gave me the coat, I would like to give you this in exchange. Here.” He held it out to the other man.

The shifter took the medallion and held it in his palm, peering down at it curiously. It was a simple disk of copper, etched with lines and filled with black enamel. It hung from a leather string. “What is it?”

“The sigil of the Grandfather. The mightiest of all our gods. It’s for protection. I know it’s not much, but—”

“I…cannot take this.” Dtu ran his thumb over the copper disk, tracing the etched symbol. “It is yours.”

“And the coat was yours.”

“I can summon objects at will. It is the gift of being a royal of Under. The coat is no more mine than an acorn belongs to a tree.”

“But the tree grew the acorn. And sure, maybe it can create thousands and a hundred thousand acorns, so it doesn’t miss a single one, but it’s still born from the tree.” Jakob smiled. “And in return for the tree’s shade, and shelter, and the acorn, I want it to know how much it’s appreciated. That’s all.”

Dtu’s shoulders slackened again as tension in his back lessened. He sighed and pulled the necklace over his head, lifting his shoulder-length, unkempt brown hair out from under the leather string. “I will cherish it, Jakob. Thank you.”

He smiled and hugged Dtu’s arm again. “Is it snowy in the north?”

“Yes. Very.”

“I love the snow.” Jakob sighed wistfully. “I can’t wait.”

Dtu paused for a long time. “You are an odd, odd mortal.”

It all happened too quickly.

Chaos generally did.

That was one thing she had learned over the course of her life. There was no such thing as calm. It was always just an illusion. Things could change with the snap of a finger. And it very rarely came with warning.

Ember woke up to the sound of shouting in the hallway. She knew what it meant. Throwing on her clothes, she pulled on her boots and shouldered her bag of supplies. Gripping the handle of her new knife, she threw open the door to the room Aon had loaned her and struck out into the morbid and nightmarish home of the strange king.

She didn’t recognize any of the people running down the hall, all dressed in black. Some wore partial metal masks that were the same color as their clothing. Some didn’t. But all of them were armed.

I miss my spear.

Without any other idea of what to do, she headed in the direction everyone was going. Halfway down the second hallway, she heard someone call her name.

“Ember. In here, if you will.”

Pausing, she turned. Through a doorway, she could see Lyon standing by a table, his hands clasped behind his back. But it wasn’t he who had spoken; it was Aon. The man in black was hard to notice in the shadows. The light of the electric bulbs glinted off his mask, the only thing separating him from the background.

Ember walked into the room. It looked like a study of some kind. It was smaller than his library and had only a moderately grandiose appearance. The table in the center was covered with a large map. One other person was present—Lydia, the Queen of Dreams, was sitting in a chair. She looked furious.

Ember glanced at the woman with the turquoise ink before she looked back to Aon. “I take it Rxa is here.”

“Yes. With his army a million strong.”

“A—” Ember swore and ran her hands through her hair. “You’re joking.”

Lyon shook