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

the handle of her knife to clutch at a series of necklaces she wore around her neck. “My world wasn’t just dangerous. It was being consumed.”

There was such darkness in her words. “Consumed by what?”

Dark eyes looked up to him. And he saw such weariness, his heart broke for her. Then she spoke words that added to his growing nervousness.

“By the dead.”

3

Pain.

That was what he knew.

Only pain, and nothing else.

Not his name…not what had happened…not where he was.

Only suffering.

He pressed his palm against the stone. Then his other palm. Then his knees met the hard surface, biting into the sensitive flesh that was already past the point of being abused. He would have made a sound if he believed he could have. But he was drowning. Drowning and climbing. He needed to get away from what surrounded him. This agony, this terrible burning that filled his mind.

There had been only nothing. A beautiful, blissful, simple nothing. He had not cared for what he was or what had happened, for he did not exist. But now he was in this something, and this something was unkind.

He wanted it to stop.

No.

He wanted those who had made this happen to suffer with him.

Because he knew those people had names.

A shame he couldn’t remember them. He’d get there eventually.

Oh. I’m a man. That’s nice to know. That’s lovely.

He’d take anything at this point. Because anything was better than the something that made him burn with such total pain that it threatened to wipe everything else out of his soul. But he knew the bite of stone stairs underneath his palms and knees. He crawled.

Crawled like a beast. Like a worm. Like a slave.

I am a king.

But how had he come to be so low?

So broken?

I am broken…

His head broke the level of liquid that he had not known was there. It was pervasive. It had filled every part of his body, every pore. He tried to breathe air—that was what it was called, wasn’t it?—and had nowhere to put it. He retched. He knelt on stone and emptied his lungs and his stomach—or what was left of it. He pressed a hand to his side and felt liquid emptying out of his body in places there shouldn’t have been holes to do so.

But there were.

That might be why he hurt so badly.

He fell onto his side, feeling the stone against his arms and his ribs. Not his flesh—but his bones. Everything was raw. Everything hurt. It was just a matter of flavors. One thing stung where the other burned, where another felt like lightning, and the fourth felt like stabbing. But it was all agony.

He had to move. He had to get away.

Away from what? From where? Where was he escaping from? He had been nothing, and then he was suddenly something, and that something was terrible. But where could he go from the something? He couldn’t go back to nothing; he knew that much. So maybe he could go farther away from the something and into something else?

Wouldn’t that be lovely.

He laughed. Or he tried. It was a rasping, empty thing. It made no sound other than a scratch. He might not have had lungs to laugh with. Or a tongue. Do I need a tongue to laugh? I’m not sure. I don’t think so. It’s an open-throated thing. Didn’t he know a man once who had no tongue? He thought he did. He wasn’t born that way but made that way by a monster.

Aon.

He knew that name. He didn’t know his own name…but he knew that one. One that filled him with hate. With rage. That inspired him to crawl from the terrible liquid. Where he had been. And there was only one reason he had been in that place.

I was dead.

Dead.

And now I am not.

I was nothing, and now I am something.

Why?

Hands touched him. He would have screamed in agony if he could. Yes, I have no lungs. That is the issue here. He pressed a hand inside his ribcage to find out. It was easy, seeing as he was missing most of the flesh on his chest. Sure enough, he could feel his spine and nothing else. All his organs were gone. Just…emptiness.

“Sir? Oh, by the Ancients…”

The Ancients.

This is their fault!

Someone was speaking to him. Ears. Cute. I still have ears. I suppose that’s nice. It was a woman. She was trying to help him. Cute.

He opened an eye. Oh! I do have eyes. At least one, anyway. The woman over him wore a half-mask of white porcelain. It reminded him of something. The woman took a look at his own face, and her visible eye flew open wide in fear.

She tried to run.

Now, we can’t have that…

He grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her down to the ground. He yanked her under him and caged her in. He held her to the ground. She struggled, but it was so easy to pin her there beneath him. He lowered himself close to her. She smelled so sweet, so fresh, so full of muscle and sinew and meat.

She smelled tasty.

He bent his head to tear into her flesh, but something stopped him. Something was over his face. He reached up and pulled a mask from his face. It was white and porcelain—or it should have been. But now it was stained, yellowed and cracked. It was as decayed and broken as he was. He put it aside. It was in his way. He would remember why it was important another time.

He looked down at the girl who was staring up at him in fear. She was making such a racket. Screaming so very loudly with that juicy tongue of hers.

I think I’d like to taste it.

He bent down and dug his teeth into her face. She screamed harder and harder. He didn’t care. He tore her jaw from its hinges and dug in deeper, seeking the tongue that he had seen waggling around all red and juicy inside her