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

“Let alone Rxa,” Dtu agreed.

“The old gods will protect her. She’s one of the Grandfather’s chosen children. She survived becoming a hunter. Most people die when they get the serum.” Jakob broke off another tiny piece of the twig. “I have faith she’ll survive.”

“Your gods may be dead, Jakob,” Dtu said quietly, as if he didn’t want the other refugees from Gioll to hear. “They may have been consumed.”

“Well, then, I’m sure your Ancients will take good care of her.” Jakob smiled reassuringly at the giant undead wolf.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Dtu turned his attention to the road. “If the Ancients have their way…her suffering has only just begun.”

Lydia settled down in a clearing, careful to place Aon gently on the grass as she landed. Changing her form back to her human one, she pushed his two halves together until they touched.

Healing large wounds in Under was always a disgusting, messy business. But better that his two parts stitch themselves back together. Otherwise, he’d have to regrow everything from the skeleton out while the discarded portion dissolved into dust—and that process took a long, long time.

She cringed as she remembered the week it took her arm to regrow after she lost it in a sparring match gone wrong with Evie. The new Queen of Flames was still getting used to her power and had blown Lydia’s arm clean off at the shoulder with a blast of fire. The severed arm had been unsalvageable.

Growing back a skeleton, then nerves, then muscles and tendon, then tissue and skin…it was painful, slow, and not a process she would wish on anybody, let alone Aon. Especially seeing as he lost everything from the necktie down.

She sat on the grass next to him and stroked his dark hair away from his mask. She heard the rustle of wings overhead and looked up to see Lyon land in the clearing beside her, reforming from his swarm of the white animals.

She frowned. “You’re alone.”

“Rxa is able to heal faster than we predicted. Or at least…he can function without important internal organs.” Lyon sighed and walked up to Aon, looking down at the unconscious body of the King of Shadows. “I tried to save her.”

Lydia shut her eyes and shook her head. “Poor girl…I know what it’s like to be in her place. I know what it’s like to be mortal in a world of monsters. At least she stands a little more of a chance than I did, since she’s used to fighting those corpses.”

“Perhaps.” Lyon crouched and opened Aon’s metal gauntlet. There, clutched in the talons, was Rxa’s heart. He picked up the organ gingerly and, with his other hand, summoned a large glass vial.

Then he began to squeeze the heart over the open mouth of the vial. Lydia grimaced at the noise as liquid began to ooze from the organ, black and thick like molasses. “Eeewww.”

Lyon wrinkled his nose. “Indeed. Unfortunately, it is necessary. I expect this souvenir will disappear shortly as Rxa heals.”

Drip by thick, viscous drip, the blood landed in the vial. There was only enough to fill it two-thirds of the way to the top. “I hope that’s enough to redo the spells on the cage.” Lydia cringed. “I don’t know if we’re going to get any more before he comes after us.”

“Perhaps it’s—what’s the word, concentrated?” Lyon put the severed heart on the grass and summoned a cork to seal the tube. “Like that tomato soup you enjoy.”

She laughed. “You still think it’s disgusting, don’t you?”

“I simply don’t understand why you had to hunt it down the last time we aligned with Earth. You nearly got shot because of it.”

“Eh. What’s a few bullet wounds? I’m just pissed they don’t make it anymore. Now it’s all just those replicated cube things. Totally not the same.” She sat in the grass next to Aon and kept gently stroking his hair. He’d wake up soon, and she knew he’d be in a mood when he did.

Lyon sat on a rock at the other side of the small clearing, tucking the vial into the inside pocket of his long, white peacoat. “You should get some rest while he heals. It’s a long journey south to your Temple of Dreams.”

“I don’t know that I’ve actually ever flown the full distance.” She paused as she tried to remember. Sure, she was only around five hundred years old, which was a flash in the pan compared to Lyon and Aon, but things were still starting to get difficult to keep straight. “Nope. Don’t think I have. It’ll be easier to make the trip without lugging him around in pieces, though.” She chuckled. “He gets so angry about having to ride on my back, let alone being luggage.”

“I am glad I won’t be able to hear him in all the wind.” Lyon chuckled before his mood fell. “I…will mourn the loss of Ember. She was a wise, compassionate young woman.”

“She understood that she probably wasn’t going to survive. And she knew that if you died trying to save her, everything’d be lost. But yeah. I’m sad I didn’t get to know her better.”

He looked up at the stars mournfully. “I can only hope her death was quick and painless.”

She smirked sadly. “Sometimes, that’s all I think any of us can pray for.”

Ember didn’t know which was worse.

The creepy, eerie, and unnerving silent drengil that surrounded her as she walked through the halls of Aon’s abandoned estate looking for supplies…

Or dragging a tied-up and unconscious Rxa behind her.

She had him by the ankles like a wheelbarrow. His hands were tied together and then lashed to his waist with a length of thick rope she pulled from a window sash. It was shockingly strong material for what it was. To be fair, the curtain it was holding back was two stories tall and looked as though it probably weighed as much as a boulder. The rope that held it back had to be