King Of Flames (The Masks of Under Book 1)

by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

  “He’s going to kill me!”

  “You didn’t know that at the time.”

  “You’re missing the point, Evie.”

  “I would’ve done it anyway. At least you’d have had something nice to go out on.” Evie was lying on the floor of her cell by the bars, her ankle across a bent knee and hands behind her head like this was just a girl’s night and a sleepover. Not a dire situation where Lydia was going to be executed tomorrow. “Have you seen the package on that man? Romping with him? Let me tell you, it’s just…” Evie whistled then put her fingers to her lips and kissed them like a French chef.

  Lydia couldn’t help but let out an overwhelmed laugh and stopped her pacing to look at the girl incredulously. “You’ve slept with him?”

  “Of course. Pretty much everyone has.”

  “That’s disgusting and doesn’t make it any better.”

  “Things’re different here,” Evie said with a smile. “Nobody turns away a straight six like that man. Nobody would’ve judged you for it. Nobody here hasn’t already slept with Edu—man or woman.”

  “Just…no,” Lydia repeated and shook her head.

  “Was it the crowd scenario? Are you shy? You’re not a virgin, are you?”

  “Hell, no.” She felt indignant at the idea that she might be. “Evie! I’m going to be executed in the morning. Focus.”

  “Sorry.” Evie giggled.

  Lydia sighed and hung her head, looking down at the fork and knife in her hand. She was standing against a world filled with monsters with nothing more than dinnerware. It was so stupid it almost made her laugh.

  Even if Edu wasn’t going to kill her, Aon was worse. The memory of his touch on the back of her neck, the cold metal of his mask against her face, the smell of old books and leather, the feeling of his claw buried in her body—all made her shiver at once.

  “Bunny?” Evie asked, concerned.

  “I have to get out of here. Out of Under.” Lydia looked down at the cutlery in her hand and wondered what the hell she was going to do with it. “If this place and Earth are still aligned, can I get home?”

  “Well, technically, there’s a gate,” Evie said warily and sat up. “But it isn’t—”

  “What gate? Where?” Lydia went to the bars between them and crouched. Those was the first words of hope she’d heard all night.

  “Uh…well, in Yej, in the city square, there’s a portal for general use. But it’s miles away,” Evie warned, her green eyes wide. “Please don’t tell me you’d try to make it there. You wouldn’t make it through the woods.”

  “I’m dead anyway. I’m dead no matter what I do. Even if Edu changes his mind, have you ever met Aon?”

  “No…” Evie admitted. “He was king when I was taken, but he doesn’t socialize. I never saw him. He’s a recluse.”

  “I have met him.” Lydia felt the claws on her skin, saw that single gaping black hole of an eye socket watching her. It felt like he was standing right behind her, and she resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder. It gave her the heebie-jeebies. “Even if Edu changed his mind and let me live, Aon will come for me and tear me to pieces. If the monsters in the woods get me, I don’t care. I’m dead anyway. At least if something in the woods gets me, I’ll have died trying.”

  Evie sighed heavily. “Okay, bunny.” With that, she leaned her head against the bars and reached out her hand, palm up. Lydia had no idea why for a moment until she realized the girl was asking for the cutlery.

  Trusting the girl not to just merely chuck the knife and fork across the room, she handed the two pieces of silverware to her. Evie closed her hand around them and stood, walking toward her cell door. “Pa would’ve killed me if he knew Stevie taught me how to do this. See, Stevie was this gorgeous little drugstore cowboy. But I didn’t care. We were pals, y’know?”

  No, Lydia didn’t, but she pretended anyway.

  Evie was fishing the knife into the lock of her cell from the outside and using the back of the fork to twist. The redhead from Montana was picking the lock of her cell. Usually, Lydia assumed it would require much smaller equipment, but these were medieval-style locks meant to be turned with a large and rudimentary key. She fiddled around for a minute before it clicked.

  Evie pushed it out an inch and then looked over at Lydia warily. “You sure ’bout this?” she asked.

  Not in the slightest. But Lydia had to try. “Just let me out then lock yourself back in.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Evie said with a laugh. “We girls gotta stick together. You do this, I do this. Besides, Edu’s gonna kill us both.” The girl’s smile never faded. “Might as well go together.”

  Evie pushed the door of her cell open and walked around to Lydia’s and began picking the lock, her tongue sticking slightly out of her mouth, pinched between her teeth. The silly expression didn’t do anything to mar how pretty the girl was. Big eyes, freckles, moppish red hair that was wild around her head. No wonder Edu had already slept with her.

  When it clicked, she let out a triumphant “ta-dah!” and stuck her arms out over her head, cutlery still in hand.

  Lydia stepped out of the cell and hugged the girl. Evie giggled and hugged her back, smiling broadly.

  “Cash or check?” Evie asked with a playful grin, and it took Lydia a long and confused moment to realize that she was asking if Lydia planned on kissing her. “I recommend check, as we’re about to become serious criminals.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Lydia urged with a nudge. Evie handed her the fork, opting to keep the knife for herself. Lydia tried not to laugh at the idea of defending herself against the world of the unknown and monsters with a fork.

  Evie was already creeping toward the door, pressed up against the stone wall dramatically, even though nobody was there to see them. She waved Lydia on, urging her to follow.

  And so, she did.

  ***

  Edu was lying sprawled out on his bed, a thick fur blanket pulled halfway up over him. He had returned to his home before ending the night by taking one of the new fallen to his chambers for the rest of the evening.

  It was the young girl with the large black eyes and dark hair that Lydia had protected in a pathetic if noble attempt during the first Fall. The next night, she had gone into the pond a weeping, screaming, and terrified child and had risen a fiery wonder. The Ancients had removed the fear that had consumed her.

  Kaori was her name, Edu believed. She was a fiendish, wild creature. It made for an entertaining evening. Edu was glad the girl had Fallen to his own house, the crimson mark on her forehead unhidden behind a mask.

  The girl at his side stirred and shifted her head into his arm. She was so very tiny compared to him. Edu had been concerned he might break her. Yet she had performed admirably. It had been her first time with a man, and he would have predicted tears. What he received instead was a small hellcat who pitched herself headlong into the evening with abandon. She had spoken of a release and freedom, feeling like herself for the first time.

  She had almost tired him out.

  Almost.

  Edu barely had to do anything, merely sat back and let the girl explore what it was like to feel alive for the first time.

  He would have gladly taken Lydia’s other friend as well, the boy who had been at her side both times Edu had gone in search of them. Edu had no qualms about enjoying either gender. He had his preferences, of course, but both were welcome.

  Edu had sought them both out, if he was honest, in anger at being refused. Lydia had turned him down and rejected his offer. Walked away from him, as if he were undesirable. Edu admitted his many faults—he was childish, violent, impatient, hedonistic, impulsive. But he was never undesirable.

  So he had wished to fill his evening with her old companions. But the boy had Fallen to the House of Moons and was out of his reach. While Kamira could not very well refuse Edu’s request to have the boy in his bedchambers, he was undergoing a violent and unpredictable change. He would be wildly out of
control of his powers and was likely under the close watch of several of Kamira’s higher-ranked and older shapeshifters while they trained him how to keep command over his physical form once more.

  Shifters always made for entertaining and challenging bedfellows, but that would be for another night. Besides, all had panned out well in the end. The girl at his side had made up for what the boy might have added to the festivities.

  Edu dwelled once more on Lydia and her fate. It was a loss to end her life. She was intelligent, fiery, and quick to learn. The way she struck Tim for his goading comments had made Edu grin. Most would have devolved to sobbing for mercy. She faced the doom before her with her head raised. He would have been proud to have her join his house in the Fall. But the Ancients had seen fit to do otherwise. They had seen fit to doom her to death at his hands.

  Whatever Aon had said or done in her dreams had left a profound impact upon her. When the topic came up—when she spoke the warlock’s name—her face had paled, and her eyes had gone wide. Any doubt that she had been speaking the truth was gone in that moment.

  It made it simpler on all fronts once he killed the girl in the morning. Then he could return to his crypt free of concern for what Aon might do with whatever secret she might hide. Perhaps he was dooming his world to its slow decay by taking her life. It was a shame, but he resolved himself to the fact it must be done.

  He let his eyes drift shut behind his mask and settled himself into the pillows beneath them. Sleep was just about to claim him when he heard the keep’s great bell begin to ring.

  ***

  Man, it would have been helpful if either of them knew where the hell they were going.

  Lydia had gone through this building once before with Tim. Honestly, she hadn’t really been paying attention. Stark shadows lined the wood floors, cast by burning torches and the strangely colored moonlight from the windows outside. Evie was from a different house and had no better idea of the layout of the keep than she did.

  She spent a moment worrying over Nick. He was in the House of Moons with the shifters, whatever that meant. Her heart broke, worrying about him.

  But she couldn’t help him—or find out what happened to him—if she was dead in the morning like Edu was planning.

  Twenty minutes into their caper, creeping along hallways and ducking into doors, they both went rigid when a bell began to ring. It was the same bell they had heard before, high up in a tower somewhere. They ducked into a doorframe and were huddled close together in the shadows.

  “Another ceremony?” Lydia whispered to Evie.

  “Dunno. Don’t think so,” she whispered back.

  The sound of rushing footsteps gave them their answer. Lydia leaned her head up against the wall behind her and felt dread creeping over her again. The jig was up.

  Both girls let out quiet groans.

  Evie was the first to recover. “C’mon!” she whispered insistently and pushed open the door they were leaning against. Evie stuck her head through, peeking to make sure the room was empty, before walking inside and waving her along. Lydia followed and shut the door behind them as quietly as she could.

  In their attempt to dodge guards and get to the exit, they had wound up going up a flight of stairs. The room they were in now looked like somewhere you’d entertain guests. Chairs were lavishly decorated and arranged around a table with an elaborately carved surface, but it was too dark, and too dusty, to see what it was.

  Swaths of fabric draped from the wood walls reaching up to the ceilings, ending in colorful fabric pennants and flags painted with sigils and names that were meaningless to her. Ini, Vjo, Rxa, Dtu—the last two she recognized. Edu, Aon. Each flag had a color, Edu in red, Aon in black. The other four must be the colors of the other houses. Blue, purple, white, and green, respectively.

  One spot appeared to be missing a flag, ripped loose from its post, only tattered fabric remaining.

  The room looked dusty and unused, like no one had been in here in a very, very long time. Cobwebs were thick in all areas where a spider may have wanted to make a home. Dust was layered like a gray veneer on everything else.

  “What is this place?” Lydia whispered.

  “No idea,” Evie answered and ran her finger across the table’s face curiously. It left a clear line in the absence of the dust on the lacquered surface. She rubbed her hands together to wipe off the detritus and looked back at Lydia with a shrug.

  Either way, it was time to get out of here. They froze as they heard footsteps run down the hallway outside the room they had ducked inside. “You! Take the west wing. Take the servants in the kitchens with you. They are not to be harmed, but if they escape, you will pay for it.”

  “Yes, sir!” came a more distant response.

  Whoever had hollered was right outside the door. Reflexively, the girls shrank against a window, ducking into a corner, somewhere they might be able to hide behind swaths of ancient curtains should someone burst in on them.

  “What do we do?” Evie whispered urgently, clutching Lydia. Lydia wrapped her arm around her and hugged her close.

  Lydia tried to calm down and to quiet the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears, to try to figure out what to do. Where they could go. How they could get out of this situation. She looked toward the window and saw down out of the building. They were on the second story, but there, just barely lit in the dim turquoise light of a setting moon—was a chance.

  A series of flags were hung from a long rope that ran from somewhere above the window down to a nearby building. It was low, squat, and looked like a service building more than part of the rest of the stone keep.

  Leaning her head closer to the window, she saw the ropes attached just over the frame on the outside and ran down to the ground, each waving red flags, marked with symbols of a dragon or what-have-you. Edu was a king and decorated his house accordingly, after all.

  The angle was a little steep, but it’d work. Correction…it might work.

  “Hey, Evie…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Ever hear of a zip line?”

  ***

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “Yeah?” Lydia said with a shrug. “It’s totally safe. I mean, okay, no, but hey…” She had taken a chair from one of the tables and put it up on the two-foot-thick stone windowsill. Opening the window had been a task, and luckily it hinged on the sides, split up the middle and swung outward leaving their path unobstructed. The chair had been necessary to reach the rope that was secured to a hook over the window.

  Evie was standing beside her, looking up at the arrangement nervously. “I don’t like this.”

  “I don’t really have any other ideas. Do you?” Lydia had a candelabra in her hand. It was a heavy forged iron piece, crudely hammered into curls and a vague attempt at adding detail. It was what she was going to throw over the rope and grab on the other side. Evie held one in her own hands, clutching it to herself like it was a shield.

  “No,” Evie admitted and looked down through the window. It was about a hundred-foot run to the other building the rope was attached to, and the angle was steep. That and the flags tied every ten feet weren’t going to make it a gentle ride. “But I’m scared.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Lydia climbed up onto the sill. “I’ll go first.”

  “Good. I wasn’t going to offer.” Evie snickered.

  Lydia opened her mouth to tease the girl, but their time was up. One of the doors to the room clicked and began to open.

  Evie squeaked. “Go!” she whispered loudly.

  “Wh—”

  “I’ll stall them. Go,” Evie insisted.

  “No, I’m not—” She wouldn’t leave the girl behind.

  “Otherwise neither of us will make it. Don’t be a nit. You have a home to go back to. I don’t.” The door was swinging open. Before Lydia could argue, the girl ran from her side and toward one of the other doors. She threw it open, stormed into the hallway, iron candelabra still in hand, and declared lou
dly, “You’ll never take me alive, coppers!”

  With that, Evie took off running and laughing. Lydia heard the footsteps quickly pursue the girl.

  Lydia was shaking. She had to struggle to calm herself down enough to climb onto the chair and look up at the rope in front of her. She wasn’t sure about this at all. But now, if she didn’t at least try, Evie’s sacrifice would be for nothing.

  She put the candelabra over the rope and grabbed it with her other hand. Looking down the line, she swallowed hard. It wasn’t that Lydia had a fear of heights, but this was different. Oh, hell.

  Maybe her hands would slip, or she didn’t have enough grip strength to hold on. If she fell and broke her neck, at least everyone’s problems would be over. Maybe she’d just shatter both her legs. Y’know, no big deal.

  The sound of shouting from the hallway spurred her on. She jumped.

  The speed of her descent and the fact that she was slapped in the face with a flag every ten feet made for a hell of a ride. Lydia prioritized two things—don’t let go, and don’t scream. She tried to just hold on for dear life, squeezing the iron so hard she knew her knuckles must be white.

  It wasn’t until she saw the side of the small service building at the end of the rope coming at her full tilt that she had the wherewithal to react. She was going to smash into it head-on if she didn’t do something.

  So she did something.

  Namely, she finally let go. She was only a few feet off the ground now, and she hit the dirt with so much momentum it sent her tumbling over herself, rolling to a stop as a complete mess of limbs.

  Lydia couldn’t suppress a groan of pain from where she lay. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and managed to figure out what end was up, at least. Lydia was face down on the tightly packed dirt. Some of it had wound up in her mouth, gritty and earthen, and she let out a “pleh” as she tried to clear it. The bruises she was going to have were the least of her concerns right now.

  Voices nearby sent her scrambling to her feet, forgetting the pain in her limbs from the impact. Whatever this building was, low and squat and made of rough slabs of wood with a thatched ceiling, she didn’t care. She grabbed the nearest door she could see and threw it open, ducking inside.