Unmasked (Rise of the Masks Book 1)

by Kaplan, EM

  She began to shake, a weightless flutter traveling through her body. Her eyes moved behind her lids, and her lashes rose up. She had such nice eyes. Kind of like a creamy batter for dark bread or a hot chocolate drink with warm milk swirled in it. He was never more glad to see them looking at him. She shook her head and greenish dust flew out of her hair. She sneezed.

  "Did I do anything?" she asked, craning her head around, away from him and back at the trog, and he hated that her gaze had wandered off him. He was selfish and infantile in his jealousy.

  "He looks different," Ott conceded, wanting her eyes back on him. Then they were. She stared at him with a sad smile that he didn't understand but felt guilty for all the same.

  "The others are going to want it done, too," she said. "The ones who came up with us. Some of them want to be . . . "

  "Human," Ott finished. "You can turn them into humans?"

  "No," she said thoughtfully, letting herself relax in the cradle of his arms. He was selfishly glad she let him and no one else hold her. It was his job. "They are humans. Just contaminated by the agamite. For whatever reason, it’s changed them. Maybe how it changes you. I don’t know how. It's in their bodies, in their blood. I just . . . push it out."

  He shook his head. "You can't do it again. You're exhausted."

  She didn't say anything. He thought about adding a plea but didn't want to beg aloud in front of the trogs . . . people . . . whatever they were. It was bad enough that they were eyeing him holding her in his arms while she was so weakened. "I want to take you back to the house," he said.

  "I want to stay here," she said weakly, trying to push her way out of his grasp. He held on tighter. “I need to stay and observe him. What if he changed back to his previous state over time? I need to know how he feels. What if he can speak now? That would be extraordinary.” She wanted to stay and observe the trog . . . man on the cot to see if her treatment took? She had a feverish, almost obsessed light in her eye. Her mind was working quickly, Ott could see.

  A spark had caught in her mind, and her natural Mask scholarship was taking over. He didn't care, as long as it kept her near him. As long as the trogs weren't going to injure her, and by the look of wonderment on the face of the man now lying in the cot, Ott figured her only danger from them was going to be exhaustion as they lined up to be cured by her.

  "Please? At least rest for a while?" he said, trying to keep his voice level.

  She looked at him suddenly. Intently. Then nodded at him. She gave over to him. Agreed with him. Allowed him to guide her. Sweet Lutra, he loved her. She leaned into him, and he thought his heart might beat out of his chest.

  Chapter 73

  Rob encountered Ott and Mel standing outside the great hall. The hallway was where throngs of displaced miners and their families were settling in, organizing themselves into a new too-tight camp. Their meager and muddied belongings lined the walls in fiercely-guarded heaps, but at least now the people were indoors. Rob was going to have to establish some rules immediately, he realized, before violence broke out. He looked around and signaled an older houseman to come closer. Instead, he received one gnarled finger, held up for him to wait. For the first time in days, maybe weeks, Rob had to suppress a grin. Very few dared make him wait now. The others, his father's old advisors, were genuflecting and generally making Rob feel queasy, the throng of sycophants making this man an uncut gem among them.

  Rob looked back at Ott. Gods, Ott's girl looked done in. Pale as frost.

  "What's the matter?" Rob asked immediately as he rounded on them. He gestured for them to go into a private chamber across the hall. He followed them, loosely draping his arm over Ott's shoulders, stopping himself inches away from doing the same to Ott's girl. He felt like he knew her better than he probably did, probably more than she would feel comfortable with. Rob already regarded her as an extension of Ott.

  He closed the doors to the room behind them. The house staff had reserved the private room for his use, for hearing the troubles and complaints of his people in private. Col Rob had once used this chamber to decide the fate of others, to carry out his devious schemes, and to determine the punishments for Rob himself as a child. He cringed at the thought of his supposed importance and of the secrecy, but there was no helping it. People had issues that didn't need to be discussed in front of others. Damn him if he couldn't understand that. He would do what he could to protect the privacy of his people, each one of them. Especially in these terrible close quarters where they were trapped for what looked like the duration of the winter.

  As if reading his mind, Ott said stiffly, muttering, "The bloody cold will be on us soon." Rob almost didn't hear him. Then he smiled grimly at his friend.

  "There's no changing its course," Rob answered. Ott's girl was looking at him coolly. Suspicious, perhaps. She was very pretty, Rob thought in a detached way. Bright and sunny with a strange shine to her even though the room wasn't well-lit at this time of day. Good for Ott. It was rude of them to drop into the old customs in front of her, especially when it wasn't their habit to use it. Something about the room or the situation had inspired Ott to pledge his allegiance to Rob as if he were a lord, to invoke the old oath, the old custom. And damn, Rob realized, he supposed he was a lord now. They might as well have had a full court audience in formal dress. It was an old greeting, a ceremonial pleasantry between liege and subject, what passed for a reaffirmation of loyalty in these frozen parts.

  "Then we had better prepare," she said, surprising them both into silence. She had completed the greeting. Rob watched mutely as Ott reached for her, tucked her into a strong one-armed embrace and pressed his mouth to her forehead.

  Rob cleared his throat. "Apologies. Your pretty looks make me forget that you come from a community of scholars. I underestimated you. I'll try not to do it again, Mel." He used her name hesitantly, but marked how his inadvertent comment about her beauty made a pink flush creep up her neck into her face. For the second time that day, an unbidden smile came to Rob's face. He gave a half-shrug with one shoulder.

  He gestured for them to sit and then was astounded when Ott told him what Mel had done to the trog in the old root cellar. She had cleansed the agamite out of it, but clearly at cost to her; she appeared exhausted.

  "The trog was transformed into a human man? And you think maybe they were men to begin with?" Rob asked again when Ott was done speaking. "Is this what they want? To come aboveground and mix into our people?" A flicker of distrust made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

  "Some do," Mel confirmed. "Bookman can make up a roster of the ones in the cellar."

  At Rob’s raised eyebrow, Ott explained, though he had just recently learned it himself, "Rav's trog is calling himself Bookman. He's their storyholder, the teller of their history." Rob nodded, and gestured for Mel to continue.

  "We have so much to learn about them. It might help us understand why they attack and what they want from people aboveground."

  Rob didn't bother voicing his disgust and distrust of so-called trog motives. He was sure his doubt was written plainly on his face. And whatever Mel was thinking about her role here at the house in the future, he didn’t think Ott would want her anywhere near them. If it were Jenny, he'd feel the same way. They could keep their filthy hands to themselves and at a good distance, too.

  Mel continued, "Many of them distrust us. They want to remain aboveground, but in their unchanged state. We think it's a good idea. Their strength and endurance is phenomenal. They might be convinced to serve . . . as fighters aboveground," she said though she seemed uneasy at the prospect. Rob appreciated her astuteness. Clearly, it was a sore spot to recruit the trogs as their brutes to fight against their own brethren from below.

  "Perhaps they might be convinced to protect at least their own kind who have been changed into humans," Rob suggested. Mel's face turned toward him and the full force of her concentration was trained on him. It was almost staggering, as if her eyes had spear-like points to
them. Rob stood firmly, stolidly, almost as if he were being dressed down by his old man.

  Gods above, she was not a force to be taken lightly.

  He hid the tension in his jaw and the tightness in his chest until she broke the gaze and nodded. Then he took a gasping breath disguised as another clearing of his throat. Mel made him want to run to Jenny and bury his face in her neck and be wrapped up in her arms. Mel might be Ott's girl, but there was something about her that made Rob uneasy. She'd been a Mask, Colubrid swallow it, and that was something, no matter if she'd tossed the cowl aside or not. She was still one of them. She had their abilities.

  "I've kept you too long," he said, softening his voice though it still felt rough-edged to him. "You need some rest, Mel." She nodded, glancing at Ott, but purposefully keeping her eyes away from Rob. Just as well to keep distance between them. He was finding himself trusting others too easily since the murder of his father. Not all of the snakes in the nest had been destroyed, that was certain. He had to remember that his world had not been cleared of enemies just because the old man was no longer there to torment him with his mind games. It was better to remember that he was on his own. Other than Jenny.

  Ott led Mel out of the room as they promised to keep him abreast of the trog cleansing. Rob stayed in his private room, drafting a basic code of conduct for the people inside the great hall. It was nothing earth shattering. Just common courtesies set to paper with ink. Some other houseman could have done it, but they clearly had other things to deal with just now with all the new inhabitants lining the halls. Rob had no trouble taking care of it. The solace of his private room was a comfort. At least alone, he knew there was no one waiting behind him to take advantage of him or of the situation. Alone, he could let his guard down.

  A knock at the door ended that, but he was more than pleased to see Jenny's sweet face peer into the room, scanning the shadows for him. She entered the room hesitantly, but he waved her over. "Come here," he said, then pulled her onto his lap when she was close enough. She smelled like the gentle floral soap she used to bathe the children. Her hands were rough from constant washing and plunging into water to wash some child's face or other with a washcloth. He stroked them between his own thinking he'd find her some lanol cream if he could. Jenny might like that. Maybe Nan in the kitchen would have some. Or that house girl Marget. He'd have to ask. Probably they even had some that had been made to smell nice.

  "What are you thinking?" she asked. An innocent enough question, though her face flushed red when she looked at him. Her dark eyes glinted at him in recognition of what she saw on his face. He had wanted to tell her about the trog cleansing, but the blush on her cheeks made him kiss her instead. She had that telltale hint of mint on her tongue. She must have found the packet of mint gum that he had hidden in her pocket before she woke up that morning. He loved the taste of it on her breath, and it was several minutes before he remembered that he had something to tell her.

  "Trogs," he said in his typical idiotic fashion, leaving her no time for recovery or even a small chance at comprehension. He was wrapping a strand of her curls around and around his finger. Her hands were all over his neck and in his own hair. She pulled back as if he had pinched her and stared at him, rapid breaths through open and swollen lips.

  "All right," she said. She took a half-minute to compose herself, folded her hands in her lap primly, and sat with a straight spine in listener mode even though she was perched on his leg. "Go ahead."

  He suppressed a chuckle at her indulgence of him. Thank Dovay. He was a lucky man. And it was the first time in his life he would admit to feeling lucky. Then he cleared his throat and told her about Mel and the cellar trog, that Mel could turn them into humans, and that she wanted to learn their history, their needs and wants. He tried to keep the bite out of his voice.

  When he was finished, she said, furrowing her brow, "But this is good news, right? It means we have a way of communicating with them if some of them are staying here. I expect Mel will want to learn their language of gestures, and perhaps some of them would like to learn to speak ours. At least, the one who has been changed over. He should be able to speak." She had a look on her face that made him uneasy. He cursed silently. He knew what she was thinking now. She wanted to go with Mel and teach the trogs. Learn from them. Intermingle with them. It nauseated him.

  "I thought you wanted to be in charge of giving the children their lessons. We have a lot of children to keep busy now," he said, thinking of the teeming masses packed in the great hall. The more occupied those people were during the winter months, the better off they all would be. In fact, he was thinking of setting them to work with some kind of indoor building project. A lot of them seemed good with hammers, as they’d proven with the construction of the tent city. But for now, he had to make them look desperate and needy to her—more in need of attention than the trogs, more deserving of her charity.

  "An hour a day with the trogs won't take anything away from the children," she said. There was something steely in her voice that made him realize she'd already made up her mind. Things were moving too quickly for him. His father was dead. The Masks ambushed. The tent city attacked. But there was no time to stop and become emotional about it. Things pushed ahead. He had to fit himself to the pace of events rolling across them. But if there were one thing he could control, it would be keeping Jenny with him, keeping all of the closeness they'd forged in the last few days.

  He wanted to protest, scrubbing a hand across his bristly face. He had just started to form the words when a sharp rap on the door brought him up short. He nearly roared with frustration, his fingers unintentionally tightening on Jenny's hip. Was he never again going to have an uninterrupted thought? Then he laughed sourly that this was the fate that Lady Lutra had apparently prepared for him . . . But, lucky. That's truly what he was. Maybe even more so than Ott, that lucky bastard. He loosened his grip on Jenny and stroked his fingers along the side of her dress. He would never curse his luck again because of her.

  "Come in," he called in a relatively collected manner, and it was the wrinkled face of his new favorite aged houseman who looked in the doorway.

  "Thank God you're here," the old man said, his eyes and mouth puckered with anxiety. Jenny slid from Rob's lap, but he grabbed her warm hand before she could move too far away.

  "What's happened?" Rob asked, gesturing for him to come in.

  "You're being taken before the council of advisors for murdering your father," he said bluntly, his sharp cheekbones working in distress. Jenny let out a sharp cry of anger. The old man continued, "I came here as soon as I heard. I wanted you to know it from me. They have cleared out a portion of the old cellar. They are constructing a jail cell. And they are going to hold you there."

  Blood rushed through Rob's body into his head. He could barely hear the rest of what the old man was saying through the pounding in his ears. His vision narrowed and he thought he might pass out. He couldn't feel Jenny's warm hand in his anymore. The room was spinning away. He was going back to the cellar. The same dank dungeon where his father had strapped him to a post and whipped him countless times. The same dark place where he'd sat bleeding, passing in and out of awareness as his lash marks wept and ran to pus. The same hard-packed dirt floor where he had subsisted on water and bread, feverish, until Col Rob thought him sufficiently hardened. Col Rob was dead, but whatever sadistic lessons he had in mind for Rob were still in play. Even cold and lifeless with no beat in his heart, no pulse in his veins, the old man would not die.

  Chapter 74

  If it weren't for Ott, I would be dead, Mel realized.

  A thousand terrible things might have come to pass. She could have been brutally abused by a trog underground, impregnated, and fated to die during childbirth. She could have been shot through with arrows in the mine like her parents. She stifled a sob when her thoughts drifted to them. She couldn't believe that she was never going to see them again. She wanted to turn back time, if only to ask
them why they left her. Her father should have known. Was he not a seer? Why hadn’t he seen that this would come to pass? She shoved the thoughts away before they overcame her with grief.

  Even if she could turn back the hours, she could have died before then in the attack on the Keep. Without Ott, she could have been killed by that very first trog who took her from the carriage that day outside of Cillary. She could never have met him and could have returned to the Mask settlement never having met him. She could have lived out her entire life at the settlement. Without Ott, she could have died a slow death just for lack of living a life.

  She and Ott had reached their room, and he closed the door behind them. The savory smell of him enveloped her as the door sealed the drafts of the hallway outside. They had food with them, so there were warm food smells, too. He had insisted on visiting the kitchen first, where he found something for them to eat. She was moving in an exhausted, dreamlike state. They brought the food with them to their room and now ate it quietly at the small table near the fireplace.

  They sat across the table from each other eating silently, slowly, neither with much appetite, ingesting automatically. She wanted to say something to Ott, but words weren't forming in her mind; none could come out. She speculated in a detached manner that it was such a false, unnatural practice—saying everything a person was thinking and feeling instead of suppressing the emotion, mulling over it, analyzing what it meant in the greater context of her role as an observer, as an impartial outsider. As much as she wanted to be a normal woman in a marriage with the man she loved, this was all new to her.