Healer to the Ash King (Dark Rulers, #5)

by Rebecca F. Kenney

“The Undoing is skilled at persuading the young and the reckless. So very clever with words and promises. They create the most fervent of zealots.” Rince’s eager face leaps into my mind, and I swallow hard, averting my gaze. “I didn’t know they had touched someone I loved,” the Ash King continues quietly. “Not until my cousin Nikkan, my brother, my fellow warrior—he rose from the banquet table and shouted, ‘To the glory of anarchy!’ and smashed a strange-looking bottle. A powdery green smoke curled from the shards, spreading through the room and seeping out the doors and windows into the air. All around the table, my friends fell, choking, frothing, dying. As his own lungs spasmed from the poison, Nikkan slit the throat of the healer who had accompanied us. Not that the healer could have saved us anyway—most healers cannot counter the effect of toxins.”