Page 37 of Katya and the Young God

“Well that went great,” she says, as sarcastic as she can make it, but it just sounds pathetic on her ears. She fists her hand again, gets a stab of pain, then it dissolves again into the numbness.

Pieter’s sitting a few steps away, knees tucked into his chest, watching her like a hawk, watching her gather herself.

That’s twice now that he’s caught her while she’s out of control, and that’s twice more than she wants.

Feketer pauses on the rope, obviously wiping off his hands, and even from this distance she can see them burned red from the rope. He’s grimacing, and even the sight of that makes Katya feel a little less bad.

“Everyone could tell that you were having trouble,” Pieter says, neutral, and she would have preferred if he mocked her instead. “I think they were getting ready to catch you if you fell.”

She pushes the sweaty clump of hair out of her eyes, before taking her hair sticks out completely and shaking her hair loose. “That’s not an experience I want to repeat.”

“And you’ll have to do it again on the way back,” he points out, with an obvious glance at her hair sticks. “Really? Even those are copper?”

Instead of giving that a response, she shakes her hair out again, before twisting it back into a bun once more.

“What situation have you been in where you could possibly justify having hair decorations as weapons?” He eggs her on, and she’s not stupid, she can recognize someone trying to distract her by getting her mad. “There’s got to be many more practical weapons in the world.” As if using it as an example, he nudges her boot, where her knife is hidden securely in the heel. “I don’t even know how you’d draw that one.”

“People are rarely shitty in situations where they announce they’re going to be shitty,” Katya says, and her voice rasps, like she couldn’t swallow if she tried. “You get in a habit.”

He scowls at her, but it’s not the worst scowl, more like a default expression than anything harsh. “You must live your life scared of everything,” he says, loftily. “If you humans get hurt so easily, I can only imagine the paranoia if you have people after you.”

She flexes her hand again, and the pins and needles are receding, leaving a bone deep pain. She’s going to need her Advil that night, going to need to somehow get a full night’s sleep deep in this cave.

If she gets out, she’s going to book herself a day at the most expensive spa Estes Park has to offer and put it all on her expense card and fight like hell to make sure they comp her for it.

“How much longer until the seal?” She asks, the words tumbling out of her mouth.

“Probably an hour of rough climbing,” he answers, easy. “Not far, but lots of small spaces squeezing in.”

Feketer’s feet hit the lip on this side, and this close she can see his arms shaking as well, see his hands torn and bloody, but he stands perfectly still as they unclip him from the harness and send it back.

Only then does he stride over to Katya and Pieter, sitting down as if he’s in full control of all his actions, and only then does he sigh, shake out his hands.

“You were far smarter than me to wear your gloves,” he says, his eyes skating over Pieter as if he’s still afraid of him. “I thought I was going to leave the rope full of blood.”

It’s not the comment she thought that people would make, but she shrugs, her shoulder protesting the motion.

He gingerly digs through his pack, pulling out a handkerchief and a bottle of gray-green dust, and Katya raises an eyebrow. Pixies are usually beyond secretive about their wound healing, so while she’s heard of their clotting and healing powder, it’s not something she ever thought she’d see in action.

He spreads the handkerchief as smooth as possible as he can on the hewn stone ground, and shakes out a tiny amount of the dust, spreading it thinly over the cloth with care. The dust is expensive, difficult to produce, and Pixies of all categories save and scrimp so they can keep it on them.

With it, they can survive almost any injury, and she never thought that she’d see one use it on something as common as a hand injury.

But, once it’s evenly spread out, he places the worst of his hand against the handkerchief, his nostrils flaring in pain as the dust literally knits his flesh back together.

Catching her watching, he gives her a sharp look, so she glances away. Like it’s somehow something private.

Pieter isn’t nearly as polite, and leans over the handkerchief instead. “Shouldn’t that stuff smell?”

Feketer snorts. “Only if you inhale a large amount of it.” He says, lifting his hand and checking it gingerly before pressing it back against the handkerchief. “And you’d be insane to do so, this stuff is more expensive than your Vegas properties.”

There’s a beat, before Pieter rolls his shoulders back and Feketer pales at what he just said. Instinctively, Katya leans back away from them, unsure of what dynamic she just stumbled in on.

With a shake of his head, Feketer rolls up the handkerchief and climbs to his feet, unobtrusively walking over to where Rory is chatting with the caver holding the ropes tight.

Pieter exhales, shaking his head and holding his legs closer to him. Like how a child would sit, like how someone deeply hurt would sit.

But he keeps his mouth shut, and she can’t bring herself to join the group where she’ll actually have to be social, so she sits there, sipping her water and waiting for the ache in her shoulder to recede.

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