Page 48 of Katya and the Young God

And so she does.

7

Katya’s watch reads seven o'clock in the evening when they draw towards a grand altar.

Or, at least, what looks like an altar.

Bones, deeply imbedded in the floor, narrow them onto a pathway in a large, low ceiling room, too similar to a church aisle to go unnoticed by Katya. Great spires of white stone line the walls, with stone cascading down the walls in great rippling sheets, looking more like grave shawls than anything else.

And, in the pathway lined with bones, every skull has crystals glittering for eyes, giving the impression of watching them with a holy silence.

Her skin crawls.

There are steps, cleanly cut into the stone and line with the carpet of skeletons, leading to a hip-tall box made from the same black stone of the seal. The lid is heavy, ornate, with swirling carvings suggesting blood vessels and muscles and sinew.

Katya would’ve called it a coffin, but it’s too short, not enough space for an adult.

Charlotte speaks first. “Is this it?” She asks, and her voice echoes in the room, echoes off the bones and the sheets of stone and the pillars, echoes in a way the rest of the cave haven’t been. “Is this what Nathan died for?”

Pieter’s pale, but so is Rory, so is Feketer, so is the Magician. Like merely being in this room is like being in a storm.

“I think it’s safe to say that there’s something here,” Katya says, when it becomes clear that no one else is speaking up. “I don’t know what, but something. Are there any traps?”

Only Feketer blinks at her, temporarily out of the shock enough to be able to look at her. “Who could tell?”

“Will touching the stone cause any effect?” She asks, and before she’s even able to finish the sentence —

“Don’t touch it,” Pieter snaps out, and his eyes are wide. “You shouldn’t touch it.”

And Katya didn’t exactly want to, so she hangs back, inspecting the other elements of the room instead.

There’s a slow, steady drip of water, somewhere in the distance, and the air blows cool and damp against her cheeks, despite the room having only one entrance and only one exit. The air blows towards the altar, of course, smooth and smelling of minerals.

The bones are as dry and mold-free as the rest of the cave, and the crystals glittering give her the same feeling of peace and belonging as the one in the tunnel does, which is an alert in and of itself.

And yet…

Her eyes keep getting drawn to the altar. To the giant box, whatever it may be, of gleaming black stone.

A quick glance to the other human cavers shows them similarly affected, all watching the box with fondness in their eyes, like they can feel the pull and tug behind their navel just like her.

“Guys,” she says, her voice hushed, at the other humans, and they break their gaze at the box for a brief second, their eyes flickering back. “Guys, whatever we’re getting, it’s not real.”

Charlotte’s lips part, but it takes her a good long moment before she speaks, and when she does, her voice is low. “I’m not doing anything,” she says, but her feet move like she’s straining to not move towards it. “We’re just looking.”

Katya knows she was once this innocent, was once this unaware of other forces, but the lack of attention to the basic draw they’re obviously feeling takes her breath away.

“I know today has been a lot, I know everything’s confusing, but don’t move,” she says, and even though her attention is torn between the box and the two humans in front of her, she sees Pieter and Feketer turn their heads towards her. “It’s doing something magical to us, it could be a trap, don’t go to it.”

Charlotte shoots Katya a quick look, before tentatively climbing the steps to the altar, and Katya doesn’t trust herself to move from this spot. If she moves from this spot, she might run all the way up, and…

And something trying so hard to get the humans’ attention while scaring all of the others is something she doesn’t want to deal with.

“That could kill you,” Pieter says, his voice echoing through the altar room. “We don’t know what it is, it could —"

“Like you killed Nathan?” She asks, and, setting her hands on the smooth stone, both palms down, and her breathing hitches.

His feet coming loose from where they were stuck, Pieter jolts forward, dashing up the stairs, but Charlotte shoves the giant stone lid over with both hands, and it crashes to the ground.

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