Page 62 of Katya and the Young God

Even the Magician and Feketer keep their distance, with the ghoul falling behind them, and the two cavers behind even more.

And Katya can’t manage to do anything else, besides stick close to the Demigod and keep an eye on those behind them, that no one pulls a weapon or does anything that could endanger them.

But no one does.

* * *

Pieter only stumbles once,and they’re in the grand cavern they entered from, the roof split with the sun shining down through the grand stalactites and stone pillars. When the mouth of the cave is in sight, Pieter’s legs start to buckle.

As quickly as she can, Katya catches him on his other side, controlling his descent, as he gingerly lowers the sleeping child to the ground, before his other knee all but gives out on him.

Selene blinks sleepily at them, face pale, before her eyes slip shut again into sleep. Katya doesn’t know if gods have a power well, if she used up all her reserves and must regain energy, but she looks exhausted. Wrung out.

Pieter leans against Katya, and she’s no expert of Demigod biology— there probably isn’t one in the world— he feels over warm, burning too hot.

“Sorry,” he mumbles in Russian, and his back is slick with sweat. “We’re almost there, but…”

The others stay back, before Feketer strides past them, towards the cave opening, and everyone else follows. There are prickles on the back of Katya’s neck—something about this feels like a trap.

“It’s fine,” Katya responds, switching over to Russian the best she can, because while she could be considered fluent, it’s still pretty fucking rough. “We’re almost there.”

He blinks at her, his gray eyes puzzled, but still leaning against her as he digs into his pack with shaking hands for food.

She pulls out one of her MRE’s before he can, hands it to him. “You’re probably in all sorts of pain,” she says at his quizzical look. “I have extra.”

Feketer and the others disappear from the mouth of the cave, leaving the three of them alone.

“She needs food, too,” he says, words tripping themselves out of his mouth, and the Russian is so thick she leans in close to hear. “She has no way of controlling how much power she uses—she probably used up all she had in her.”

Katya looks up, at the giant crack in the stone, at the geological marvel scientists are going to be puzzling over for probably the next century. “I’d say it was quite a bit.”

“If she’s anything like...like what I think she is, it’ll probably take her a full day to recover from that,” he says, brows furrowing as he opens up the MRE. “Or, most Demigods need that time to recover, so I’d think.”

“So she won’t be able to magic any problems away, is what you’re saying,” Katya says, stretching out her legs in front of her. Her ankle gives a twinge, which isn’t great with the hike they’ll have to do in the next twenty-four hours, but it’s better than being broken.

“Your Russian is horrible,” he says, around a mouthful of dry MREs. “Where the fuck did you learn to speak like that.”

“Afghanistan,” she says, shifting, and he leans against her more. “Our translator knew it better than English, so we...adapted.”

He weighs that for a second, as if that is what actually matters in this moment, before nodding in acceptance of it. “Your accent sounds like a dog.”

“Don’t have much reason to use it.” Katya switches to English, because fuck it, it’s easier and she’s tired. “Should we wake her up? Get her up, get her walking?”

She can sense his hesitation, sense his exhaustion, but the last thing she wants is to get above ground and find the entire camp gone, with no supplies and nothing left for them.

“What are we going to do?” He asks, quiet, and it’s odd, him including her, but...

“I haven’t got a clue,” she whispers back. “What’s JD’s plan?”

“He thought it was going to be an item, a relic, something holding power, not...” he gestures with his foot to where Selene rests, her head pillowed in her arm. “I doubt he has anything resembling a plan.”

“Fuck,” Katya says simply, and she feels him chuckle against her.

He turns his head towards her, and he’s close, very close, and for a split-second Katya’s mouth goes dry, but she blinks away the strangeness, keeping eye contact instead of shying away.

Their shoulders are touching, and even though it has been a trip of breaking down barriers, this feels new. Close, in a way she’s not used to getting with anyone.

His eyes flicker to her lips for the briefest of seconds, before he shifts away.

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