Page 18 of The Catacomb King
I couldn’t be certain because of the robe, but I thought he had extra arms.
I recoiled tighter.
The beetle-godling asked, in a thin high-pitched voice, his tone one of open disgust: “What isthat?”
I didn’t even dare to look around to see what he was talking about. I couldn’t handle any more horrors. Then I realized he was talking about me.
The Prince shouted back, his voice booming and authoritative: “I demand to see the King!”
Wait.
This wasn’t the King?
The beetle-godling ignored his request entirely. “Is that a human being? Where in the Monarch’s name did you get that?”
“I took her from the surface-world.” The Prince’s voice dropped a scale. “I have selected her as tribute.”
Tribute to what? Oh, no, no, no.
The beetle-godling’s eyes went wide. “You did not.”
“I did.”
“Wediscussedthis. It is not for you to decide such things. Your illustrious father —”
“Let meseemy father and I’ll explain it to the both of you.”
“No,” said the beetle-godling. His voice was higher-pitched than ever and full of fury. I had no idea what was going on. Was he advocating to save my life? Somehow I did not think so. The Prince was the one who’d kidnapped me, the one who was calling metribute, but somehow I instinctively felt safer with him cradling me than I did with this strange beetle-godling’s unblinking ruby eyes on my face. The beetle-godling went on, “If you wish to see the King, you may file a request according to the appropriate protocol.”
The Prince set me down, as delicately as he could considering that I’d tied myself into a knot in order to be able to hit him while he was carrying me. Even I had to admit that his self-control was superb, because he was absolutely seething.
Not at me. At the beetle-godling.
The instant my feet touched the ground, the Prince turned on his heel and strode over to the throne. I could practically seethe anger coming off him in waves. “File a request? So it can get dumped in the sea like everyone else’s?”
The beetle-godling was unfazed. “The requests follow proper procedure.”
“LET ME SEE MY FATHER!”
“I shall repeat myself only once more…”
Neither of them was looking at me.
I began to inch, carefully, toward the side chamber with the white light. Surely… surely… light that white had to mean access to the outside?
The part of my brain that understood engineering said no way. We were too far underground. But another part of me — a deeper, more subconscious part — felt drawn to that ghostly light.
But when I snuck into the chamber, I found only an enormous, glassy underground lake.
Thirst spiked my mouth. Only the fact that I was in the underworld, and I might be trapped here if I drank the water, prevented me from plunging my whole face into the lake and drinking my fill.
But I found myself drawn to the lake anyway. At the water’s edge, I craned my neck to see all the way up. Therewasan opening to the outside world. A small hole in the earth all the way above my head, what seemed like a mile up. A single shaft of light shot through it like a rope, along with a thin, pounding waterfall. It was strange how the waterfall did not disturb the surface of the lake.
Then I realized the waterfall did not movedown. It movedup. It fell upwards, against gravity, into the shaft of light.
Could that light really be moonlight? It was so… blue.
As my eyes adjusted, I realized that there was another light source, too. White wax candles stood on pillars in the center of the lake. Their flame flickered with that strange blue color.
