Page 72 of The Catacomb King
“Father,” Hades said. His voice was barely above a croak. “Your Majesty.”
“Time to feed,” his father boomed, in a voice that sounded like insect legs scuttling over stone. I flinched and covered my ears instinctively. The humanoid chaosgötter next to me tugged my hands down in a panic.
The Vizeking interjected hastily, “It is our Monarch who will be feeding, sire. On that one.” He pointed to me. “There.”
“That’s my son,” said the King.
“No, behind her.”
The King did not seem to know what he was talking about. “Snack time,” he said.
Elke and the chaosgötter, very very subtly, started to push me behind them. Deeper into the crowd, farther away from the King’s sight. Perhaps I could climb into the pipe shaft. Again I had the idea to throw myself off the cliff.
Hades said, his voice a little clearer this time, “Father. Are you… all right? You look… different.”
“Your father,” the Vizeking interjected smoothly, “has been indisposed.”
“Uh-huh.” Hades sounded unconvinced. “That’s what you usually say when I request an audience.”
“He would be resting at this very moment, save thatyouinsisted on his presence for the tribute ritual,” accused the Vizeking. “So. Here he is. Here we all are. Let us go to the Lake.”
Everyone pressed almost imperceptibly backward.
The King lumbered forward. Everyone recoiled. I tried to hide under Elke. Then Hades thrust his open palm out at his father. “Father, no.”
Everyone gasped, but his father ignored him. Didn’t even seem to have heard.
But Hades repeated, “NO.” The thin croak was gone from his voice. He grabbed me and wrapped an arm around my waist, tight as a rope. I clung to him like iron to a magnet. I couldn’t trust him, but I’d been down here three days and he hadn’t hurt me yet, which I knew like a hunted animal was absolutely more than I would be able to say of the King. “Father,” Hades repeated. Even the Vizeking was running after the King, trying to dissuade him. I got the terrified impression that the Vizeking did not trust the King to remember that I was supposed to go in the Lake instead of being eaten on the spot like a piece of candy.
The King had a human-sized head, I tried to tell myself. He would not be able to actually pop me in his mouth. If he wanted to eat me, he would have to do it bite by bite. Surely I could hurt him in that time. Rip his eight eyeballs out of his head. Punch him in the throat.
I pushed away from Hades and faced the King. I balled my fists.
Hades shoved me behind him at once. But not before the King, for the first time, caught sight of me.
The King slowed.
The Vizeking caught up with him, panting. “Your Majesty.”
“She looks like Mütte,” the King boomed, wonderingly. “You.” He pointed to Hades. “Show me Mütte.”
Even I clenched up at the King calling his own sonyou.
But if Hades was upset — and I knew he was — he didn’t show it. “This one’s not yours,” he said calmly. “This one’s mine. I’m the one who found her, I’m the one who brought her here in spite of the fact that shebit me” — here he cast me a reproachful look, which I was too terrified to even sneer at — “and I’m the one who’s been putting up with all her shit. I will be sacrificing her to the Monarch. I honor you, Father, but please, step aside. I am the Prince of the Primordium. I will sacrifice the tribute by my own authority.”
No one, least of all the King, seemed to know what to do with this.
It was the Vizeking, astonishingly, who said, “Yes, yes, yes! You do it, Your Lordship. Let us go now and get this whole beastly business over with.”
I panicked. I couldn’t figure out a way out of this. Hades had not moved, but in a moment he would sling me over his shoulder. He’d take me to the Lake and drown me there, as he’d always intended to do. He would console himself with the thought that at least he’d visit my sleeping corpse.
Then a thin reedy voice piped up, “No.”
It wasn’t Hades. His voice was too deep and masculine. And the only other person here who might defend me was Elke, but she worked for the Royal Family and would never.
No, the speaker was no one I’d met before. Instead, it was the humanoid chaosgötter next to me, who’d stopped me from covering my ears.
The Vizeking and Hades and the King all stared at him.
