“I’m trying,” I replied. There could be anything lurking in the darkness. Despite how I felt about Lucas, I grabbed on and stuck as close to him as I possibly could. I held his hand tighter, and he squeezed back. It gave me butterflies, and I wondered if he felt them, too.
Lucas stopped. I heard a door open, then saw dim light on the other side. He walked ahead. “Watch where you’re going,” he warned me. We walked down a few shaky wooden steps.
The light came from sconces lit on the stone walls. “Where are we?” Wherever it was, it was even more ancient than the other parts of the palace, I could tell. It looked like we were in a cave, almost.
“The catacombs beneath the palace,” he said. “That’s an old access door. No one uses it anymore. The main door is that way”—he pointed to the right—“but is heavily guarded.”
“How did you know about that door?”
“I do my homework” was all he said. He started to the left. The passage dipped down as we went. We were heading deeper into the ground.
We were approaching a door. It looked like it was about a thousand years old, made from wide planks of splintering wood held together with iron straps. I yanked back and wrapped my arms around myself. “I don’t think I can go in there. Do we both need to go? I could stay here and keep watch.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“What if we get caught?”
“We won’t; I promise. No one is coming down here at this hour.”
“Unless they’re up to no good.”
“In which case, I’ll take care of it.” His jaw clenched, and the glint in his eyes made him look sexy and dangerous. I felt a thrill at that, to know how strong he was, how capable and how fearless.
“I’m not really scared,” I said, trying to believe that was true. I was frightened—I never liked dark places or things that went bump in the night—but I didn’t want to be a coward.
“Let’s go, then,” he said. He had his hand on the door. I fought the urge to yell, “Stop!” or to run back the way we came. Before I even had a chance, he’d already opened it and slipped into the room. I gathered my strength, held my breath—because didn’t bodies stink?—and followed him.
Unlike what I’d seen on TV, there weren’t any corpses lying around in the open. I exhaled. That was a relief. “Oh, so this is it?” I asked.
Lucas laughed. “No, not yet.” He pushed open another door and waved for me to follow him back into the darkness.
“Theseare the ancient catacombs,” he explained. “The deeper we go into the mountain, the older the tombs. They say if you make it through the entire maze, you’ll reach the final resting place of the very first Biringan monarch, Queen Felicidad, who ruled over all four kingdoms, long before they were divided in the Endless Wars.”
“The first ruler was a queen?”
“Yes, and she was a great warrior, too. She unified the Biringan kingdoms after the split from the human realm.”
“Huh. Cool. Have you ever seen her tomb?”
“No one has. Anyone who’s tried either gave up and came back or was never seen again.”
I gulped. That meant, somewhere deep in the mountain catacombs, there were other dead bodies of those who had gotten lost underground... I shook off the thought; it was too morbid.
“Doesn’t mean we didn’t try. It’s a common game growing up here—dare your friends to find the first queen.”
So that was actually how he knew about this place.
While we were talking, Lucas had been shining his light into the holes in the walls.
“No one’s buried here anymore, but the rituals are still performed in the sacred space. The mages purify the burial ground before the funeral.”
“Wow. I feel like I don’t know anything.”
“Well, how could you? You grew up over there.” The way he said “over there” suggested he didn’t think much of the human realm. Before I got defensive, he added, “I can lend you some books if you’d like. They’re the kind of thing children read when they are starting to learn our history, but perhaps...”
“Yes,” I said gratefully. I wish I’d thought of that before. “That would be great, actually.”
“I think I found her,” he said. He stuck his head a little farther into an opening in the wall, then pulled back quickly. “That’s definitely the page girl.” His hands were trembling, but he tried to hide whatever had spooked him by laughing about it. “Guess I wasn’t prepared for that.”
