An Anatomy of Beasts by Olivia A. Cole

Author:Olivia A. Cole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-02-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

“You,” I say when I find my voice. I’m still kneeling on the ground and don’t yet feel stable enough to stand. The gwabi greets me in the Artery—the gwabi I’ve come to think of as a friend—a smudge of concern for my condition that passes when she realizes the venom has been purged.

Kimbullettican dismounts from the gwabi’s back. “You are all right now?” they say. They wear a woven sack on either shoulder, the straps crisscrossing over their narrow chest.

“Y-yes,” I stammer, the last of the orange burst clearing from my eyes. “But what are you doing here?”

“I have been following you since the wreckage of your people’s vessel,” they say, removing first one of the sacks and then the other. “I was forced to hide after the dirixi appeared. I am surprised you knew to approach the water.”

“I smelled it,” I say. “Something told me I needed to get to it.”

Kimbullettican pauses, leveling the endless blackness of their eyes at me. “Hamankush is correct—you are unusual.”

Rondo coughs and I turn to where he’s attempting to rise. I want to help him up—my arm even jerks as if it’s going to do so on its own—but I’m afraid to touch him. I’m afraid that if I touch him again, the vile green voice will beckon to me once more, that something in me will start to see him as prey.

“That was fun,” he says when he’s standing. He’s still blinking the invisible sun from his eyes. They land on Kimbullettican. “Oh. Hello.”

“Anoo,” Kimbullettican says. “You are all right? Surviving vusabo venom is good but unpleasant.”

“He’s all right now,” Alma interjects. “But is that all they need to do? Swallow those weird berries?”

“Not berries,” Kimbullettican corrects. “The antivenin you both consumed is actually a collection of insect eggs that cluster in the root of the plant.”

“Insect eggs,” Rondo repeats. He looks queasy. I stare down at the red stain the eggs had left on my fingers, which I had scooped so eagerly, thinking them seeds.

“Nonviable, of course,” Kimbullettican goes on. “The shell of the root can only be cracked when the insects capable of survival have already left the nest.”

“Wait,” I say. “So what if the eggs were viable? I wouldn’t have been able to open the nest?”

“That is correct.”

I stare at them, torn between numbness and anger. “So I dragged out the vusabo plant or whatever and got stabbed by its quills . . . and the antivenin may not even have been accessible?”

“That is correct. The vusabo will reroot itself: do not worry.”

“So we might have died. Both of us.”

Kimbullettican blinks. “That is correct.”

“Well, that’s lovely.” Alma sighs, exasperated. “Octavia, are you going to introduce us?”

In the Artery, Kimbullettican assesses me, and I know right away that they sense whatever it was that had transpired between me and the vusabo. I feel their internal gaze pass over me with concerned interest, but they give away nothing about whether the subtle shifting I sensed within the plant was the result of Faloii intervention.

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