The Deepest Poison by Cato Beth

Author:Cato, Beth [Cato, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-04-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

OCTAVIA WOKE TO the rollicking grind of the train’s brakes. The Lady’s warmth lay as a cozy weight over her, like dirt upon roots. She wiped a trail of drool from her mouth as she pushed herself onto her haunches. The circle around her held. She had seen circles stay open for hours during complex operations that relied on doctoring as well as herbs, but certainly not with the healer bound inside. The other women, long since retreated to their benches, began to murmur and stir. They eyed Octavia as they reached for their hats and bags. Their look reminded her of the vultures that clustered on the edge of a battlefield, waiting for their turn.

Octavia did not anticipate a pleasant disembarkation.

The train screeched to a halt. She dug her elbow against her satchel, readying herself. The rest of the women stood. The door to the train car flung open with a clang. Grabbing hold of the medician blanket, Octavia lunged forward, jumping over the stairs entirely. A surprised conductor fell backward. Incontinence. She landed, ready to run.

Pandemonium drowned her.

Songs, bodies, thousands of them. As many as an army encampment, but all in tight proximity. A stew of humanity, with her senses more attuned than ever before.

She screamed, but even that sound was lost in the cacophony.

She ran, faces blurring around her. Dark suits, dark skins, people, people everywhere. Train whistles blasted like a whisper against the needs of bodies. Starvation gout disease pox infection syphilis double amputation typhoid pregnancy migraine. She ran, she shoved, she found a wall of glimmering white tile. A door. She opened it. She threw herself inside. A hallway, the lights electric. She staggered another twenty feet until she collapsed, heaving for breath, heaving from terror. The songs still burbled close by, like ocean waves hidden behind a dune.

“Lady, what is happening to me?”

She pulled the blanket from beneath her arm and pressed it to her face. The cloth absorbed her sobs as she rocked for a minute. Enough of this. I need to find out where I am. Find Alonzo.

Up the hall she found a map painted on the white wall: TAMARAN TERMINAL Colored lines depicted a massive facility of multiple floors and several dozen tracks. The place could easily hold tens of thousands of people—no wonder she had been overwhelmed. Even at her normal sensitivity, this place would have left her dazed and desirous of a quick retreat.

How am I to find Alonzo amidst these crowds? And how am I to cope with the noise of all these diagnoses?

The map showed several access hallways, like the one she was in, but she could not avoid the city itself. The terminal was located at city center, at the plaza. Even as a newcomer to Tamarania, she knew of the plaza.

The southern nations were a cluster of twelve city-states. Tamarania possessed the largest area by far, though its principal city occupied only the tip at the continent’s end. The other city-states overflowed islands interconnected by bridges, naval vessels, and airships.

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