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Unuratu holds her hand, as an urge rises to her throat, swelling inside her stomach with new buds. Here, in a secret city in the middle of the Amazon jungle, nature lives according to its own laws, and Lara isn't a bit surprised. But that doesn't make it any less painful.
The disease overtook her quite recently, and Lara hopes people don't find it noticeable. Does Unuratu know? Had she seen Lara's tears bursting from the blossom in her chest, and her muscles cramping from the itchiness under her skin?
Soon there won't be enough space for the flowers and they will crawl out through her.
Under her clothes, where the skin is most delicate — on her belly, hips and chest — sharp edges of young green leaves break through. Lara grabs them with her fingernails and bites her lip until it bleeds, growling in a choked voice as she tries to pull them out. It's useless. Along the thin young thread of the stem, one leaf follows another, with no end to the vine. The flowers, on the other hand, are too large to be extracted through the incision.
If she had been at home, the procedure wouldn't have taken half an hour under anesthesia.
If she had been at home, this would never have happened.
She is ready to sacrifice her life for Queen Paititi, to do anything to make this delusion pass, except for uttering the most significant words.
She thinks if she opens her mouth and gathers the courage to tell Unuratu, bright blue plexuses of Nicandra and pink Mirabilises will come out of her mouth instead.
She coughs, vomits, and the greenery covers the cracked surface of the monolith like a thin flowing carpet.
The thought of not waking up the next morning and the fear of being consumed by vines haunts her, when Unuratu finally comes to her.
Should the queen be pay her a visit this late? Even if Lara died torn apart by jaguars, anything is better than hoping for a phantom reciprocity.
"I'm sorry, Lara," Unuratu says, stroking her cheek. "I couldn't have come sooner."
"You... know?"
Unuratu smiles at her silently. It must have been a very stupid question.
"The flower disease has to ripen. Only when the inflorescences produce nectar can it be quenched."
"And when will they be produced?" "How will I know?"
"Believe me, you'll find out." I'll find out.
Unuratu kisses her, softly, wetly, long, a tongue licking her lips noisily, as Lara sucked in air with her nose. Lara feels it – the air is filled with an unbearably sweet scent of flowers.
"How you smell," Unuratu whispers, slipping her hands under the skirt of Lara's dress and touching the skin of her thighs, cut painfully by razorlike points of the leaves. Under her touch, the pain fades away. "And how your tongue tastes are sweet with nectar."
"I could infect you," Lara tries to protest. Deep inside, she feels an overwhelming sense of happiness knowing that Unuratu is present, from the taste of her lips and skin, from the soft shoulders and hard nipples under her palms. In this moment, Lara realizes that she is no longer in pain anymore — and everything is alright.
"Oh, Isshik," Unuratu laughs silently, brushing her tongue against every cut on her chest before looking up. "I've been sick because of you for a long time."
Lara sighs, unable to believe her ears, and it seems to her that the flowers will come out of them now, too, but the new feeling is not a disease. And it's quite different.