And if you’re lucky, she might not cough on you.
But she probably will.
The Amphiwood had a wound: a deep, sulfurous sinkhole called the Gullet, where the old serpent god, Sszeth, had been buried alive by the first lizards. Every night, Sszeth’s hunger seeped up in black bubbles, turning the water to vinegar and the tadpoles to glass. For three hundred years, the frogs, newts, and mud-skimmers had offered sacrifices—bloodworms, stolen eggs, even their own half-grown—to keep the Gullet sleepy. cat god amphibia
“Nap time,” said Mewra.
They say if you walk the Amphiwood at twilight, when the frogs sing their lowest note, you can still see her—a ginger blur at the edge of your vision, judging you, waiting for you to drop that fish. And if you’re lucky, she might not cough on you
In the rain-slicked swamps of the Amphiwood, where the mangroves grew teeth and the mist remembered, there was no god above the peat line. Until there was. Every night, Sszeth’s hunger seeped up in black
“You are not of the wet or the dry,” Glot croaked, his throat sac pulsing like a heart. “You are lost.”