Poison's Cage

by Breeana Shields

  Her gaze gets misty and far away. “If it’s true, it changes everything.”

  But I think she’s wrong. I don’t see how it changes anything at all.

  It wasn’t until I saw Iyla’s hair gleaming in the twilight that I studied her more closely. The small age spot on the back of her hand—the one her thumb hasn’t stopped tracing since she found it several weeks ago—is gone. Her skin is dewy. Her cheeks have more color, and her hair is just a little thicker, the color just a little richer.

  The realization unfurled in my stomach with a snap. Balavan has offered her the one thing beyond my reach, beyond Deven’s. Life.

  It’s not that I haven’t thought about how to restore Iyla. How to give her back the years Kadru stole to turn me into a killer. I asked Deven if the maraka fruit would work, but he didn’t know. It’s an antidote to the poison, but it probably can’t give her years she doesn’t have.

  But if I’m going to win in a game against Balavan, I need to be on equal footing. Iyla is too big an advantage for me to concede.

  Kadru is the only person who might have the answers. Iyla waits at least a hundred steps from the entrance to the tent. She has one fist tightly clenched around the opposite hand, as if she knows she can rely only on herself for comfort.

  It tweaks something inside me to see her like this—her shoulders slumped forward as if she’s carrying an invisible weight, her eyes wide and rigid. It’s an expression I’ve never seen on her before, but one that can only be described as fear.

  I take a deep breath before I part the flap of Kadru’s tent and step into her small, sumptuous kingdom. White snakes are everywhere—curled around the legs of a mahogany table, suspended from a bamboo pole, lounging on a velvet chaise.

  Kadru sits cross-legged in an overstuffed chair, her gaze pinned to the entrance as if she’s been expecting me. She is dressed in a plum-colored sari. Amethyst stones rest in the hollow of her throat and dangle from her ears.

  “I heard you were back,” she says. Her fingers idly brush the head of the snake curled on her lap.

  I keep my face impassive, my muscles loose, but there’s nothing I can do to stop the hammering of my heart or the prickle of fear that races over my skin. The reptilian stench of the tent curls around me, making it impossible to breathe deeply. If only the snakes would move, would give me some space, I might be able to gather my thoughts.

  Suddenly every snake in the tent moves at once, slithering away from me, gathering around Kadru.

  I release a sigh. “Thank you,” I tell her.

  She throws her head back and laughs. The sound makes the hairs rise on the back of my neck.

  “Oh, my darling, I didn’t command them.” She smiles, catlike. “You did.”

  I take a step back. Shake my head. “No,” I say. “That’s not possible.”

  “Did you wish for them to move away from you?”

  My blood runs cold. The last time I saw Kadru, she told me I would become her, that her path was my path. I fight back tears.

  “How?” I say. “Why?”

  Something like sympathy flashes in Kadru’s eyes. “It happened for me the first time I saw the Nagaraja in person,” she says. “I felt his mind touch mine, and from then on I had a connection to all snakes. Though it took me years before I could do what you just did.”

  Horror wells in my chest as I remember my encounter with the Nagaraja. How I finally made him release Mani by opening up the connection in my mind even more completely to him. How I pushed all of the pain and sorrow from my memory into his. I cover my mouth with my hand. What have I done?

  Kadru stands up and places a palm on my arm. Her skin is warm. “Don’t fight it, darling. There’s power in being the Nagaraja’s chosen one.” She takes my face in her hands and pins me with a searching look. And suddenly her voice is in my mind, far more forceful than the one she usually uses. The game you’re playing is a dangerous one.

  I gasp, but Kadru gives me a warning glare, a subtle shake of her head. “Be a good girl,” she says aloud.

  I feel naked, but without any sense of which way to twist my body to avoid scrutiny.

  I can’t stop shaking. My gaze darts around the tent, as if I might find answers on the intricately embroidered pillows or the gold-rimmed teacups.

  Kadru strides back to her chair. She curls her feet underneath her. She waits.

  Several long seconds pass before this question occurs to me: If she can see inside my mind, can I see inside hers?

  Not unless I let you in.

  I stuff a fist into my mouth, pull air slowly through my nose. I shouldn’t have come here.

  “Why did you come here, darling?” Kadru asks.

  “Why are you asking when you already know?” My voice comes out hoarse and just above a whisper.

  Kadru raises one delicate eyebrow. “Come now, rajakumari. Don’t play games.”

  I want to rip her hair out. Claw at her face. Shake her like a bag of rice—viciously, until the exterior rips and her pearly-white secrets come spilling out.

  If she sees my violent thoughts, she doesn’t show it. Her face is calm, expectant. Maybe I imagined her voice in my head. Maybe I’m losing touch with reality.

  I glance at the entrance to the tent. It’s dangerous to approach Kadru when I know she serves the Nagaraja, when I know she’s loyal to them. But she’s helped me before. When I asked for venom to make Deven immune, she gave it to me instead of turning me over to Gopal. She made me pay a steep price, but she didn’t tell me no. And right now she’s the only one who can give me what I want. I thought it was worth the risk.

  But that was before I knew she could see my thoughts.

  I turn to leave, but then I think of Iyla standing outside, of the fear in her eyes. I spin back toward Kadru. “I want you to give Iyla her life back.”

  She sighs and her expression gets dreamy and distant. “I had a counterpoint once,” she says. “That’s what Balavan called her—my counterpoint. The girl whose life was slowly drained to make me deadly. Her name was Tamira.” She swallows. Her gaze drops to her lap, to the thick white snake coiled there. She strokes his head, her jewels flashing, her purple fingernails looking like blooming bruises against his pale scales. With a start I realize that I know the snake is male. That I know he enjoys being caressed.

  The air in the tent suddenly feels too thick to breathe. “What happened to her?” I ask, as much to distract myself from the snake as to get an answer.

  “She died young, while I grew more deadly, more powerful.” Kadru lifts her head and meets my eyes. “She got the better deal.”

  “I doubt she would agree,” I say.

  “No,” Kadru says. “You’re probably right.”

  The silence stretches between us. Questions tumble around my mind, but they are so disjointed I can’t put them into words.

  “I cared a great deal about Tamira,” Kadru says. “You might even say I loved her. But in the end it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter for me, and it won’t matter for you. What you’re asking, Marinda, it isn’t possible.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I say. “I think Balavan has already given some of her life back.”

  “And you’re hoping if you can help her, you’ll wield some control? That she’ll be loyal to you?”

  “No, it’s not like that.” But even as I say the words, hot shame licks up my neck. Because the truth is that I do want to control Iyla. I want her loyalty. I want her friendship. I want her to feel about me the way she did when we were children.

  Kadru shakes her head. “Not possible.” I don’t know if she’s responding to my statement or my thoughts. But then her gaze sharpens and she frowns. “Iyla will never be loyal to you.”

  I curl my fist around a bamboo pole and squeeze until my knuckles turn white. “She will,” I say. “She has before.” I think of all the times we spent as children whispering secrets in the dark of night, hiding in the belly of the huge teak wardrobe in Iyla’s room and giggling as Gita h
uffed around the girls’ home shouting our names. Iyla wasn’t just loyal to me. She loved me.

  “You are the reason she’s dying,” Kadru says. “How could she possibly ever love you?”

  My throat burns. I’ve had the very same thought before, but somehow hearing her say it out loud makes it seem irrevocable.

  “But I didn’t take her life—you did.”

  “You must know by now that it’s more complicated than that. If I could help you, I would. But Iyla has lost more years than I could ever return.”

  “You could if you wanted to,” I say softly. “What’s fifty years to you when you have so many?”

  “Fifty? Oh, if only it were so few. Iyla has lost five hundred, my darling. And even I don’t have that many to spare.”

  I take a step backward. “That’s not possible,” I say. “How could you have taken five hundred years from her when she’ll only live…” But even as I speak, the knowledge settles over me like a blanket made of steel. It presses all the air from my lungs. “You took years from lives she hasn’t lived yet, lives she hasn’t even been born to?”

  The question hangs in the air between us.

  “Not for myself,” Kadru says finally. “The lives went to the Nagaraja. But they’re gone all the same.”

  My voice feels trapped at the base of my throat, and I have to force my next words out. “How much longer does she have?”

  “She’s on her last life,” Kadru says. “And if she’s started to show signs of age…” She pauses, as if reading my thoughts for confirmation. “A few years at most. Possibly not even that long.”

  I think of Iyla’s face when she learns the truth—that she’s lost so much more than she even knows. I think of the hate that will twist her features, that will forever change the way she sees me.

  The snake on Kadru’s lap slithers to the floor as she stands. She runs the back of her fingers along my cheek. “It was meant to be this way,” she says. “You were never supposed to have human connections.”

  For just a moment Mani’s face springs into my memory. His impish smile, the way his hair looks first thing in the morning—sticking up in every direction. My heart curls protectively around the image and I force it from my mind. I can’t ever let myself think of Mani in Kadru’s presence. I let my thoughts drift back to Iyla, but that’s hardly any better. I don’t want to lose her either. But I will. She’s going to blame me even though it’s not fair.

  Kadru tilts her head to one side and studies me with a knowing expression, as if she’s following every thought, and I swallow hard. Her eyes soften. “The heart doesn’t concern itself with what’s fair. You had already lost Iyla before you even knew her name. It’s time to let go.”

  But I refuse to believe her. There has to be another way to keep Iyla alive, to keep Mani safe. To take down the Nagaraja. And whatever it is, I’m going to find it.

  “I have to go,” I say. I ignore the way the snakes perk up at my words. The way I can feel their restless energy pulsing through my own mind. I smooth my palms along my sari to dry them. “Are you going to tell Balavan I was here?”

  Kadru laughs. “Oh, darling, I won’t need to. Iyla will tell him.”

  Marinda looks like she’s seen a ghost. Her lips have drained of color. Her hands flutter at her sides like injured bird wings. I forget all about keeping my distance from Kadru’s tent as I rush to her side.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she says, but the word is too quick, too strained. She doesn’t slow down, doesn’t meet my gaze.

  “Marinda, wait.” I lay a palm on her forearm. “Don’t lie to me.”

  She stops then. She turns to me, slowly. Her smile is tremulous and her eyes are so full of pain that my heart pinches in my chest. I know that expression—it’s one I’ve given her many times—bleak and bled of hope. It’s the sting of being betrayed. What did Kadru say to her?

  “I’m fine,” she says. “Can we just go back to the Naga palace?”

  I drop my hand back to my side. “Of course we can.”

  Marinda walks likes someone is chasing us, and my thighs burn as I struggle to keep up. Her sandals slap against the street in an unrelenting, angry rhythm.

  “Nothing good ever comes from visiting Kadru,” I tell her. She doesn’t answer. I’m not certain she even heard me.

  We walk in silence while I wait for her to calm down. To turn to me, as usual, and tell me what’s bothering her.

  But she never does.

  Something inside me starts to fray. I’ve never seen Marinda like this. She’s never been so far away that I couldn’t reach her. It makes me feel like I’m standing on quicksand.

  And yet all the way back to the Naga palace, I’m rehearsing what I’ll tell Balavan. What if the letter isn’t enough? How I can betray Marinda in pieces without betraying her completely?

  Knifelike worry twists in my gut. What if I can’t satisfy Balavan without giving him Marinda, whole and unprotected? What if it’s like giving a snake a mouse and expecting him not to eat it?

  But it won’t come to that.

  A little voice in my head whispers that this is a lie, that if I have to choose between my life and Marinda’s, I won’t be able to trust myself not to go too far. But if tradecraft has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes lies are necessary. Sometimes they’re a matter of survival.

  Marinda still seems lost in thought when we approach the guards on the path to the Naga palace. They step in front of us, hands on the hilts of their swords, and block us from moving forward.

  “A tiger can hide in the bushes, and a bird can take cover in the trees,” the younger of the two men says.

  Marinda’s head snaps up. Her gaze sharpens. I make a mental note to tell her she needs to be subtler when she’s collecting intelligence.

  I roll my eyes at the guard. “We just left this morning. You watched us go.”

  “And perhaps you’ve fallen from Balavan’s grace in the meantime and he’s decided to change the password,” he says. “I still need to hear it.”

  I smile sweetly, even though I’d like to snatch the sword from his hands and liberate his head from his neck. “But the most dangerous enemy is the one that can hide underfoot,” I say.

  The guard grins as he steps off the path. “Now, was that so hard?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Marinda’s fingers curl into fists at her sides. I put a hand on her elbow and pull her forward before she does anything stupid.

  Once the Naga palace comes into view, she twists away from me. My hand falls to my side and my throat burns.

  “I’m exhausted,” she says. “I’m going to rest.” She doesn’t wait for an answer before she trudges off and climbs the palace steps. Her movements are leaden, and I wonder what Kadru said to finally make her understand how costly it is to have two different identities. How dangerous.

  The guilt is a smoldering ember in my chest. Balavan is giving my life back, so why do I still feel like I’m steeped in poison?

  Balavan wastes no time in summoning me to his rooms. I don’t even have a chance to scrub the dust from my feet before he sends Amoli to fetch me.

  He’s bouncing a plum in his hand when I arrive, the dark fruit flying wildly through the air before smacking his palm with such force that I expect the tender flesh to tear at any moment and send the juices dribbling to the ground like spilled blood.

  When he sees me, he catches the fruit and holds it out to me. Impressions of his fingers dent the surface. “Would you like a snack?”

  My stomach turns over. I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I’m not hungry.”

  He shrugs and tosses the plum into a bowl on the table. “You’re late,” he says.

  “Pranesh wasn’t cooperative at first,” I tell him. “It took longer than I expected.”

  His chin dips and he levels me with a cold gaze. My heart trips forward, but it’s important that I remain calm. Nonchalant. Balavan doesn’t say anything for a long time
. He just stares at me, as if waiting for a confession. It’s an old trick—to let the silence stretch to the point of discomfort. An inexperienced person will try to fill it with something, anything. Usually prattle that reveals more than she intended. But I’m not inexperienced. I match his silence breath for breath and wait for a question to materialize. Finally it does.

  “How is our rajakumari?”

  “Marinda is fine,” I say, answering the question precisely.

  He smiles as if I’ve pleased him. “Did you go anywhere besides the weapons shop?”

  “Marinda mailed a letter,” I say.

  He paces in front of me. Entwines his hands together and steeples his fingers under his chin. “A letter to whom?” he asks.

  “It was addressed to the Raja in Colapi City.”

  “And what did it say?”

  Marinda’s own words pool at the tip of my tongue. “I wouldn’t know that unless I’d stolen it. Did you want me to pry it from her fingers and rip it open? I thought you intended for me to be subtle.”

  “A gifted spy might have been able to read the contents and then reseal the letter before the rajakumari was any the wiser.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Then perhaps you should give this assignment to a gifted spy.”

  He laughs and rubs his hands together. “I like you more and more,” he says.

  “Funny,” I say. “I like you less and less.”

  Balavan doesn’t even break his stride. “What did you find out about Pranesh?”

  “He’s not working for the Pakshi,” I say. “But I suspect you already knew that.”

  “Were you able to find out who he is working for?”

  “Of course,” I tell him. “I would still be questioning him if I hadn’t.” Balavan keeps pacing and makes a circular motion with his hand to indicate I should continue. “He works for the Crocodile King.”

  At this Balavan stops and turns toward me. “And did you get a location?”

  I pull a folded piece of parchment from my bag. “Even better,” I say. “I got a map.”

  His eyes glitter. He snatches the page from my fingers and shakes it open. His gaze darts hungrily along the crookedly drawn lines. “This,” he says, “is perfect.”