Poison's Cage

by Breeana Shields

  Or losing my balance.

  I’ve been perched in a tree for nearly three hours. My muscles ache, and a branch digs viciously at my lower back.

  The lair of the Crocodile King wasn’t hard to find. Pranesh’s map was accurate, even if the knife at his throat made the lines shaky and poorly drawn. But finding the location and actually getting here were two different things.

  Pranesh labeled the lair Crocodile Island, but it’s actually a tiny peninsula off the coast, surrounded on three sides by sparkling blue water and connected to land by a network of craggy cliffs. Traveling by boat would have been more straightforward, but it also would have made me easy to spot. Instead I was stuck going the hard way—scaling rocks and tripping over stones. In a pair of sandals.

  I’m grateful I didn’t wear a sari. The hems of my pants are soaked with water and mud. I shift in the tree and long for a warm bath.

  The peninsula is so densely populated with trees that the only way to get a decent vantage point is from the air. More climbing. More scratches up and down my arms. But now, from my perch in the tree, I can see a clearing with a fire pit and a stone altar. The area was empty when I first arrived, but eventually I spotted small rowboats launching from the mainland. Now dozens of people—all of them male—work together gathering kindling, collecting water, peeling vegetables. They’re too far away for me to hear conversation, but that can wait for later. My only mission today is to decide on a target.

  I shift in the tree, trying to find a more comfortable resting place for my back, but no amount of adjusting turns the branch into a sofa. My gaze roams over the crowd. I quickly dismiss the men who sit alone and focus on their task without interacting. If they are inhibited even among friends, the chances of my getting close are remote. I also ignore the handful of men who are giving orders with gruff voices and pointed fingers. Leaders are too invested to part with information easily. I want someone in the middle of the pack—someone with enough connections to be useful but not so devoted that a little flattery can’t win him over.

  And I want someone who seems restless.

  A group of young men around my age stand off to one side discussing something intently. Even though I know I’ll never be able to hear them, I lean forward. They stand in a circle. The boy who is speaking gestures wildly with his hands, and the others listen, their arms folded across their chests. The speaker looks like the perfect target. He’s obviously charismatic—he has the undivided attention of the group—and he looks angry too. It’s the perfect combination.

  But then one of the other boys in the circle throws back his head and laughs so loudly that the wind carries the sound all the way to my perch in the treetop. It’s a noise so unrestrained, so full of joy, that I can’t help but shift my attention to him.

  No. He’s all wrong.

  He’s tall and lanky, with hair cropped so short that it covers his scalp like a fur cap. His face is too open, too friendly. He’s completely devoid of the kind of rage Deven first saw in me—the fidgety dissatisfaction with life. The impatient desire for escape. All the qualities that will make a person turn on the people he works for. This boy has none of that. And yet…

  The other young men in the circle have unfolded their arms, unclenched their fists. They lean toward him as he speaks. He’s not powerless. His power just isn’t marinated in anger.

  I wish it were.

  I try to turn my attention back to the first boy, but I can’t remember which one he was. Their faces are all softer now. Their jaws unclenched.

  I watch them until the sun dips below the horizon. And then I climb down from the tree and make my way across the cliffs so that I will be there to meet the boats when they come ashore.

  His name is Fazel.

  It takes me six days before I hear it for the first time. I follow him all over Sundari—to the flat at the far edge of Bala City where he lives alone, to the small farm where he works tending chickens, to the town square where he plays game after game of chess for coin. But it’s the old woman at the marketplace selling spiced nuts who finally reveals his name.

  “Fazel,” she says when he steps up to her stall. “I saved a bag of the sweet cinnamon almonds just for you.” She pulls a small burlap sack from a basket on the ground and shakes it gently.

  “Aw, Lina, you spoil me,” he says. He kisses both of her cheeks before he takes the bag and drops several coins into her palm. She deposits the money into a green glass jar and then puts both of her hands on Fazel’s cheeks.

  “You’re a good boy,” she says. “Shall I set aside a bag from the next batch?”

  “Of course,” he says. “But let’s live dangerously and go spicy next time.”

  She grins. “I can make a batch of almonds laced with capsicum that will strip the bumps from your tongue.”

  He laughs with the same uninhibited delight that I’ve heard from him a dozen times now. I roll my eyes. It’s as if he’s incapable of seeing the evil in the world. “I’ll look forward to it,” he says. “Thanks, Lina.”

  He starts walking, and I scoot from beneath the umbrella where I’ve been hiding to follow him. I take a deep breath. It’s time to arrange a meeting.

  Fazel hums softly as he wanders through the marketplace. The sound grates on my nerves, and I find myself wishing I’d picked a different target. He’s too content to make a good double agent.

  I could have followed any one of the boys from Crocodile Island. They were all there for the picking when the boats came ashore—boys who looked angrier, boys who looked on the verge of drifting away, boys who looked at their leaders with a hint of disdain. And yet I followed Fazel. His whole countenance annoys me, but I still find myself drawn to him. Maybe it’s a gut instinct. Maybe my intuition knows something I don’t.

  Fazel pours a handful of almonds into his palm and lifts his face to the sky as he tips them into his mouth. I use the moment of distraction to step directly in his path. He crashes into me with a surprising amount of force for someone strolling along with a tune in his head. I cry out as my ankle turns and I fall harder than I intended.

  Sugared almonds rain down on my head.

  Fazel’s quick intake of breath is as sharp as the pain in my foot. I curl on my side and cup my ankle in my palm.

  “I’m so sorry,” Fazel says, kneeling beside me. “You came out of nowhere.” In any other circumstance I might laugh at the irony, but I’m in too much pain to find it funny. I silently curse myself. I only meant to fake an injury.

  “Let me see,” he says, gently taking my leg in his hands. He slips off my sandal, and his fingers explore the bones that make up my ankle with tender precision. He turns my foot in a circle and I bite back a yelp.

  “I don’t think it’s broken,” he says. “But it’s going to swell. We need to get some ice on it.”

  I’m too stunned to speak, and Fazel’s dark brows pull together in concern. “Did you hit your head?”

  “I don’t think so,” I say, but my mind feels foggy. Did I?

  He puts a finger under my chin and lifts my face so that he can look into my eyes. My cheeks flame as he studies me. He’s so close that I can see the gold flecks in his eyes.

  “Are you dizzy?” he asks.

  My gaze wanders to his lips—they’re full and slightly parted. “No,” I say.

  He offers his hand and helps me to my feet. “Can you walk?”

  Gingerly I set my injured foot on the ground and try to put weight on it, but a sharp pain shoots through my ankle. I wince and grab Fazel’s forearm.

  “It’s okay,” he says, wrapping an arm around my waist. “I can carry you.” With that, he scoops me into his arms.

  “Put me down,” I say. My voice is tight.

  “It’s really no trouble,” Fazel says. “I don’t live far. We just need some ice and then—”

  “Put. Me. Down.”

  He stops walking and lowers me to my feet. I gasp as soon as my injured foot touches the ground.

  Fazel cocks h
is head to one side. His mouth quirks in amusement.

  “I’m not helpless,” I snap.

  “I’m sure that’s generally true,” he says. “But at the moment it seems like a blatant lie.”

  He’s right, of course. I can’t hop all the way back to the Naga palace on one foot. I bite my lip and try to nudge my pride aside, but it won’t move.

  Fazel smiles as if he can see my struggle. “It was rude of me to sweep you off your feet before I’d even introduced myself,” he says, sticking out his hand. “I’m Fazel.” His name sounds different as it falls from his own lips, and I let the sound of it settle in my mind. Fazel. He leans close to me and whispers in my ear. “This is the part where you tell me your name.”

  The rebuke was teasing, but my cheeks still flame with humiliation. “Iyla,” I say. “My name is Iyla.” My voice comes out sharper than I intended, but Fazel’s smile doesn’t falter. His hand swallows mine. His skin is cool against my palm.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Iyla. Now, may I help you?” He dips his head toward the ground where I’m balanced on one leg. “You must be getting tired of standing like that.”

  I give him a small nod as permission, and he gathers me into his arms like I’m weightless.

  My heartbeat takes off at full speed. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I was supposed to control our first touch, the first time our eyes met. It was supposed to be Fazel’s pulse that raced under my fingers, not the other way around. I’ve completely lost control of the situation.

  “I’m really sorry,” Fazel says as he walks. “I’m not usually clumsy.” The muscles in his arm strain beneath my cheek, tight with the effort of lifting me.

  “It’s nothing,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”

  Fazel laughs and the sound vibrates through my chest, cracks my heart open. I close my eyes and try to pretend I’m somewhere else, anywhere else. I remind myself why I followed Fazel in the first place. I need him to fall for me—at least enough to loosen his lips and dislodge his secrets. And I can’t do that if I let myself be charmed by his easy laugh. By the way his skin feels like velvet against mine.

  I need Balavan to agree to give me my life back. I don’t want to die before I’ve really lived.

  I slip on the role of seductress like a silky robe. I let my head fall against Fazel’s chest, smile as I feel his breath catch. “Thank you for rescuing me,” I say. I slide my fingers along the skin exposed by his open shirt. “I’m not sure what I would have done without you.”

  He stops in front of a small brown building and sets me down. “If not for me, you wouldn’t be injured at all,” he says, pulling a key from his pocket and sliding it into the lock. “So I’m guessing what you would have done without me is to go about your day uninterrupted.”

  I lay a palm on his arm. “Some men would have just left me there,” I say. “I’m so glad you didn’t.”

  His gaze travels from my hand to my face. He blinks. “Does that usually work?”

  I swallow hard. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Fazel opens the door and guides me to a chair in the corner. “Sit here,” he says, “and I’ll find you a stool to rest your foot on.”

  He disappears around the corner, and I have a chance to study the flat. It’s nicer than I would have expected for a man who lives alone. The fabrics are dark and masculine, but the furniture is artfully placed—clustered into several different conversation areas, as if he often has guests. Sunlight floods in through a large window and makes the space open and cheerful.

  Fazel returns with a small cushioned stool and a bag of ice. He props up my leg and presses the ice to my throbbing ankle. Reflexively, I pull away from the sudden chill, but he holds my foot in place.

  “What I mean,” Fazel says, picking up the thread of the previous conversation, “is that you suddenly poured on the charm. It’s fairly transparent, and I’m wondering if it usually works or if I can pat myself on the back for being particularly intelligent.” He flashes me a grin, and my mouth goes dry.

  “I’m not…It wasn’t like that.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  I glare at him. “No,” I say. “It wasn’t.”

  “So you went from the prickliest person I’ve ever met to a silver-tongued vixen in the space of a breath?”

  My carefully laid plans slip and unwind like a dropped spool of ribbon. I’ve never failed to win a boy over before. It’s always been effortless.

  “What do you want, Iyla?”

  My mind is suddenly crowded with all the things I want. They nudge up against each other with sharp elbows. I want to own all the years I was born with. I don’t want to have to betray Marinda. I want a life that doesn’t require me to be two different people.

  “I don’t want anything,” I tell him.

  His expression closes like a slammed door. He stands abruptly and pulls at the back of his neck. “I’ll make some tea to help with the pain.”

  Fazel storms into the kitchen, leaving me alone with my mistakes. They sit in my stomach like sour milk. I have no choice but to go back to Crocodile Island and pick a new target. I pull my fingers through my hair. So much time wasted. Balavan will be expecting a report soon, and I’ll have nothing to give him.

  My thoughts drift to Marinda. I wonder if she’s surviving Balavan’s games. I wonder if she’s missing Mani and Deven.

  I wonder if she’s missing me.

  The snake eggs become my new obsession. Several times a day I pull the box from where I hid it at the back of the mahogany wardrobe in my room, concealed by dozens of hanging saris so Amoli won’t find it. I hold the eggs one by one. I cradle them in the hollow of my palm so that before they are even born, they will know the color of my thoughts.

  It’s the only thing at the palace that keeps me grounded.

  Balavan can’t seem to get enough of me. He requests my presence beside him at every meal, summons me to his rooms to coax promises of loyalty from my lips, walks through the rain forest with me on his arm. And all the while I cling to thoughts of the snake eggs. To the freedom hidden inside them like a gift.

  But today when I pull the box onto my lap, one of the eggs has a large tear in the leathery surface.

  My stomach turns at the sight—bubbling fluid oozes from the opening, and the tiny pink nub of a snake head presses through the sludge. I didn’t expect the hatching to be so gruesome. But then I find the thread of the snake’s thoughts. The single-minded focus on escape, the relentless determination despite the monumental task ahead. It’s how I feel every day.

  I’m transfixed. Hours pass, and slowly the other eggs split apart as well. Now five snakes reach for my mind as they fight their way to the surface.

  It’s a female snake who wriggles from her egg first. She has a moment of jubilation before she turns her attention to me.

  I reach toward her, but my hand freezes in midair. I can’t do it. I can’t willingly pick up a snake. I squeeze my eyes closed and force myself to breathe. Memories crowd in my mind—sharp fangs sinking into my flesh, the sting of venom coursing through my veins, fear so intense that it was like heat, leaving my soul feeling blistered and raw.

  I can’t do it.

  The snake’s mind pokes at mine like a child grasping for a toy, and I open my eyes. This is not one of Kadru’s giant snakes. She doesn’t want to hurt me. And I won’t let her.

  I hold my breath and pick her up.

  The snake’s mind flushes with pleasure, and she wraps herself around my wrist as if she needs the comfort of my touch along her entire body. Oddly, the gesture makes me think of Deven—of the way his whole arm presses against mine when he holds my hand, like having our fingers twined together isn’t enough. An ache blooms in my chest.

  But the more I think of Deven, the more I notice the worry that crouches at the back of my mind. What would he make of the snake wrapped around my wrist? “Don’t let them change you,” he said. But I’m not changing for the Naga. I’m doing this to destroy the
m. I’m doing this so that Deven and I can be together. So that Mani can be safe. So that Iyla can have revenge for her lost lives.

  The snake rests her head against my palm, and Kadru’s voice echoes in my mind. “I used to be you,” she told me once. “And when the Nagaraja grows tired of you or when you become too deadly to be useful, you will become me.” What if I’m making a mistake? But then I push the thought away. This is not the same as Kadru. It’s not as if I’m collecting snakes like pets. It’s not as if I love them.

  The snake flicks out her tongue and tastes the skin on my hand. And I don’t pull away.

  It takes some practice to train the snakes to understand me.

  I sit on the bed, my legs crossed, my mind emptied of anything but communicating with my new subjects.

  Come to me.

  All five snakes slither from their hiding place under the wardrobe and start across the room. But then a breeze rustles through the window. The snakes falter. The light outside shifts, and a shadow falls across the glossy hardwood. It makes the snakes think of food, and they race to the patch of darkness. Their minds are young and easily distracted.

  No. I refocus their attention. Come to me.

  They slither to the foot of the bed, and I drop a handful of lizards on the floor in front of them and turn away while they feast. Soon they’ll be able to hunt for their own food, but for today I gather their prey from the forest outside—tree frogs, small reptiles, various bugs—to give as training rewards. Mani and I used the same method to teach our cat new tricks. We would feed Smudge bits of chicken when she’d do something we wanted—return a toy we’d thrown, roll over for a belly scratch. But that didn’t make my skin crawl like this does. I tamp down my revulsion and close off my mind so I don’t have to feel the snakes’ pleasure in swallowing the lizards whole.

  Once they finish their meal, we keep working. We practice until the sun goes down and the room is swathed in darkness. Until I’m sure that my thoughts are more forceful in the snakes’ minds than their own.

  But the real test comes the next morning when Amoli breezes into the room with a tray laden with dosas and fruit.