Poison's Cage

by Breeana Shields

  “Marinda…”

  “That’s the deal,” I say. “Take it or leave it.”

  “Do you really think Balavan is going to trust me if I show up with Iyla?”

  “Find a way,” I tell her. “She’s going to be gone forever if we don’t do something.” I glance at Mani’s still form, and my throat aches. “I can’t lose anyone else.”

  “Balavan will never believe I care about helping Iyla,” Kadru says. “It won’t work. Not unless we can give him something in return.”

  The flap of the tent rustles open. “Give him me.” Both Kadru and I spin toward the voice.

  Vara.

  She’s alive.

  My heartbeat roars in my ears as I struggle to take in the scene in front of me. Vara holding back the flap of the tent. Mani’s tiny body resting on a red sofa, just as lifeless as he was an hour ago. Snakes everywhere—curled in baskets, lounging on furniture, dangling from poles and wrapped around not just Kadru’s neck but Marinda’s wrist. I can’t tell if the snake is an accessory or a shackle.

  But it’s the conversation I overheard as the four of us approached that’s still reverberating in my mind like the clash of cymbals. My missing years—not fifty, but five hundred of them. If that’s true…

  Bile rises in the back of my throat.

  My thoughts feel slow, like I’m seeing everything from underwater. Marinda was supposed to be forcing Kadru to save Mani, but she’s not. It sounded like she was pleading to save me. I press a hand to my neck, but even though the sound of my pulse is loud inside my head, I can’t feel it against my skin.

  Marinda’s palm flies to her chest. “Vara,” she says, “you’re okay.”

  I can’t breathe. I need to get out of here. I take a step backward, and Fazel laces his fingers through mine. I know he’ll come with me if I run. But then Marinda turns toward me, and the naked expression of grief on her face pins me in place. “You heard,” she says. “Oh, Iyla. You weren’t supposed to find out that way.”

  I can’t manage more than a nod. Marinda’s already-bloodshot eyes fill with tears. Her despair is a mirror I can’t bear to look at.

  I turn toward Kadru. “Is it true?” I ask. “Did you really take five hundred years from me?” But she’s not paying attention. Her gaze is fixed on Vara.

  “Who are you?” Kadru asks, her voice laced with venom. “And what makes you think Balavan will care?”

  Vara is still unsteady on her feet. Her face is ashen, and she holds on to Deven’s arm for support. But when she speaks, her voice is strong. “My name is Vara,” she says. “But you probably know me as the great bird Garuda.”

  Kadru laughs, and the sound chills my blood. “I don’t believe you.”

  “She flew us here,” Fazel says. “Believe her.”

  Kadru’s eyes narrow. She opens her mouth to say something more, but I won’t let her get away with not answering my question.

  “Did you take five hundred years from me?” I ask again. This time my voice is sharp and loud.

  Kadru’s eyes flick to me. “Yes.”

  My stomach goes cold. “How many years do I have left? Do you even know?”

  “None. Your time is probably measured in months, not years.” She says it flippantly, as if she were relaying the weather.

  It’s like being pushed from a cliff. The icy shock of falling, arms spinning in search of something to hold on to—some miracle in the form of a branch or rock—but finding only air. Kadru didn’t just steal years from my current life. To take that many years, she had to have robbed me of my future too, of every life that could have redeemed me from this one. She stole my hope and left me grasping at air. But air can’t catch a falling body.

  “We’re going to fix it,” Marinda says. “Your lives are stored in Balavan’s relic. Kadru is going to give them back to you.”

  Kadru shakes her head, and Marinda gives her a withering stare.

  “Unless she really is Garuda,” Kadru says, motioning toward Vara. “And she’s willing to die for you. I suppose Balavan might be persuaded with that on the table.”

  Vara barely knows me. She’ll never…

  “Yes,” Vara says. “I’ll do it.”

  My heart leaps into my throat. Marinda looks from Vara to me and back again. “There has to be another way,” she says. Her voice sounds small and bled of hope.

  Vara squeezes her fingers. “I won’t have to die, love. Balavan just has to think I’m willing.”

  But a heavy silence settles over all of us. Because that’s a promise Vara is in no position to keep.

  We don’t leave for the Naga palace right away. Kadru insists that Marinda needs time to process Mani’s death, to have his body cremated, that Vara needs time to rest, that we need to formulate a plan. But the longer we wait, the more my anxiety grows.

  We have no reason to trust Kadru. And she has so many motivations to betray us. I can’t stop thinking of everything that happened on Crocodile Island. Vara’s eyes grew misty when Fazel and I told her our story, especially when she heard Balavan’s tale of killing the Tiger Queen. But then the corner of her mouth ticked up. A small, sad smile. “Bagharani died to save her people,” she said. “That sounds like the old friend I knew.”

  “How would dying save them?” Fazel asked.

  Vara explained about blood willingly shed. And suddenly the exchange between Chipkali and Balavan made perfect sense. Balavan was going to torture him until he chose to die. Until he spilled his own blood to stop the pain. And now something deep in my gut tells me it worked. The Crocodile King is dead. Which leaves only Balavan and Vara.

  Kadru will be a hero to the Naga if she shows up at their palace with the ultimate prize. The great bird Garuda, delivered right through the front door like a beautifully wrapped gift.

  And yet…I want my lives back. The desire aches at the back of my throat like thirst. If I were a better person, I might try to convince the others not to go. But I can’t force myself to say the words. Because in the back of my mind is this selfish thought: maybe Kadru will give my lives back before she betrays us. Maybe even if Vara dies, I won’t have to. I hate myself for thinking it, but not enough that it loosens my tongue.

  We stay in Kadru’s tent while we plan. The snakes keep their distance—they congregate near the back of the tent as if they’ve been commanded to give us a wide berth. I’d rather wait almost anywhere else, but there is no safe place for us.

  Returning to the palace isn’t an option—Deven says the Raja can’t be trusted to protect Marinda. Not after what happened to the orchard. Balavan knows about the Widows’ Village now, so we can’t return to the Blue House. And if by some chance the Crocodile King is still alive, he’ll be looking for us too.

  We will be hunted from all sides.

  There’s no safe place for our grief either. It hangs so heavy that it nearly suffocates us. Mani is everywhere. He’s in Marinda’s haunted gaze as she moves through the tent like an apparition. He’s in the tight set of Deven’s jaw. And his memory wraps around my heart like a noose, squeezing so tight I can scarcely breathe. Even Fazel, who never even knew Mani, is subdued, as if our collective sorrow has snuffed the light from his eyes.

  Such a little boy, and yet loving him has slain us all.

  My guilt is almost as heavy as my grief. I should have been kinder to Mani, should have protected him more. But for years I treated him as an interloper—the person who stole Marinda’s attention, who had first dibs on her love. It was only when he was lying lifeless in my arms that I realized somewhere along the way he’d become family, that I couldn’t bear to lose him. That I loved him. But by then it was too late.

  Fazel held me for hours on the night Mani died—he pulled me close to him and let me weep against his chest like he’d known me my whole life. Like he could absorb some of my sadness into his own body to relieve the burden.

  But since then he’s kept his distance.

  Our fingers brushed this morning as we both reached for the sa
me basket of naan, and he snatched his hand away as if he’d been burned. My heart shriveled in my chest.

  Maybe he’s seen enough to know the truth about me—I want all my lives back, but I’m not sure I deserve them.

  Kadru knows the relic is at the Naga palace—I’ve told her that much—but I won’t give her an exact location. Not until we get there. I want to believe she’ll keep her word, but we have too much history for me to trust her completely. And she doesn’t care about Iyla like I do. I can’t be sure she’ll fight for her.

  The six of us make the journey in relative silence. Kadru leads the way, and she glides through the streets of Sundari like an elegant cyclone—the crowd parts as she approaches, as if all can sense how deadly she is.

  The snakes in my satchel are a constant tug at my thoughts as we travel. They offer a strange kind of comfort with their innocent worry. And each time grief threatens to overtake me, Jasu feeds me the feelings of the others—Iyla’s worry that she’s putting us in danger by trying to get her lives back, the way Deven’s heart aches for me, Fazel’s growing devotion to Iyla. Their thoughts make my heart swell even as it’s breaking.

  We trudge through the rain forest in single file like a funeral procession. When we finally make it to the Naga palace, the guards can’t seem to get out of the way fast enough. They don’t ask for a password; they just nod at Kadru without making eye contact and then practically dive off the path.

  The sun disappears behind a cloud and plunges us into shadow. We ascend the steep steps that lead to the entrance, and Kadru opens the door without knocking.

  The palace is silent as a tomb.

  “Something is wrong,” I say. Not a single member of the Naga is anywhere in sight. Not even Amoli greets us at the door.

  “Relax, darling,” Kadru says. “Everything is fine.” But she’s wrong. It feels as if the walls are holding their breath.

  Kadru touches my elbow gently. “When the other members of the Naga see me coming, they generally make themselves scarce.”

  I remember the night of Balavan’s party—the way everyone looked at her with fear in their eyes, how lonely she seemed—and a lump forms in my throat. So much pain with her power.

  “Marinda will come with me,” Kadru says. “Iyla will take the rest of you to one of the bedchambers to wait until you’re needed.”

  I feel Deven stiffen beside me. “No,” he says, folding his arms across his chest, “that’s unacceptable.”

  Kadru’s mouth quirks in amusement, as if she’s watching a child having a tantrum.

  “And what would you suggest, young prince?” she asks. “Would you like for us all to march into Balavan’s bedchamber and announce we’re there to destroy him? Because I’m sure that would work out splendidly.”

  Deven’s jaw goes tight and he turns to me. “The last time I saw you with Balavan, he was trying to kill you. The last time you saw him on your own, he left you bleeding and delirious.” He takes both of my hands in his. He dips his head toward Kadru. “And she works for him. She’s his daughter. She’s done unspeakable things to you. Marinda”—his voice catches on my name, and his eyes go soft—“I don’t like this.”

  I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him gently on the lips. I would be lying if I told him that I didn’t have misgivings about Kadru. I do. But Mani’s death shifted something inside me, and I don’t feel like running anymore. My brother died because I was trying to take down the Nagaraja. Right now it seems like it was all for nothing, but if I can get Iyla’s lives back, maybe it will help close the yawning chasm that has opened in my chest. Maybe it won’t feel like I was created to destroy everything I touch.

  “I have to do this,” I tell Deven. “Please trust me.”

  But then a horrible thought occurs to me. I spin toward Kadru.

  “What if Balavan transforms?” I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me until just now. Maybe because Balavan and the Snake King still seem like separate entities to me. But they’re not. And we’ll never be able to stop him if he becomes the Nagaraja.

  “He won’t,” Kadru says.

  “But how do you know?”

  Kadru touches my cheek with the back of her hand. “Because he can’t keep any secrets from me in snake form, darling. He hasn’t changed in my presence for many, many years.”

  I swallow. I’ve spent months wondering why Kadru wasn’t in the Snake Temple the night I first saw the Nagaraja. It’s one of the reasons I trusted her—I thought it might be a sign she wasn’t as loyal as some of the other members of the Naga. But it must have been Balavan’s choice not to have her there. He’s afraid of her power. And if my destiny is to become like Kadru, then someday he will be afraid of mine too. The thought gives me a jolt of courage.

  “Balavan keeps the relic in his bedchamber,” I say. “It’s hanging on the wall like a mirror.”

  Kadru’s eyes flash. She smiles. “I’m ready when you are.”

  Balavan opens the door right away. I can’t see his expression—Kadru is blocking my view—but his voice is full of warmth. “Darling,” he says, leaning to kiss both of her cheeks, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I brought you a gift.” She steps aside so he can see me, and his eyes widen in delight.

  “You found her.”

  Kadru laughs. “Of course I did.” She puts a hand on the small of my back and pushes me into the room. “I told you Marinda would come to me.” Her eyes flick in my direction, and they are as cold as if she were dead. “She always does.”

  Dread settles over me like an iron shawl. They’ve spoken since I was last here. I walked into Kadru’s trap. And I brought everyone I care about with me.

  “I never should have doubted you,” Balavan says. Fresh pain blooms in my chest at the sight of his easy smile. At his lack of suffering for Mani’s death. My fingers long to curl around his neck. They twitch at my sides.

  Kadru sinks onto a turquoise sofa and curls her feet beneath her. “It’s even better,” she says. “I brought you Garuda.”

  His face is alight. “You didn’t.”

  Kadru presses her palms together. Her face is triumphant. “Yes,” she says. “I did.”

  Balavan’s hungry expression sends a wave of nausea through me. “Where is she?” he says. “Bring her to me.”

  “She’s agreed to hand herself over if you give Iyla her lives back,” Kadru says. “I’m not sure why all of them are so obsessed with that trifling girl, but there you have it.”

  My eyes slide to where Iyla’s lives are stored. To the giant snake scale hanging on the wall like a mirror. Except it’s not there. An actual glass mirror hangs in its place, as if the whole thing were a figment of my imagination. My pulse thrums in my ears.

  “If Vara is already here, we don’t have to agree to anything.”

  Kadru stretches her legs out and crosses one foot over the other. “True,” she says. “But she didn’t bring her relic with her. And isn’t that what you’re really after?”

  “I can get her to tell me where her relic is….” He gives a wolfish smile. “Eventually.”

  “Torturing her could take days,” Kadru says, waving a hand in front of her face like she’s shooing away a fly. “This will be so much faster. And once you have the relic…” She raises her eyebrows meaningfully. “It’s not like Iyla’s going anywhere.”

  Balavan throws his head back and laughs. “You always were clever,” he says. “Of course. Once I’ve destroyed Garuda’s feather, I can just take the lives back and kill the girl.”

  “No,” I say. “Kadru…” But she won’t look at me. My throat aches. “Kadru, please.”

  Finally she meets my gaze. The spark of connection between us is gone. Maybe it was never there in the first place. A series of images flash through my mind. Kadru’s large, kind eyes the first time I met her. The way she pulled me gently onto her lap. Her breath soft against my cheek. And then her satisfied smile as her snakes sank their fangs into me, the searing pain followed by the cold
shock at having misjudged her cunning for kindness. It’s like suddenly hearing the notes of a tune I forgot I knew.

  Kadru lifts a small silver bell from the mahogany table at her elbow and shakes it gently. A few seconds later Amoli appears. She gulps when she sees Kadru, but tries to cover it with a trembling smile. “What can I do for you?” she asks.

  “I brought a few guests with me,” Kadru says. “They’re waiting in the rajakumari’s bedchamber. Invite them to join us.”

  “Of course,” Amoli says before she scurries away.

  My heart slams against my rib cage. I have to find a way to warn them.

  Kadru turns to me and smiles sweetly. “Don’t even try, darling,” she says. “I’d hate to have to kill your boyfriend.”

  I sit numbly as my friends are led into the room. Listen wordlessly as Balavan tells Vara she must bring her relic to the palace to save Iyla. Bite back a scream as she agrees. Both she and Iyla are going to die for nothing.

  Deven tries to catch my gaze, but I can’t look at him. I’m afraid of what he’ll see in my eyes.

  My mind scrambles for a solution, but it’s like groping in the dark for something I’m not convinced is there. And each time I open my mouth to blurt out a warning, Kadru’s gaze cuts sharply to me. A single word inside my head. No.

  The snakes in my satchel mirror my panic. They stir, restless. Eager for an assignment. But the only minds that could help me are closed to them.

  Morning melts into afternoon. And still we wait.

  Iyla paces in front of the window. Her fingers drum out a restless beat against her thigh. Her expression teeters between hope and fear.

  Finally Vara returns. She stumbles into the room balancing a giant sapphire-blue feather across her forearms. Her face is drawn and a fine sheen of sweat beads on her forehead. Why is she giving in to Balavan so easily? She must know he’s going to kill her.

  “Set it down there,” Balavan says, motioning toward a tall table in the center of the room. Vara heaves the feather onto the surface like it’s made of glass or bone. “You don’t look well, my friend. Your lofty principles haven’t been kind to your appearance.”