Poison's Cage

by Breeana Shields

  A strange keening sound fills the air, as if the very sky grieves along with me.

  It takes a long time before I realize that the sound is coming from me.

  Dark clouds roll across the sky, and thick raindrops soak through my sari, splatter on my bare arms, plaster Mani’s hair to his small forehead. And still I don’t move.

  “Marinda.” Iyla’s hand is gentle on my shoulder. “Let’s take him inside.”

  I don’t answer, and so she sits beside me and rests her forehead on her knees.

  “This is my fault,” she says finally.

  “No,” I tell her woodenly. “It’s not.”

  “Balavan asked me what you cared about,” she says. “I told him the only thing that was really important to you was Mani.” Her voice breaks. “I’m so sorry, Marinda. I didn’t think…I never thought…”

  My chest is hollow where my heart and lungs used to be. “Balavan didn’t need you to tell him what was important to me. Not when I’d stabbed him to protect Mani. You didn’t do this. I did. I told him about the orchard. I told him about the antidote.” I stare off into the distance, but I don’t see anything except my own regret. “And then I interrupted him while he was controlling Mani, so he never gave Mani the order to leave the orchard. So Mani never woke up from his nightmare.”

  “Oh, Marinda.” She leans her head on my shoulder. “Don’t do that to yourself.” She wraps one arm tightly around my waist and rests the other on my knee, as if by sheer force of will she can hold me together.

  But no one can. Not anymore.

  I brush the hair from Mani’s forehead. I’d give anything to have him back. I’d sacrifice every life I have left if I could just…I spin toward Iyla. “Go get Vara.”

  She gives me a blank stare like I’ve spoken a different language.

  “I’m sorry.” She touches my arm gently. “Vara’s not here. She’s back in the Widows’ Village.”

  I shake my head. “No. She flew us here. Deven took her to the palace physician.”

  Iyla bites her lip. “Marinda…”

  “Vara is Garuda,” I say.

  Iyla’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t look nearly as shocked as I would have expected.

  “Vara can fly Mani to Kadru. And Kadru will know how to give him life back.”

  Understanding washes over Iyla’s expression, and without another word, she clambers to her feet and sprints toward the palace.

  Kadru has refused to help me twice now, but this time I won’t take no for an answer.

  Fazel is waiting for me at the edge of the orchard. When Marinda found us, he left, mumbling something about privacy, about not belonging. I thought he’d use the opportunity to slip away. I was sure I’d never see him again.

  But he stayed.

  Everyone is always leaving me, but Fazel stayed.

  “How can I help?” he asks. The question pricks my heart.

  “We need to find Deven,” I tell him.

  He doesn’t ask why, doesn’t ask what Deven looks like or where he might be. He just catches my hand in his and we run together.

  The palace halls are choked with smoke. At first Fazel and I nearly turn back, but then I notice that people aren’t streaming for the entrance. They’re holding their noses and throwing open windows. The fire must already be contained. But the gossip isn’t.

  Dozens of frenzied conversations blend into a low buzz, and it takes three tries before someone finally tells us how to find the physician.

  “He’s not working from his regular quarters,” says a tiny woman with a shock of long silver hair. She extends a bony finger toward a passageway directly opposite from where we’re standing. “But last I saw, he was down that way, and around the bend.” She looks both Fazel and me up and down. “Which one of you is hurt?”

  I don’t bother to answer her as we hurry away.

  We’re about to turn the corner when I hear arguing. I pull on Fazel’s arm and we both stop, just out of sight.

  “Why would you bring her here? She’s a stranger. She means nothing to me, and now my valuable resources have been squandered helping her.”

  I unlace my fingers from Fazel’s and move so that I can see around the corner. Deven and a man I assume is his father face each other. The Raja’s arms are folded over his chest.

  “It’s a long story,” Deven says. “But believe me, I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t important.”

  The Raja’s jaw tightens. “The physician is rather busy at the moment, seeing as the boy set fire to his rooms.”

  Deven reels back as if the Raja struck him. “Mani did this?”

  “The physician’s rooms and the orchards both. It’s all gone—the venom, the antidote. Every maraka tree. Every piece of fruit. Every tool we have to protect us from the vish kanya.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “The physician?”

  “No,” Deven says. “Mani.”

  Sickening dread pulses through me. Deven doesn’t know.

  The Raja’s arms drop to his sides. His hands curl into fists. “I have no idea. Nor do I care.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing. The Nagaraja used the boy to destroy us, and I refuse to worry about whether we’ll return his weapon to him unharmed.”

  “You knew?” Deven says.

  “That the Snake King has been giving him orders from afar?” The Raja waves a hand in front of his face, as if swatting away a troublesome fly. “Of course I knew. Following the boy during his spells was providing some useful intelligence—at least it gave us some idea what the Nagaraja was interested in. But now…” He rubs a hand over his chin. “I never expected this.”

  “How could you? We could have tried to break the connection. We could have helped him.”

  “And lose a valuable source of information? Don’t be sentimental, Deven. They have spies. We have spies. This is war, not a childhood game.”

  “If anything happens to Mani,” Deven says, “I will never forgive you.”

  “I don’t need your forgiveness. I need you to learn how to lead.” The Raja storms away but calls back over his shoulder, “Before I see you again, I expect you to pull yourself together.”

  Deven closes his eyes and massages his forehead. I try to call to him, but it comes out as a small, strangled noise at the back of my throat. Deven freezes. Turns.

  “Iyla? What are you doing here?” And then he must see the look on my face, because his expression goes tight. “Have you seen Mani?”

  I nod. Bite my lip.

  “Is he…”

  I shake my head, and Deven sinks to his knees. He shoves his fist into his mouth. Fazel puts an arm around me, as if I were the one falling apart. Maybe he knows I am.

  Finally Deven scrubs at his face. “I need to get to Marinda,” he says.

  “She’s asking for you,” I tell him. “She said to bring Vara.”

  It takes Vara several tries to transform into Garuda. Her face paled when I asked. “The Raksaka…We don’t usually change so often. Even when I was still”—she swallowed hard—“accepting sacrifices, I was weak if I spent too long out of human form.”

  The physician was able to give Vara something to ease her pain, and she had a short time to rest, but it wasn’t nearly enough. In any other circumstance it would have been too much to ask. But my tiny, dead brother was heavy in my arms.

  “Please,” I said.

  Now, for the fourth time in less than two days, we fly over Sundari clutched in the grasp of a giant bird. But this time Garuda’s grip is not as firm. Her feet quiver violently. Giant blue feathers break loose from her wings and flutter to the ground. I wrap a fist tightly around her ankle, terrified that at any moment her body will give out and she will send us plummeting to the earth.

  In my other arm Mani is clutched tightly to my chest. And though Deven must be as terrified as I am, he holds on to only me.

  Iyla and Fazel are curled in Garuda’s other foot. Their eyes are squeezed shut, and I think they migh
t be screaming—the wind makes it impossible to tell.

  Garuda descends over a small park not far from the marketplace. I asked her to take us directly to the front of Kadru’s tent, but she must have decided it was too conspicuous to have a giant bird gliding above the crowded streets.

  We land hard. Garuda loses her grip before her feet touch down, and the five of us tumble to the ground in a heap. I curl my body around Mani to cushion his fall before I remember that he’s gone. That he can’t feel anything anymore. My legs are like lead as I climb to my feet.

  I’m adjusting my hold on Mani when Vara crumples to the ground. I can’t tell if she’s breathing.

  Fresh pain snatches the air from my lungs. What have I done?

  “She’ll be okay,” Deven says, but his worried expression doesn’t match his words. “Go. We’ll catch up with you.” He bends over Vara to check her breathing, to feel for a pulse in her neck.

  My gaze skips from Mani to Vara—both of them are still and lifeless. My heart breaks in two, but I do what I’ve always done.

  I choose Mani.

  Kadru is pacing outside her tent, lips pressed together in a thin line, arms folded across her chest. When she sees me, a spasm of relief crosses her face.

  “Your thoughts are so muddy.” She says it like an accusation. Then her eyes drop to Mani. “What happened?”

  “You’re going to help me,” I tell her. “Whether you want to or not.”

  Her expression goes stony. “Bring him inside.” She lifts the flap of the tent and I duck under her arm.

  I lay Mani down on a ruby-colored sofa. His neck has already stiffened. His jaw is tight. His body is pale and cold.

  Kadru kneels near the sofa and bends her face toward Mani. She’s careful not to touch him as she turns her cheek so that it rests near his nose and mouth.

  Her eyes are wide when she meets my gaze. “He’s already dead.”

  The words pierce through me. I swallow. “I know.”

  She rises to her feet. “Marinda…what were you hoping I could do?”

  “Give him life,” I tell her. She opens her mouth to speak and I hold up a hand. “I’m not asking you to sacrifice any of your lives. Give him mine. Take everything I have left and pour it into him.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, darling…I can’t—”

  “No! Don’t tell me you can’t. Just do it.”

  Her gaze falls on me like a shadow. Sad. Dark. Hopeless.

  “Do it,” I say, softly this time. “Please.”

  “I would if I could,” she says. “But I’m an executioner, not a resurrectionist.”

  Doubt catches in my heart like a fishhook. “You’re lying.”

  “My abilities don’t include reanimating the dead. I could pour lives into him, but they wouldn’t bring him back. They would just be stored in his dead body until they were removed again. Lives are for the living.”

  Tears blur my vision. I refuse to believe her.

  She trails a hand from my shoulder to my fingers. And then she opens her mind to mine. I’m so startled I take a step back. But then I stop and let myself be swallowed up in her thoughts.

  I can find no lies in Kadru’s mind. But it’s the compassion I find there—the raw pain that mirrors my own—that finally convinces me she’s telling the truth.

  Mani is really gone.

  Grief swells in my throat and I slide to the floor, boneless. Losing all hope a second time is worse, like being sliced open and then—when you’ve finally stemmed the bleeding—having the dagger plunged into the wound again. I bury my face against Mani’s neck and sob. I smooth the hair from his forehead. I murmur apologies for leaving, for failing him, for choosing revenge instead of safety. I cry until my soul is vacant, until I’m numb.

  When Kadru finally speaks, it’s like being snatched from sleep and thrust into icy water. “You’re bleeding.”

  I glance down at my cloth-wrapped hand. Fresh blood seeps through the fabric. “I tried to kill Balavan,” I say, “but it didn’t work.”

  Her eyes widen in alarm. “What do you mean, you tried to kill him? How?”

  The world seems to blur at the edges. Nothing feels quite real. “I don’t have the right blood.” My voice is wooden. It sounds like it belongs to a stranger. “I thought I was his daughter, but I’m not.”

  I tip my head back against the sofa and close my eyes. I want to let sleep overtake me, to slip away to a place where there’s no pain.

  “What are you talking about?” Kadru says. But I don’t have the energy to answer her.

  “Marinda,” she says sharply. I blink. Usually Kadru’s gaze is lazy, unconcerned. Like a cat’s. But right now she’s studying me with an intensity that sets her eyes ablaze.

  I lift my head.

  “Why would it matter if you were Balavan’s daughter?” Her voice has an urgency that I don’t understand.

  And then I realize I’ve signed my death warrant by coming here. It didn’t matter where her loyalties were when I thought I could force her to help Mani—I didn’t think I’d walk out of this tent alive. But now…Last time I was here, Kadru proved that she would choose Balavan over me. And Balavan will hunt me like an animal.

  “He’s going to kill me,” I say, as much to myself as to her.

  Kadru sighs. “Your thoughts are jumping all over the place. I’m not following you.”

  I almost laugh. As if her lack of access to my mind is my biggest concern right now. Kadru purses her lips and then grabs the strap of my satchel and lifts it over my head. I’ve grown so used to the feel of the bag slung across my body that I forgot it was there. She tips it upside down, and all five of my little snakes tumble onto my lap. Jasu scrambles to wrap herself around my wrist, and my thoughts are infused with both her worry and her comfort.

  “Is that better?” Kadru asks.

  I don’t want to admit to her that it is. My brother is dead. Nothing should make me feel better.

  “Why did you think you could kill Balavan?” she asks again.

  “Did you know I’m Garuda’s daughter?” I ask. “Did you know he stole me as a baby to punish her?”

  Kadru doesn’t answer.

  “Did you know that Balavan is the Nagaraja? That he was controlling my brother?”

  She sits quietly and doesn’t take her gaze from my face. Maybe my thoughts are coming more clearly to her now. I give her an image of the burning orchard, of the physician’s quarters reduced to ashes. She flinches and I feel a sharp stab of satisfaction.

  “The maraka fruit is gone,” I say. “Along with every single dose of venom. There’s no limit to Balavan’s power now.”

  “Why did you think you could kill him?” It’s the third time she’s asked me some version of the same question. I suddenly feel like I’m on trial. Like she’ll use the answer to convict me, to find a suitable punishment.

  She lays a hand on my arm. “Marinda, this is important.”

  “Only his own blood can destroy his relic. And since he always called me daughter…” I think of my conversation with Vara and let the snakes show Kadru my thoughts and fill in the rest. I can’t speak the words. I’m too hollowed out.

  As she looks through my mind, Kadru’s expression slowly changes to something I’ve never seen on her face before: astonishment.

  She starts pacing around the tent, her ankle bracelets clinking together as she walks, as if she’s moving to music. “Can this really be true?”

  I narrow my eyes. Balavan tells Kadru everything. Why wouldn’t she know about the relic? Unless…

  “You’re his daughter.” The words tumble from my mouth before I can stop them. “He didn’t tell you because you’re the one person who can destroy him.”

  Kadru stiffens. A huge white snake slithers from a bamboo pole and settles around her neck. Her expression is inscrutable. “Yes.”

  I swallow. Balavan’s daughter. I’ve just confessed to his own child that I tried to kill him. In one swift motion I scoop Mani int
o my arms. It’s time to get out of here.

  “Put him down, Marinda.” Kadru’s voice is a freshly sharpened blade. I hesitate. “Now,” she says.

  I slide Mani back to the sofa and turn to face her. My heart feels like lead. “Let me give him a proper burial before you report to Balavan. I won’t resist you after that. Please.”

  Kadru throws her head back and laughs. “Oh, my darling.” She leans close to me and strokes my cheek with the back of her hand. “You were right before. Maybe it’s time you and I start being loyal to each other.”

  I go still. “What do you mean?”

  “Where is the relic, Marinda? Tell me and I’ll use my blood to destroy it.”

  It’s a trap. It has to be. The image of the relic nearly surfaces in my mind, but I replace it with thoughts of blue skies and bright sunlight, waterfalls and flowering trees. It takes more focus to think of happy things when I’m filled with despair. I hope it makes the information Kadru’s searching for harder to reach.

  “You said it yourself—I’ve never lied to you. And I’m not lying now. Tell me where the relic is, Marinda.”

  I chew my lower lip. I don’t know if I can trust Kadru, but I don’t have much left to lose. If I don’t tell her, she’ll report me to Balavan and he’ll kill me. She still might betray me if I do help her, but maybe I can get something from her first. Maybe I can save someone today.

  “Are the five hundred years you took from Iyla stored in the relic?” I ask. It’s almost impossible to talk about the giant snake scale without thinking of it, but I take a deep breath and fill my mind with memories of our old cat, Smudge, and how she used to love to chase Mani around the flat. I sing a familiar lullaby in my mind. I count to ten.

  Kadru hesitates. “Yes.”

  “I’ll tell you where it is if you promise to give Iyla’s lives back before you destroy it.”