Poison's Kiss

by Breeana Shields

  “What do you think?” he asks.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.” This answer seems to please him. We stand together for a few moments in companionable silence. The sun is low in the sky and bathing the palace in soft pink light. It’s so beautiful it’s hard to look away.

  “We probably should get going,” Deven says a few minutes later. “We still have about an hour to walk.”

  I groan. “That long?”

  “It looks deceptively close, doesn’t it?” Everything in my life is deceptively close. Especially Deven.

  As we walk, we pass small clusters of bungalows. Deven explains that they are occupied by the workers who serve at the palace and their families. Some of them are outside, pulling weeds from gardens, sweeping wide porches, chatting and laughing with neighbors. But as we pass, they fall silent, whispering to each other and pointing at us. It doesn’t faze Deven in the least; he doesn’t even break stride. But I feel like I’ve been turned inside out, and I wish I had a wrap to pull tightly around myself, or even better, something to shield my face.

  The walk to the front of the palace feels like a day instead of an hour, and by the time we get there, my nerves are jumpy. A wide path paved in white stones leads to the grand arches, and it is flanked on either side by dozens of palace guards. They wear red tunics with black linen pants, and their hair is styled identically—slicked away from the forehead and braided in the back. Swords hang at their hips.

  My heart jumps into my throat. I hope Deven’s connections at the palace are as good as he claims. I’m tired and I have no desire to be on the misunderstood end of a sword.

  “What now?” I ask Deven.

  “Just follow my lead,” he answers.

  We start down the path and the guards don’t move. They continue to stare straight ahead, as if we pose no threat at all. Either the Raja’s soldiers are completely inept or Deven has been here many times before.

  We pass through the grand arches and come to an enormous set of golden double doors inlaid with silver-etched birds. Two guards standing on either side of the doors pull them open and Deven nods his thanks. He puts a hand on the small of my back and guides me forward, down a white marble staircase that opens up into a huge octagonal pavilion. I thought the outside of the palace was spectacular, but it doesn’t even compare to the beauty of this room. Pale green fluted columns rise to support golden scalloped arches that soar all the way to the domed stained-glass ceiling. I look down and see that the floor is just as stunning—white marble inlaid with semiprecious stones.

  My boots are filthy.

  “Should we be here?” I ask, and then startle at how loud my voice sounds in such a cavernous space. But there’s no one to hear me. The palace seems utterly empty.

  “We have as much right to be here as anyone,” Deven says. “Follow me.” He leads me around several corners, twisting and turning so often that I lose track of whether we’re heading east or west. Finally we end up in a long walkway lined with ornately gilded columns and Gothic vaulted ceilings. The floor is gleaming hardwood and I flinch at the click of my boots with every step.

  At the end of the walkway are huge, intricately carved rosewood doors. Guards are positioned on either side and they show no alarm at our approach. When we reach the doors, one of the guards dips his head slightly. “Master Deven,” he says as he swings the door open. I shoot Deven a questioning look, but he’s not watching me. He’s completely focused on the person on the other side of the door. The Raja sits in the middle of the room on a golden throne. He wears a deep-blue tunic and a white crown. He doesn’t notice us right away because his head is dipped toward what appears to be one of his advisers. They are deep in conversation.

  Deven clears his throat. The Raja looks up and his face registers surprise and then delight. He breaks into a wide grin.

  “Deven,” he says affectionately. “How wonderful to see you.” Deven is smiling too.

  “Hello, Father.”

  The word takes a moment to register. Father. But when it does, dread chokes my throat.

  Deven lied to me. Just like Gopal and Gita and Iyla lied to me. Just like I lied to Deven. Well, he didn’t lie exactly—he never told me that he wasn’t the son of the Raja. But it has the same effect. Why wouldn’t he tell me this?

  Deven turns toward me, and he must see the distress on my face, because his eyes go soft. He circles my wrist with his fingers and pulls me forward. “It’s okay,” he says. But it isn’t. If Deven is a prince, then his brother—the one I killed—is a prince too. And that makes me an assassin and a traitor.

  “Father, this is Marinda,” Deven says. “Marinda, this is my father.” His introduction is casual, as if I’m the girl next door and his father is a merchant. My heart is beating so loudly that I’m afraid the entire room can hear it.

  “Nice to meet you, Your Highness,” I say when I’ve finally found my manners.

  The Raja smiles warmly at me. “It’s always nice to meet a friend of Deven’s,” he says. I flinch at this and hope that he doesn’t notice. I’ve dreamed about meeting the Raja for years. But that’s when I thought I worked for him. When I thought he’d be pleased with all I’d done. Now I’m resisting the urge to run.

  “We came to ask a favor,” Deven says. “Marinda’s younger brother has been taken by the Naga. We were hoping you could help us find them.”

  The Raja’s face hardens. He shakes his head. “Is there no limit to what these swine will do?”

  At the mention of Mani, the pressure in my chest grows. There are no windows in the throne room, but the moon must have risen by now. And it will be fuller than last night. We’re running out of time.

  The Raja sees my face, and his angry expression melts away. “How old is your brother?”

  I killed your son, I think as I look into his kind eyes. “He’s seven.” He flies to his feet so quickly that I worry his throne will tumble off its dais. The two advisers in the room raise their eyebrows but don’t move.

  “Seven?” His face is scarlet, and his lips are moving but no sound is coming out. He takes a deep breath and then steps down to join us. “What would they want with a little boy?” He says it more to himself than to me, like he doesn’t expect an answer. Which is fortunate because I’m not sure I can speak. I just stare dumbly at him. Now that he is closer, I can see the resemblance to Deven. The Raja has deep creases around his eyes in the same places Deven’s eyes crinkle when he laughs. The two of them are nearly the same height, and their eyes are the same rich brown color. And I’ve betrayed them both.

  “I’m so sorry,” the Raja says. It startles me for a moment that he should be apologizing to me when…I killed your son. But then I realize he’s only expressing sympathy.

  Deven puts a reassuring hand on my back. “Can you help?” he asks his father.

  “I think so, yes,” the Raja says. He glances at one of his advisers. “Will you please inform Hitesh that I need to see him immediately?”

  “Certainly, Your Majesty,” the adviser says, then leaves the room.

  Deven leans toward me and whispers, “Hitesh is the head of Sundari intelligence.”

  The Raja turns toward us. “Deven, why don’t you take your friend to the Blue Room, where you’ll both be more comfortable? I’ll meet you there shortly.”

  Panic beats inside my chest like a caged bird. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to hear every word from Sundari intelligence and not have it filtered through someone else. I want to find Mani now. But I don’t have that option. I’m not bold enough to argue with the Raja, and Deven already has his hand on my elbow, ready to lead me away.

  “Thank you, Father,” he says.

  The Raja leans forward and kisses him on his right cheek and then his left. “You’re welcome.”

  We leave the throne room and I numbly let Deven lead me down the corridor and around the corner to yet another set of double doors. They open into a large sitting room decorated in dozens of shades of blue. The room
is aptly named.

  “Are you okay?” Deven asks as we sink onto a cerulean sofa. The question strikes me as absurd. Of course I’m not okay. My brother is missing, and my only hope for finding him lies with people I’ve unwittingly betrayed. And Deven lied to me—misled me at least—but I can’t say that. It would be the height of hypocrisy after our history. I want to say it, though. Badly.

  “I’m fine,” I say instead.

  He touches my knee. “Are you sure?” I stare at my hands and refuse to meet his gaze. “I wanted to tell you,” he says. “So many times. But no one knows who I really am. It’s the only way to help the cause. No one would tell me anything if they knew.”

  “So you pose as—as what? A bookshop delivery boy with a rich father?”

  “Marinda.” The way he says my name—halfway between a plea and a rebuke—almost does me in. It’s tender and familiar and not at all the way he would speak to me if he knew the truth—that there aren’t dozens of vish kanya, like he thinks. Only me. I press my fingers to my temples. A headache is building behind my eyes, and my stomach feels unsettled. I need to get to Mani. My chest aches with it.

  “You could help us,” Deven says. “It’s why I agreed to bring you here. You could help us take them down. You’ve lived with them. You have information we won’t be able to get anywhere else.”

  Nothing would make me happier than to see the Naga suffer, but I have a thousand questions and not enough answers.

  “Were you here?” I ask. Deven raises his eyebrows in a question. “Last week you disappeared for several days. Were you here?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “So Iyla knows who you are?”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “She doesn’t. Why would you say that?”

  “She knew you were gone. She said I wouldn’t be able to find you.”

  His brow furrows and he chews his lip thoughtfully. “She must have been guessing. She only knows I’ve been working to stop the Naga. Not who I am.”

  I’m not so sure about that. I remember what Iyla told me when Gopal gave her the assignment—that the target was someone important, someone big. Who is bigger than the prince of Sundari? But it doesn’t matter now. All that matters is finding Mani.

  “Did Japa know?” I ask after a moment. A pained look crosses Deven’s face that makes me wish I hadn’t said anything. It’s a wound too raw.

  “No,” Deven says, his voice cracking. “He didn’t.”

  “He disappeared too,” I say. “During the same few days as you.”

  He gives a tight laugh. “Were you keeping track of everyone?”

  “No. I just…” My face heats as I remember why I was looking for both of them that day. To poison Deven, to protect him. “Forget it.” I reach into my pocket and stroke the cricket there.

  “Japa thought I worked at the palace, but he didn’t know I was the prince. He often traveled to help pass information for us. Books are perfect for disguising messages.”

  “Oh.” Japa feels like a presence in the room, as if saying his name has summoned his essence. My chest feels tight as I think of his easy smile and kind face. Deven and I sit quietly for a few minutes, lost in thought.

  Then Deven looks sidelong at me. “What do you have there?”

  I’m pulled out of my reverie by the question and look up, disoriented. “What?”

  “Every time you’re anxious, you reach into your pocket. What are you keeping in there?” My cheeks flame. Why does he have to notice everything? I can’t say the words, and so I pull the cricket out and show him. He tilts his head to the side. When he speaks, his voice is soft. “You kept it.”

  I shove the cricket back into my pocket. “Of course I kept it.”

  He reaches forward and brushes a lock of hair out of my face. I stop breathing. His lips are only inches from mine; I could lean forward and kiss him without fear of him dying. I wonder what it would be like to kiss him slowly, sweetly. To linger. To run my fingers through his hair. His eyes are bright and his cheeks are flushed. He hasn’t moved his gaze from my face, and my heart is beating as fast as hummingbird wings.

  The double doors open and we fly apart. It feels like coming up from underwater and I suck in a sharp breath. The Raja strides into the room, and as soon as I see him, my anticipation drains away. I killed his son. Deven’s brother. I will never be able to kiss Deven, immune or not.

  Following the Raja are a spindly man with silver hair, who I assume is Hitesh, and a serving girl carrying a tray of tea. Both Deven and I stand. The girl slides the tea onto a round table surrounded by sapphire-colored chairs.

  “Will there be anything else, Your Highness?” she asks.

  The Raja smiles. “No. That’s all. Thank you.”

  The maid bows and slips out of the room. Two guards enter and stand on either side of the doors. They are dressed in red and black, just like the guards outside the palace, and they both have the same faraway gaze; they stare straight ahead at the wall on the opposite side of the room as if there were nothing to see but that.

  “Come,” the Raja says, motioning for us to join him at the table. “Sit.” He makes quick introductions, but I fidget impatiently. I don’t care who Hitesh is and I doubt he cares about meeting me. I just want to find Mani.

  “Hitesh has been tracking the Naga for many years,” the Raja says. “He knows more about them than anyone else outside their circle.”

  “Do you know where they might have taken my brother?” I ask.

  Hitesh clears his throat. “The Naga operate from many different locations, and unless I know what they have planned for him, I’m afraid I can’t say for certain. But we can make some guesses.”

  “I know what they have planned.” My voice comes out shaky and raw. Hitesh puts his elbows on the table, his hands clasped tightly together, his chin balanced on his index fingers.

  “And what is that?”

  “They want to sacrifice him,” I say. “To the Nagaraja.”

  Hitesh drops his hands, palms down, onto the table. “The Naga don’t typically sacrifice children,” he says. “Do you have a reason to believe that’s true?”

  Deven answers before I have a chance. “One of their operatives told me.” He makes it sound like I wasn’t there at all, like he got the information from his duties as a spy. But maybe he’s only trying to lend the statement credibility.

  Hitesh sighs deeply. “Very well. We believe that the sacrifices take place in the Snake Temple. It’s only about thirty miles from here, underground in a cave. We’ve tried to catch the Naga during one of these ritual sacrifices for years, but our intelligence is always faulty. We know that they happen, but not when. We arrive either too early and find nothing or too late and find only…” He stops short, and my stomach clenches while I wait for the word I know is coming. “Remains,” he finishes softly. I place a hand over my mouth. “Our informants, as it turns out, are not very accurate when it comes to anything that would actually stop the Naga. We’ve even tried placing soldiers at the Snake Temple for weeks at a stretch but they disappear. The Naga outsmart us every time.”

  “It’s the moon,” I say. “They are planning on sacrificing Mani on the first night of the full moon.”

  Hitesh’s eyes widen with interest. He looks at Deven, who confirms what I’ve said with a short nod. “We haven’t tried paying attention to the moon. Thank you, Marinda.”

  “How do we get there?” I ask. Hitesh glances at the Raja.

  “I don’t see the harm in telling her,” he says.

  Hitesh turns toward me. “Due west is a mountain range with a small footpath at the base. It starts out as one trail but then forks off many times until there are dozens of different paths. The trail that leads to the Snake Temple follows a pattern of right twice, then left twice, repeated all the way to the cave. You’ll know you’re in the right place by the rather unpleasant odor. It’s impossible to miss.” I know the smell he’s talking about—musky, reptilian. The smell of snakes.

&
nbsp; “Now, Marinda,” the Raja says. “May we ask you a few questions?”

  “Of course.” My palms start to sweat and I dry them on my pants.

  “Do you know why the Naga would take your brother?”

  “Yes,” I say, suddenly thirsty. I take a sip of my tea and then trace the rim of the cup with my finger. Deven squeezes my knee under the table, and I’m not sure if he’s providing support or trying to send me a message, but I don’t dare look at him.

  “And why is that?” The Raja’s voice is gentle.

  “They are trying to punish me,” I explain. “I used to work for them, and when I stopped, they took my brother to try to coerce me.” Deven lets out a breath and moves his hand from my knee. He seems relieved. He must have been trying to encourage me to tell the truth.

  The Raja leans forward and puts a hand on my forearm. “I’m so sorry, Marinda. Were you one of their spies?” I go stiff. I’m not sure what to say. I want to look at Deven, but the Raja is maintaining eye contact, and to look away would appear dishonest. Iyla taught me that much. The Raja’s eyes are kind. He searches my face while he waits for an answer, and just for a moment he reminds me of Japa. How Japa always seemed to see more of me than I intended to show him. How he always seemed to care even when I tried to keep him at arm’s length. And my mind is made up. I’m tired of lies. Mine and everyone else’s.

  “I’m a visha kanya,” I say softly. Hitesh lets out a small gasp, but my gaze is focused on the Raja. His face falls and he closes his eyes, as if he was bracing for this answer all along but is still disappointed to have it. And then he opens his eyes and pats my arm.