Poison's Kiss

by Breeana Shields

  “I appreciate your honesty,” he says. “I really do.” He makes a motion toward the doors and I swivel to see the guards approaching us.

  One of them is holding manacles.

  Suddenly the room is in chaos.

  Deven is on his feet shouting, “Father, no!” I’m struggling against the guards, kicking and screaming, but they are too strong for me, and before I know it, my hands are restrained in front of me, my wrists bound by manacles. The guards each hold one of my elbows. I’m sweating and my heartbeat is roaring in my ears.

  “Please,” I say. “Mani is only seven and he’s done nothing wrong. Please.”

  “My son was only seventeen,” the Raja says. “That may sound much older to you, but to my wife and me it seemed but a few days older than seven.”

  I have no response to that. Because he’s right—I deserve to be locked up and punished. But Mani doesn’t. The Raja puts an arm around Deven’s shoulders.

  “Thank you, son. Thank you for bringing us a visha kanya and correcting the wrong that was done to our family.”

  Deven pushes his father’s arm away. “I thought you would help her,” he said. “I never would have…” His eyes find mine and they are pleading with me to believe him.

  The guards are dragging me toward the door. “Deven,” I cry. “Help Mani. Please.”

  The Raja holds up a hand and the guards stop. “My first priority is finding and detaining the Naga. If the boy is still alive after that, we will see what can be done to help him.” I try to catch Deven’s gaze, to see if he will honor my request, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking. His expression is stunned, as if he’s suddenly found himself in a room he never entered.

  With a flick of his hand, the Raja dismisses the guards and they drag me through the double doors. Once we’re in the corridor, I stop struggling. There’s no one to help me now. I’m so panicked that I don’t pay attention to where we’re headed until we reach a flight of stairs, and then my legs start to shake. This is not like the elegant, curving marble staircase in the foyer; these stairs are plain and narrow. And they descend into darkness.

  One of the guards plucks a torch from a sconce on the wall. “Follow me,” he says. We move down the stairs in a single line with one guard in front of me and one behind. I wish I could trail my fingers along the stone wall; I feel unsteady with my hands bound in front of me. Defenseless.

  Every step downward feels like a death sentence for Mani. My mind is racing for a way to escape. I could push the guard in front of me with my shoulder and hope he’s incapacitated as he falls, but that doesn’t help with the guard behind me. I might be able to turn quickly and kiss the man behind me before he could retreat, but my poison doesn’t work fast enough. It’s a bitter irony that my whole life I’ve felt like I’m too deadly to find happiness. But now, when it really counts, I’m not nearly deadly enough.

  We reach the bottom of the staircase and my breath feels trapped in my chest. Rows of cells separated only by iron bars line either side of a narrow walkway. It’s chilly and damp, and an unpleasant musty smell fills the air. The flickering light from the torch doesn’t allow me to see much, only huddled shapes behind the bars. But I can hear them. A man muttering to himself. A woman humming an off-key tune. A child crying. I shiver. What kind of person imprisons a child? It gives me even less hope that the Raja will help Mani.

  The guard behind me takes my elbow and leads me to an empty cell at the back of the dungeon. The other guard holds the torch so that his comrade can see to unlock the huge metal padlock. And then they both escort me inside. The cell is small, with a stone floor and a single blanket folded in the corner. Water drips from the ceiling, forming a puddle in the center of the room. I’ll have to sleep pressed against the wall to avoid getting wet.

  “We’re going to take these off now,” one of the men tells me, pointing to my wrists. “Don’t do anything foolish.” I hold out my hands, but before he touches me, the other guard steps forward and holds the torch off to one side, careful to keep it between my face and both of theirs. They obviously overheard my confession in the Blue Room and know exactly what a visha kanya can do. My heart sinks. For the first time I see the appeal in being as deadly as Kadru. If I were two hundred years older, both of the guards would be dead already and I wouldn’t be powerless to save Mani.

  Once the manacles are removed, the guards back slowly out of the cell, as if I might charge forward at any moment. They secure the padlock and then retreat back down the path without a word. The torchlight disappears and I am plunged into darkness.

  “A flicker and gone!” one of the prisoners yells. “A flicker and gone.” He sounds like he’s in a cell across from me, but I can’t tell for sure.

  “Hush,” says another voice, a woman’s. “Go to sleep.”

  “A flicker and gone!” the man shouts again. The woman yells back and the two start trading insults—hers make sense and his don’t.

  I press my back against the wall and sit with my knees drawn up to my chest. My wrists are tender from where the manacles dug into my flesh, but it’s nothing compared with the pain I feel at failing Mani. Why did Deven bring me here? Did he know his father would imprison me? Was that the plan all along? I feel sick at the thought that I walked into the palace and confessed. That I allowed myself to be taken.

  Gopal always worried about me being captured. He taught me never to trust anyone, never to say more than what was absolutely necessary, never to ask him questions and above all never to answer questions from anyone else. Not with the truth, anyway.

  It’s basic tradecraft that the person with the most information has the most power. How foolish of me to trust the Raja enough to tell him the truth. I should have been more careful. I should have traded information for Mani’s safety and not given anything away until they led me to the Snake Temple, until Mani was back in my arms. I rest my forehead on my knees and let the tears soak through the thin fabric of my pants.

  The other prisoners finally fall silent, and the only noises are the constant drip, drip from the ceiling and the sound of my own breathing. And I have nothing left to focus on but despair.

  I wake up to the creak of a door. I’m slumped over in an awkward position and my neck is so kinked that it screams in pain when I try to straighten it. It takes a moment to sort out where I am, for my mind to arrange all the unfamiliar smells and sounds into a memory of the previous day. But then it all comes rushing back—the Raja, the Snake Temple, the dungeon—and I wish I hadn’t woken up at all.

  Flickering light dances at the far end of the walkway, and I hear footfalls and the low hum of whispered conversation. And then a loud voice ricochets through the dungeon. “Wake up!” It’s a man’s voice, probably one of the guards. He takes something metal and scrapes it along the bars of the cells as he walks back and forth. It makes a horrible screeching noise, and suddenly the dungeon is filled with groans. He laughs. “Breakfast time.”

  Another guard lights torches all along the passageway. It barely illuminates the space, but compared with the blackness of last night it feels like stepping out into full sun. The guards are sliding metal trays to each prisoner through a small slot near the floor. I scramble forward to examine the opening, but it’s too small for even my head, let alone my whole body. When the guard approaches my cell, I recognize him from the Blue Room. He slides the tray forward and water sloshes over the side of the cup, soaking the small loaf of bread.

  “Wait,” I say. He pauses but doesn’t look at me. “Could you give me any information about my brother?” He shakes his head slightly and starts to move away.

  “Please,” I say. “You were in that room yesterday. I know you heard everything. He’s only a little boy.” The guard keeps moving down the corridor, sliding trays to prisoners. I’m the only one even attempting conversation. “Could you tell me if anyone has left yet for the Snake Temple?” I shout. “Is Deven still here in the palace?” Only silence as an answer.

  The guard fin
ishes distributing the trays, and as he passes my cell again, I try one more time. “Please, tell me something.” He pauses and turns his face toward me, his expression conflicted.

  For a moment I think he will answer me, but then he looks away. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. My stomach pitches forward. Sorry for what? Sorry that he can’t tell me? Or sorry that the Raja tried but couldn’t save Mani? But I don’t have a chance to ask because he’s already gone.

  I sink to my knees, but I have no tears left to cry. Mani will be fed to the Nagaraja in less than two days and I’m trapped here. I want to believe that Deven will help him, but the image of Deven’s stunned face as the guards placed the manacles around my wrists haunts me. He did nothing to help me. What if he does nothing to help Mani?

  I scoot forward and shake the bars of my cell, but they are solid. The guards didn’t take my boots, though, and maybe with enough effort…I sit down and press my feet to the bars and push as hard as I can. They don’t budge. I kick at them until sweat trickles down my back.

  “Are you finished?” It’s a small voice and it sounds so much like Mani that I leap to my feet. Maybe they’ve already rescued him. Maybe they brought him here last night and I never noticed. I press my face to the bars of the neighboring cell. But the eyes staring back at me aren’t Mani’s. This boy is a few years older, his hair is a shade darker, and his eyes have a haunted look. “Are you finished?” he asks again.

  “I—yes, I guess I am,” I say. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  “No, not finished with your tantrum,” the boy says. “Finished with your breakfast. I’m still a bit hungry.”

  “Oh.” I look over at my tray. I don’t think I could eat right now even if I wanted to. I scoop up the loaf of bread and pass it through the bars. “I’m afraid it’s a little soggy,” I tell him.

  “S’okay,” he answers through a mouthful of bread. I wait until he’s swallowed and then pass him what’s left of the water.

  “What is such a little boy doing in a dungeon?” I ask. He looks offended and I feel a pang in my chest. He reminds me so much of Mani. “Sorry. Young man,” I correct myself. “What’s a young man doing here?”

  He shrugs and takes another bite. “In trouble for telling the truth,” he says. “How about you?”

  “Same.”

  I sit down with my shoulders against the bars, and the boy mimics me. We sit like that for a long time—him finishing his bread, me berating myself for not being a better sister, a better person.

  “What’s your name?” I ask him finally.

  “Kavi,” he says. Kavi. Mani. They aren’t so different. My throat aches.

  “What’s your name?” he asks.

  “Marinda.”

  I look over at my tray and the porridge still sitting there untouched. I can’t fit the bowl between the bars, but we could pass the spoon back and forth. “Are you still hungry?” I ask. “I have some porridge.”

  “Nah,” Kavi says. “I’m okay. But I feel like I should give you something in return for the bread.”

  I laugh. “And what could you possibly have to give me?”

  He turns and looks at me earnestly. “I could give you some wisdom.”

  My blood runs cold and I scoot away from the bars. “I know you,” I say. “I saw you on Gali Street.” He was the boy selling wisdom, the boy Mani thought could give us hope.

  “I saw you too,” he says. He shakes his head sadly. “But it looks like you didn’t listen to me.” The hair on the back of my neck prickles to life.

  “Stop,” I say. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “You shared your bread with me,” he says. “That tells me a lot. And you love your brother. That tells me something too.”

  And I kill people. What does that say about me, you strange little child?

  “You really look like you could use some wisdom,” Kavi says.

  “Stop talking,” I say. “Just leave me alone.” I don’t know what it is about this boy that unsettles me so much.

  He just shrugs. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

  I snatch the blanket from the floor and retreat to the far side of my cell, where I lie down and pull the blanket over my head. Water continues to drip from the ceiling, so I have to smash myself against the wall to stay dry. It’s an uncomfortable position, but not as uncomfortable as being turned inside out by a little boy who talks too much.

  I attempt to sleep away the rest of the day, and from what little I can see, most of the other prisoners do the same. There isn’t anything else to pass the time.

  The guards don’t return with another meal until evening, and by then I’m famished. It’s a different man distributing trays this time, and when he approaches my cell, I try asking about Mani again. But I get even less of a response than before. He acts as if he can’t hear me, and when I repeat my question, he begins humming and moves along to the next prisoner.

  I curl up in the corner and start on my dinner—a thick stew, a mug of water and two small loaves of bread. I can hear Kavi in the next cell loudly slurping his stew, and again I’m forcefully reminded of Mani. With every bite I grow more unsettled. I was unkind earlier. To a child. I don’t know what it is about Kavi that makes my stomach churn. Maybe it’s the culture he comes from—the fortune-telling and snake charming. It ruined my life, and maybe I’m taking it out on a little boy because I can’t reach the Naga.

  I stand up and move to where Kavi sits with his back against the bars. “I have some extra bread,” I tell him.

  He glances up. “But you didn’t eat breakfast.”

  I smile at him. “I’ll be fine. I don’t eat that much.”

  He shrugs and takes the bread. “Thank you.”

  “Sure.” I take a deep breath and force the next words out. “What is the wisdom you wanted to share? Maybe I need it after all.”

  “Really?” he asks, and the hopefulness in his voice sends a pang through me.

  “Really.”

  Kavi closes his eyes and his whole face relaxes. He sits like that for several minutes and then snaps his eyes open. “It’s better when I write it down,” he says apologetically. “But here it is: Suspicion is the only defense against betrayal.”

  I roll my eyes. “That’s exactly the same thing you told me last time.”

  “Is it?”

  I laugh. “Yes, it is.” I can’t believe I let Kavi get to me. He really is just an innocent child pretending to be grown up. “Let me guess. You tell the same thing to all of your customers?”

  “No,” he says indignantly. “Of course not.”

  “No? Then tell me. What does it mean?”

  Kavi purses his lips. “Usually I don’t know,” he says. “But this time I have a pretty good idea.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Well, I think it means that the guards should be more suspicious of little boys with sticky fingers.” He pulls a key from his pocket and shakes it at me. “And then they would avoid being betrayed.”

  I gasp. “Is that—”

  “Shh!” Kavi holds a finger to his lips. “Yes, it is.”

  My heart starts pounding. He’s holding the key to my freedom, to Mani’s. “Will you help me?” I ask. “My brother is in trouble and I have to get to him.”

  Kavi nods slowly as he says, “He who has a full belly has a big heart.” I wish there weren’t bars between us so that I could grab him and hug him close. He’s an odd little boy, but if he can help me escape, I will forever be in his debt.

  He presses the key into my palm. “The guards will come in a few hours to put out the torches. You can leave then.”

  “Aren’t you going to come with me?”

  “Nah,” he says. “They never keep me for very long. Just a few days now and then to teach me a lesson. I’ll be out in no time.”

  “What lesson are they trying to teach you?” I ask.

  He sighs. “That a person will more easily believe a sweet lie than a bitter truth.” He scrat
ches his head. “And that I shouldn’t sell either one.”

  I reach through the bars and touch his cheek. “Thank you, Kavi. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

  He grins at me. “You have no idea how much the bread means to me.” It seems that a loaf of bread and a boy’s life can’t compare, but I’m grateful for Kavi’s help.

  The next few hours are some of the slowest of my entire life. I pace circles around my tiny cell until a woman shouts out, “Hold still, girl! You’re making me jumpy.” The last thing I need right now is to draw attention to myself, and so I sit and pull my knees to my chest. I run my fingers along the smooth metal of the key. The hope I had earlier is draining away. I don’t know how I will get out of here, or if I can find Mani, or how I can possibly overcome the Naga if I do. I wish I at least had Deven to make the journey with me. But I don’t know anymore if he’s trustworthy or if he only pretended to help me so that I would end up here, locked in the dungeon to pay for my crimes. What will the Raja do to me if I’m caught trying to escape?

  Finally the door at the top of the stairway creaks open and the guards come to put out the torches. As soon as the prisoners hear them approaching, the dungeon bursts into a cacophony of noise. The woman who yelled at me earlier begins chanting at the top of her voice, several of the men start arguing with one another, one man mutters as he slams his head against the bars. Kavi bursts into tears.

  The guards ignore the whole scene and dispassionately walk down the corridor extinguishing each torch with large metal cones. When all the flames are out, they make their way back to the staircase. Once their handheld torch disappears up the stairs, the dungeon is plunged into darkness. Panic fills my chest. How will I get the lock open if I can’t see?

  Once the door clicks closed, the theatrics of the prisoners die down. I press my face against the bars of Kavi’s cell.

  “Are you all right?” I whisper.

  “Of course I am,” he says without a trace of sadness in his voice.