Poison's Kiss (Poison's Kiss #1)(67)

“So what now?” I ask. “You betray me again? Tell the Naga where I am so that they can capture me?”

“Of course not.” Her voice is flat and unemotional. Something about her refusal to argue enrages me.

“He is a little boy, Iyla! And you were ready to let them take his life!”

She spins to face me. “You weren’t so concerned with life when Kadru was taking mine and giving it to you.”

I suck in a sharp breath. Years of visits to Kadru unspool in my mind—the fear, the pain, the torture. And Iyla was there every time. Those were the only times I ever saw her visibly afraid. Kadru’s voice, when she told me what Gopal had done, echoes in my memory: It was someone else’s life in the bargain, but those are his secrets to share.

“It was you? She drained the life from you?” I feel like I’ve swallowed a brick of ice.

Iyla rubs her forehead. “Over and over. In Gopal’s mind my life was valuable only if it sustained yours. My job was to make sure that your jobs were safe. He didn’t care how endangered I was. From the very beginning everything was about you. ‘The Nagaraja chose Marinda. Marinda is special. Marinda must be protected at all costs.’?”

“Wait,” I say. “You’ve known we were serving the Nagaraja since we were children?” A pit opens in my stomach. I assumed that she sought out Deven because she found out who we were really working for, but I can tell by the heavy silence and the expression on her face that I was wrong.

“Why?” I’m practically shouting now. “Why would you let me think I was killing for the good of Sundari when you knew those men were innocent?”

“Why do you think?” Iyla shouts back. “Gopal has broken my bones, Marinda. He has held a blade to my throat and whipped me until I bled. What do you think he would have done if I’d told you the truth?”

“I would have protected you,” I say. “We could have come up with a plan together.”

“No,” she says, her voice raw with pain. “You’ve never been able to protect me, and we stopped making plans together a long time ago.”

“Gopal was cruel to me too—” I start.

But Iyla cuts me off. “He was cruel to you by being cruel to me. I paid a heavy price for your friendship.”

My heart clenches. Mani paid a heavy price too. And Japa. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I never knew.” But that hardly seems an adequate excuse. “You must hate me.”

“Yeah,” Iyla says. “I kind of do.” She stares at her feet, nudges a stone with her toe. “But I care about you too.”

I think of Gita. I know all about hating and loving someone at the same time.

“When I met Deven,” Iyla continues, “I thought I’d finally found a way out. But then you stole that too.”

My mouth drops open. “That’s not fair. I didn’t steal anything.”

Iyla pinches the bridge of her nose. “Deven was going to get me out. He was going to protect me. You were supposed to kiss him, Marinda, and then I planned to tell him who you were, what you’d tried to do, so that he would take you down with all of the rest of the Naga. Instead you made him fall in love with you and ruined everything.”

“You wanted him to hate me,” I say.

She fixes me with a cold stare. “Someone should.”

My hands curl into fists. “Is that why you lied to him and told him I had you beaten?”

Her face is stony. “That wasn’t a lie.” I feel like she’s slapped me. She blames me for every time Gopal punished her, even though he was the one holding the whip. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I should have done more to protect her. But then the full realization of what she’s done settles over me and sweeps away my guilt. She’s planned this for months—to escape at my expense. To have me captured by the Naga’s enemies and be…who knows what? Tortured? Killed?

The betrayal tastes bitter at the back of my throat. “Do you hate me so much that you wanted me dead?”

“Of course not,” Iyla says. And then after a beat, “Maybe. I don’t know.” She sighs. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I tried to turn Deven against you and it didn’t work. He loves you. And now you’ll be living in the house that was meant for me.”

I press a hand to my forehead. Of course. That’s why Deven had such a quick solution for my escape. He’d already prepared a place for Iyla in the Widows’ Village.

I don’t know what to say and so we keep walking in silence. It’s astonishing, really, that her hate for me was as strong as my love for her. My heart feels heavy with loss today. Worry about Mani is pressing at the forefront of my mind. And when I saw Iyla in the cavern earlier, I was so relieved—I thought she would help me cope. I thought I’d found my best friend again. But it turns out I lost her long before I knew I had.

“Deven doesn’t love me,” I say after a few minutes, because it’s true and because I think it will make her feel better.

She laughs humorlessly. “Yes, he does. When he saw me in the circle of Naga, he pulled me aside and told me to shove the cloak in my bag. I thought that he was trying to protect me from being discovered by the soldiers. I thought it was proof that he cared about me. But, no. He threatened that if I didn’t help you escape, he would let the Raja know that I was Naga and I would be executed. Once again, my life matters only if it can save yours.” Her voice breaks. She loves Deven. It didn’t occur to me until this moment that any of her feelings might be real. I think of seeing her kiss him that day in front of her house. I was so worried that he loved her, and now she’s afraid he loves me. But she doesn’t need to worry. Deven is only thinking of Mani. When he finds out that I killed his brother, he will want nothing to do with me.