The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,6
Touch Stones from my backpack for Mati to see before carefully putting them away again. “And then, after Ai-Ma … um … sacrificed herself saving us, Neel’s mom went chasing after Sesha to murder him and get revenge! No way they would ever become allies! They’re worst enemies!”
“And Sesha’s entire stance has always been very anti-rakkhosh. I can’t believe the alliance is real either,” Mati admitted. “But having Neel crowned is a sure way to squash the rumors. The people will be confident the Demon Queen’s not going to turn against the kingdom if her son is Raja.”
“It is what she always wanted for you, anyway,” I murmured to Neel.
“No way, though, she’s teaming up with Sesha,” he said. “This is just false propaganda, like that stuff about you and Lal when you were competing in Who Wants to Be a Demon Slayer?”
I squirmed a little at his words. So Neel knew about those stories linking me up with his brother? They’d obviously been totally fake news, but it was still embarrassing to think Neel had heard the gossip.
“So what do you say, sire?” sputtered Sir Gobbet, waving his pillow. “Ready to become Raja?”
“But …” Neel threw me another desperate look.
I could see how unsure he was. With a heavy heart, I realized that things weren’t going to go as I’d imagined, yet again. There wasn’t going to be a sleeping-bag slumber party at my parents’ house, or late-night giggly stories or all-kingdom pillow fights. Neel and I weren’t going to go on this adventure together, and I wasn’t going to get to show him around my hometown of Parsippany or introduce him to my bestie, Zuzu. But I shoved my disappointment aside. There were bigger things at stake now.
“Mati’s right, Neel,” I said finally. “We can’t let Sesha take over the Kingdom Beyond. I don’t know what his plan is, but it can’t be good. And if it gives the people confidence to see you as Raja, you’ve got to accept the crown.”
“I don’t know …” Neel muttered. Then he took a look around the beach. At all the people who were looking to him to solve this crisis. He whispered in a voice so low only I could hear it, “What if I can’t do it?”
I thought for a minute about saying something nice and supportive, like how of course he could or how I believed in him. But I knew Neel well enough not to go down that route. Instead, I looked into his dark eyes and drawled, “Don’t act like such a 2-D! What are you, scared or something?”
Neel held my gaze for a second longer than he had to, his lips twitching a little like he was trying not to smile. Then he made a snorting noise. He obviously knew I was teasing him, calling him by the insulting name he’d once given me—because I was from a dimension where everyone expected everything to be uncomplicated and easy, for the mysteries of the universe to have simple answers. He sighed, shutting his eyes tightly, like he was being forced to drink some bad-tasting medicine. “All right, I’ll do it,” he finally gritted out.
Everyone seemed to hold their breath as Sir Gobbet placed the paper crown on Neel’s head. As soon as he did, the crowd went wild.
But as everyone else was cheering and clapping, the strangest thing happened. One of those blue butterflies flew over to Neel and landed right on his shoulder. For a split second, he looked seriously different. Not just different; like someone else entirely. Neel’s skin got paler, his hair grew lighter, and his face got way older. He gave me a strange look, and I could have sworn he said something like, “Are you the elf maiden? Or a hobbit?”
“Who you calling a hobbit?” I snapped. But with those words, Neel shook his head and seemed to come back to himself again. The butterfly lifted off his shoulder and flew airily back into the sky.
What had just happened? It was like, for that half a second, the two of us had fallen into the wrong story. He was the wrong king, and this was not our world, but a world of elves and wizards, hobbits and kings. No one else seemed to have noticed, because they were so busy cheering for their new Raja. The girls with the flower garlands draped a few of them over Neel’s neck, and then some garlands over my neck, Mati’s, Naya’s, and even Gobbet’s