The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,75
you get to have me and they don’t,” said Sesha obnoxiously.
“Oh, I adore you, my slithering snaky suitor!” Pinki purred.
“I worship you, my ravishing rakkhosh-radish!” Sesha answered.
“Now go, silly snake boy. Let me get ready for the ceremony!”
“I’ll see you there, you demonic darling!”
Our parents walked back into the room, away from the balcony. I whispered to Neel, “I can’t believe it!”
“That was bonkers!” he hissed, pointing at the now-empty balcony. “They were in love? Your dad and my mom? Maybe she really is as evil as you said.”
“I don’t know. I was wondering if maybe that’s why they’re getting married now—because they were childhood sweethearts?” It sounded revolting even to my own ears.
“What happened back then—I mean, now—do you suppose?” Neel bit on a rakkhosh-length nail.
“Well, it didn’t work out, obviously. She married your dad, not mine,” I said. “I mean, otherwise, you wouldn’t have been born. And the Kingdom Beyond would never have been!”
“I guess.” Neel shrugged. “And then there was all that stuff about Demon Land being formed? But let’s not worry about that now, let’s find that champak tree and get out of here. We’re here to save Naya, not worry about my mom and Sesha’s past love lives!”
I looked at Neel a little more closely. “Um, Neel?”
“What?” He was standing up and dusting off his clothes.
“Look at your hands,” I whispered. Oh, this was bad.
Neel looked down. The edges of his hands, like the edges of his body, were a little blurrier than they had been a minute ago. He looked up sharply at me. “What’s happening to me?”
Just then, I saw a little blue insect fly by through the branches of the tree. I took in a sharp breath.
“The butterfly effect!” I whispered. “But not the way I thought.”
“What do you mean?” Neel was looking panicky now. “Oh no. What’s happening to me, Kiran? I feel so … wispy. Like I’m disappearing!”
“That’s because you are! Oh my gosh—I thought if we came back in time, we’d mess up the future,” I said. “But it looks like we’re here just in time to fix the future! Neel, if we don’t stop Pinki and Sesha from getting married, you’ll never be born!”
“You mean I’m disappearing from existence?” Neel yelped, checking out his rapidly blurrifying form. “How do we fix it?”
“We’ve got to convince her not to choose Sesha, but your dad instead!” I bit my lip. Every second we talked, Neel was getting blurrier and blurrier! “I think I have an idea!”
I picked up a rock and hurled it at Pinki’s balcony, hitting it with a little thunk. When nothing happened, I threw another rock, and then another.
“Stop!” Neel grabbed my arm with his own smudgy one. “What are you doing?”
I shook him off. “I’m trying to get her attention! She kicked Sesha out so that she could get ready! This might be our only chance to talk to her alone!”
Sure enough, almost as soon as I had finished saying the words, Pinki came out onto the balcony. Silhouetted by the light from behind her, she glowed like a horned and fanged angel.
“Who’s there?” Neel’s mom leaned out over the balcony even as we shrunk back more into the shadows. “Aakash, is that you, you air clan loser? Still upset I beat you out for the crown? Still whining you didn’t become Demon King?”
“Listen to us—we’re friends, my lady!” I said in a wheezy, and I hoped demonic, tone. “Here to tell you Sesha’s way shady!”
“How do you know about Sesha? Who are you?” Pinki demanded, leaning out even farther and squinting into the night.
“He wants you just for your power,” Neel called out in a terrible fake voice. He waved his hands at me in silent panic as he tried to think of a rhyme for power. Finally, he finished, “Not because he thinks you’re a flower!”
“Show your faces, you rakkhosh rubes! Or I’ll mince you into little cubes!” Pinki snarled, growing into her full rakkhosh height and form.
I tried desperately to think of an explanation that would convince Pinki. “Rontu’s soft, him you can control,” I finally said. “But Sesha will dump you in a dark hole!”
Pinki’s eyes scanned the darkness, panicky now. “Not true! Where are you?”
“Isn’t it better to be independent?” Neel began, then, clapping a hand over his mouth, looked over at me. “What rhymes with independent?” he hissed.
“Transcendent? Attendant?” I volunteered in a whisper. “Why didn’t you think it through first?”
“Than give birth to a bunch of snaky descendants?” Neel