The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,76

finally concluded.

“How dare you, Sonny Jim? I’m coming down there to rip you limb from limb!” screeched Pinki, turning away from the balcony.

“We better get out of here!” I tugged at Neel’s arm. “Oh no, you’re still not back to normal. Just look at yourself.”

“Oh man! I’m better, but still kinda transparent,” Neel said in a panicky voice. “There’s still a chance I won’t be born, isn’t there?”

“Looks like it,” I sighed. “We can’t leave Demon Land just yet, not until we’re sure your mom chooses your dad as her consort. Come on, we’ve got to get to the choosing ceremony before she comes out here and finds us!”

Hurry up!” I hissed at a blurry-edged Neel, who seemed to have trouble running with his blurry feet. “We’ve got to find out where this choosing ceremony is happening!”

“Probably where all those demon students are going, I’d guess,” Neel said. The students, to my surprise, weren’t walking toward the school, but away from it. We followed them, trying to get lost in the crowd just in case Pinki actually came after us.

The rakkhosh students all around us were pumped up—cheering, chanting, shouting about tonight being the night of the choosing. I saw that there were different sorts of rakkhosh all walking more or less together, and in front of each group were their clan banners. There were waves for water clan, flames for fire clan, wings for air clan, and a rocky mountain for land clan.

And all the rakkhosh students seemed to be dressed according to their house colors.

“Where’s your shawl, you dirty ace?” a young guy with a warty nose asked Neel. “Headmistress catches you, she’ll bite off your face!”

“Here!” A friendly-faced rakkhosh thrust two brown-and-green-colored shawls at us and we gratefully took them. We didn’t have wings, or fiery breath, or webbed fingers, so I guessed we were land clan now.

“Hey, did you ever think about how much these rakkhosh clans are like that other story—with the magical students and their four school houses?” I whispered to Neel.

Neel looked annoyed. “Who’s to say those witches and wizards didn’t get the idea from us?”

Night had fallen as it always did in this dimension—fast like a curtain. The new darkness was already heavy with the smells of night-blooming flowers. In addition to the sound of rakkhosh students’ chatter, all around us were the sounds of crickets and, somewhere in the distance, a running stream. The path from the school’s main entrance was illuminated by rows of prodeep, teardrop-shaped oil lamps with burning wicks. I noticed with a shudder that each prodeep was held up by stakes designed to look like disembodied monster arms.

The lighted path ended in a beautiful outdoor grove. We entered the grove—which was made of four giant banyan trunks surrounding one central raised dais. The water, fire, air, and land clans each went to what looked like a designated tree. We settled ourselves on a thick banyan root with the rest of the land clan.

“Look!” Neel said. “There it is!”

I looked where he was pointing. On the central dais was an empty throne, I guess waiting for Pinki. Before the throne were two empty chairs—probably for her two potential consorts. And right next to the throne was the thing we had come all this way to find. The beautiful school tree with the fluttering, almost-alive-looking blue champak flowers.

“If only we could grab some and get out of here!” Neel said.

“Oh, sure, that’ll be really easy to do right in the middle of these hundreds of rakkhosh!” I hissed. All the students looked powerful, and some were downright scary. “Anyway, we can’t leave yet, not until we’re sure your mom makes the right choice and you actually get born in the future!”

“Hey, wait a minute, check out the tree trunk,” Neel whispered. I squinted at the champak tree and realized all its wood was etched with words.

“Did someone carve those?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Neel whispered. “Shh, that must be the headmistress.”

I wrapped my long shawl around my shoulders to protect myself from the buzzing mosquitos, and turned away from the tree to face the demoness climbing onto the platform. The headmistress of the Academy of Murder and Mayhem was a tall, formidable rakkhoshi, in a gorgeous silk sari shot with the colors of all the Ghatatkach clan houses. The shawl she had wrapped around her shoulders too was mixed with all the clan colors—brown and green for land clan, red and orange for fire clan, shades of dark blue