The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,65

the streets, dressed in their fanciest yellow and red clothing for the gaye halud ceremony. There were horses and carriages, elephants and rikshaws, prettied-up bicycles, and even a painted bullock cart or two.

As I saw the throngs of people swarming around, I wondered how Sesha, enemy of the Kingdom Beyond, had convinced an entire country to trust him so quickly. Had it been that stupid Who Wants to Be a Demon Slayer? game show? I’d heard from Naya that he’d started his own MeTube station, where he said the most outrageous things. Most of his rants were about how much he hated rakkhosh, and how rakkhosh were responsible for all the ills of the kingdom. Was it really that easy? Just to give a group of people someone different than themselves to hate and blame for their problems? And how did that even make sense if he was marrying the queen of the rakkhosh? But apparently, everyone was so swept up in wedding party fever, no one was bothered by the contradiction.

As soon as I thought this, of course, I squirmed a little inside but quickly convinced myself that my view of the Rakkhoshi Rani was based on facts, not opinion. So it definitely wasn’t the same thing.

“Check those out,” Neel breathed. As he spoke, his moustache fluttered a little, making him sneeze.

“Jiu—bless you!” I looked where he was pointing, at the billboards decorating the streets. I was grateful that he hadn’t seen the ones that had been up only a few weeks ago, those fake images for the game show that showed Lal and me killing rakkhosh, looking glamorous, and being in love.

But now the billboards were all of Sesha. The weird thing was, all the images seemed borrowed from other stories. In one picture, Sesha was wearing a knight’s armor and helmet, riding on a horse like he was going jousting. In another, he was in military uniform, saluting at a row of tanks and airplanes dropping bombs on Demon Land. On yet another billboard, he was wearing a suit and tie, sitting behind a presidential desk, his fist poised over a big red button that read Blow Up the Rakkhosh. In the background in about half the billboards was the Demon Queen, at her most glamorous and beautiful.

“Why do they look so different, Sesha and my mother?” Neel wondered aloud. “They don’t look like themselves.”

“It’s got to be the effect of the story smushing,” I said. Neel was right. Not only were the images in clothing from other cultures, both his mom and my bio dad looked way paler in most of the images, like they weren’t even themselves anymore. “Whatever they and their Anti-Chaos goons are up to, they’re moving us more toward the singularity.”

Neel made a noise in the back of his throat but didn’t say anything.

All this weirdness didn’t seem to bother the people in the streets at all. There were tottho gifts coming from all directions. People danced, sang, clapped, and chanted as they brought their beautifully decorated trays of offerings toward the palace. We joined a procession of people playing the conch shell and ulu-ulu’ing. Despite the fact that it was a little unnerving to see everyone so happy about this particular wedding, it was hard not to get caught up in the party atmosphere. I was feeling so confident and pumped that, when Neel started to whisper at me, I didn’t know what he was going on about.

“Guards,” I heard him muttering. “There are guards doing spot checks on the gift trays. And I don’t recognize any of them! Sesha must have hired a whole new crew to replace my father’s people!”

“Kill ’em!” hissed Priya a little too gleefully from inside the horse.

“We’re gonna die!” burbled Tuni, who’d hitched a ride to the party on my shoulder.

“Relax, no one is killing anyone,” I whispered, tucking the scarf more firmly around my face. “Everyone chill and keep quiet!” I gave Tuntuni a quick pat. “Especially you, birdie. You shouldn’t have insisted on coming if you couldn’t take the stress!”

I looked cautiously around and realized that Neel was overreacting. The guards walked right by us, waving us on.

“That was close,” Neel muttered as a lady carrying a wrapped tray of oranges, mangoes, and bananas walked by.

“What was close?” hissed Priya from inside the horse. “Did you split their jugular veins with your teeth in a silent but deadly attack?”

“Shh! Keep quiet in there already!” I ordered, pushing the wheeling horse along. I turned