all-powerful as the galaxies themselves! I get to live forever!” He cackled evilly and rubbed his hands.
Sesha really was such a cliché. A cliché that was going to kill me, yes. But still a cliché.
“And all this nonsense about the Chintamoni and Poroshmoni Stones? What about them? Were they just a distraction?” I sputtered, even as I exchanged a panicky look with Neel.
“Oh, no, that’s the best part of all!” Sesha gave a shrill whistle, then laughed in an über-movie-villain way. “I can’t just kill you outright to fulfill the Ouroboros spell. I must kill you in a special way—with the power of two neutron stars!”
“I was right,” I breathed. “The stones are neutron stars!”
“Not just yet. Not in this form.” Sesha wiggled his finger at me. “Right now they are simply jewels. But through the alchemical power of all four rakkhosh clans—a quadruple power held by only the Rakkhoshi Queen—they can become stars! Get on out here, my trusted henchman!”
“Yes, Your Majesty!” The person who walked out onto the dais handed the Serpent King two shimmering stones—one white and one yellow. It was the Thinking and Touch Stones, the two jewels that would be changed, through the power of the Rakkhoshi Queen, into two neutron stars. They were the two objects that would kill me and give Sesha immortality.
You would think my attention would be on those stones, the cause of all this drama and misery, the weapons with which my birth father would very soon try to kill me. But I barely paid them a glance. Instead, I was staring openmouthed at the person who brought them in. The TV audience gave a collective gasp too.
“It was remarkably easy to convince the Raja that the Poroshmoni Stone should be given to his son for safekeeping,” drawled Sesha as he took the two jewels into his ringed hands.
But I still wasn’t listening. I was too slack-jawed with shock at who had brought Sesha the jewels. I couldn’t. Bloomin’. Believe it.
“Brother!” exclaimed Neel. “I knew it!
“Lal?” I practically screamed. “How could you?”
“How could I what?” drawled Lal, his handsome face unrecognizable in its malice. “Fool you? Very easily, my dear. Have my brother get put in detention? A bit trickier, but it was manageable. I just wish I wasn’t caught up in that farce of a second test, and could have stopped you from talking to K. P. Das.”
I narrowed my eyes. Wait a minute, Sesha had known—he’d been watching—when I went to speak to the old demonologist. And he had wanted me to dive under the Honey-Gold Ocean of Souls to rescue Neel all along—he’d even set up this gladiator arena for it. Then what was it that Lal didn’t want me to find out from his old teacher? That’s when it hit me. Raat’s strange reaction to Lal, Lal’s own weird lies about not liking demonology, how the crown prince never called me Just Kiran like he used to.
“You’re not actually Lal at all, are you?” I said slowly, the pieces all falling together in my head.
“What are you talking about? Has your lurve for me melted your little brain?” Lalkamal sneered. “Or are you angling for more canoodling? More stolen kisses and hugs? Don’t be shy just because my big brother is here!”
“Canoodling?” repeated Neel. “Kisses and hugs?”
From the TV screens, the audience started laughing.
“There was no canoodling!” I sputtered. “That was all that stupid propaganda machine. Anyway, I mean, gross! Besides which, that’s not Lal!” I said this last part through gritted teeth.
“What are you talking about, Kiran? Of course that’s my brother,” Neel snapped. “Have you lost leave of your senses?”
The viewers on the TV screens all seemed to think so too. They frowned at me now, and one snake woman even seemed to be wagging her fingers at me. That was all I needed. To be shamed by a green-skinned snake woman watching me on an intergalactic TV game show.
“Enough with this!” Sesha pointed at Neel. “Get him, Prince Lalkamal! Kill your brother and be rid of his polluting, rakkhosh presence in the kingdom!”
Lal ran at Neel with his sword drawn, almost faster than the eye could see. At the last minute, Neel raised his sword to block his brother’s, his face shocked. “Lal? Bro? Stop! What are you doing?”
The two brothers clashed weapons, swirling and slashing at each other. Lal was attacking and Neel was on the major defensive. He stumbled as he walked backward, blocking his brother’s incredibly strong blows. “Lal! It’s