The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #1)(21)

We walked in a tense silence behind Lal to the palace stables. The big double doors had been hastily shut after the horses had trotted in. A little light shone from in between.

“May I come in?” Lal called through the half-open door.

“No, you may not,” answered a musical voice from inside. A girl’s voice.

I glanced at Neel, who muttered, “It’s the custom here,” without meeting my eyes. “You never—never—say you invite someone through a door.”

Before I could ask any more, the ornately carved doors of the stables flung open.

“My princes, you are home!”

Standing before us was a sturdy, capable-looking girl with shoulder-length dark hair. She was dressed like the boys, in loose pants and a flowing top. She had on knee-high boots and held a broom in her hand.

“Princess Just Kiran, I am honored to introduce you to my very best friend.” Lal grinned ear to ear. “Except my brother, of course! This is Mati!”

Mati joined her hands. “Namaskar, Princess Just Kiran, welcome to our kingdom.”

“Um … hi.” I awkwardly namaskar-ed her back. Even with all the stuff I’d discovered about myself in the last day—that I could fight demons, that I really was a princess—I still didn’t like meeting new people that much. I could never think of what to say. Except with Neel, of course, but His Royal Pain-in-the-Heinie was obviously an exception to the rule.

I stepped through the stable doorway and took in the surroundings. The place was sparkling, and smelled like … the closest thing I could think of was the smell of freshly washed cotton—like when Baba pulled me out a shirt straight from the dryer. And what was that other smell? Was it honey?

“This is nectar from the bees in our forest.” Mati pulled out a silver pitcher and poured a rich golden liquid into Midnight and Snowy’s troughs. “It’s the best food for a pakkhiraj horse.”

“A pakkhiraj?” I repeated.

“The name for this type of flying horse.” As Mati moved from trough to trough, I noticed that she dragged one of her feet a little. It was barely noticeable, but one of her shoes had a thicker sole than the other, making up for the shorter leg. “Didn’t Their Royal Highnesses tell you?”

“Cool it with the royal highness stuff, Mati,” Neel ordered. He had taken off his jeweled turban and collar, and his dark hair was sticking up on end. “We’ve known you for way too long to take that kind of beetlejuice from you.”

“Mati is the daughter of our stable master,” Lal explained. “A wise teacher who taught all three of us to ride, to use weapons, to care for animals, and many more things.”

“She’s like our little sister. She’s a lot tougher than she looks.” As he passed by her, Neel playfully messed up Mati’s hair, to which the seemingly mild-mannered Mati threw the nectar pitcher at his retreating head. It hit Neel’s shoulder and bounced harmlessly to the stable floor.

“Nice! Your throwing arm’s improving!” Neel examined a big blob of nectar on his shirt, and took a taste. “Maybe you’ll make it as a bowler in the royal cricket league after all!”

“All credit goes to you for giving me so much reason to practice my aim, Your Royalness!” Mati stuck out her tongue, then lobbed a horse brush at him, which Neel caught with a laugh and a bow.

This was a different side of Neel than I’d seen before. With me, he just seemed irritating and self-centered and maybe even a little dangerous, but with Mati he seemed almost like a nice person. Almost.

As I thought this, I looked over at Lal, and noticed that he wasn’t joining in his brother and Mati’s teasing. He made big eyes and gaped a little at Mati, then caught himself and studied a nail in the floor, a beam on the ceiling, and, finally, a little thread on his sleeve. In fact, he made such a big show of looking everywhere but at Mati, it was totally obvious that was the only person he wanted to look at. If the girl noticed, she didn’t say anything, but kept throwing random stuff at Neel. Suddenly, the reason for Neel’s earlier teasing of his brother became clear. Had we all been at school, I would have passed a note to Zuzu in class with the word AWKWARD written in big curly letters.

“Unlike some people, I still have work to do.” Mati shook her finger playfully at Neel, and moved over to the white horse.

“Excuses, excuses.” Neel tossed the horse brush back at her. “You’ll never fulfill your potential as a cricket star with that attitude.”

I felt a pang of jealousy at how comfortable Mati was with the princes, how much she fit with them. They were all so relaxed in one another’s presence—there was no arguing, no lying, no calling one another 2-Ds or anything else. Instead, everyone seemed to just be so happy and, oh, I don’t know, at home with each other.

As Mati worked, she radiated such a sense of purpose and competence that I could almost feel it. Snowy nuzzled her cheek, leaving a nectary trail on her neck. “There you go, my handsome one, my Tushar Kona, my star,” the girl murmured.

“What did you call him?” I asked, feeling a little shy.

Mati looked up at me with steady caramel eyes. “Tushar Kona—snowflake.”

“You didn’t realize that was his name, my lady?” Lal asked. “I thought you must have heard that from us—and perhaps that was why you were calling him Snowy.”