The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #1)(44)

“I’m, er, friends with your, erm, daughter. Uh, sir,” Neel stammered, sounding more like he was addressing a friend’s dad at after-school carpool than a mortal enemy. Maybe he was feeling the Serpent King’s strange power too.

“Silence!” Sesha shouted. “This puny imp is my blood? I can hardly believe it.” He sneered, his upper lip curling in an ugly way.

I was rooted to the spot. This was way more awful than I thought it would be. How could I ever have thought I might have anything in common with such a horrible father?

“Just like your mother,” he continued, “so soft and weak and moony.”

My throat constricted, but I pushed down the tears. Part of me refused to blubber in front of this monster. But truth be told, another part of me didn’t want to disappoint my father.

“You will thank me.” The Serpent King raised his arms above his head. “You will thank me for sparing you from a life of drudgery and giving birth to your inner glory!”

I hid my eyes. I could feel his green gaze boring into me again, and that pull, like some kind of a magical rope between us. Like he had shot me with an invisible arrow attached to a string and all he had to do was reel me in.

“Join me!” the King thundered, a blinding green light building between his hands.

“No!” Neel shouted, as if forcing himself to resist Sesha’s magic. “I kind of like her the way she is.” He pulled out his sword, which flashed in the light of the Serpent King’s glowing energy.

But Naga pushed Neel to the ground, looming and hissing above him.

“Stop!” I cried, reaching for my bow.

None of us noticed that Tuntuni had flown out of my arms while the King talked. Now he flew up, flapped his wings in Sesha’s face, and then snatched something out of Neel’s shirt pocket.

It was the shadow seller’s purple vial with the cork top.

“Tuntuni, wait …” Neel began. But with one swift gesture, the bird smashed the vial to bits at the feet of the Snake King. There was a tinkling of broken glass, but beyond that, nothing happened.

We all stared at the broken bottle like participants in a strange wax-museum tableau. The king, the bird, the prodigal daughter, the looming serpent, and his princely prey.

Sesha was the first to break out of the expectant trance.

“Ha!” The Serpent King’s moustache twitched as he laughed. “I haven’t been that amused in a long time!”

But then a thick gray smoke swirled out of the shattered glass. It wrapped itself like a never-ending sari around the throne room, circling the pillars, weaving through the furniture, threading its wispy form above and below the throne. It wrapped us, the snakes, everything in its expanding folds.

“Hang on, y’all, here it comes!” Tuntuni chirped.

“Here what comes?” I eyed the growing mist.

“Just don’t let go!” Neel grabbed me with one hand, the bird with his other.

An earthquake-like rumbling shook the teeth in my head. The snakes hissed and slithered around in panic. Then enormous roots shot out of every nook and cranny of the throne room, breaking right through the snake pillars and snake chandeliers, the snake tables and snake throne chair. From the roots, a sturdy trunk exploded like a rocket toward the sky.

“Father! The sssky isss falling!” Naga shrieked.

And it was. The banyan tree shadow, which had been trapped inside the purple bottle, was reconstituting itself now that it was free—like a dry sponge exposed to water. The mighty branches shot up and out, crashing through any obstacle before them. Pieces of stone ceiling plummeted down like giant pieces of hail, crushing snakes.

“This isn’t the last time you’ll see me!” The Serpent King waved his arms, and in a flash of green, he transformed himself into a hideous serpent with a hundred heads. His endlessly coiled tail vibrated with a primordial power. Already, the banyan tree was destroying the room. Now, with every rattle of his mystical tail, the entire cavern shook and spun. Cracks shot along the walls and floors. A huge one beneath the throne opened up, and the Serpent King and Naga disappeared through it.

Neel pulled at my arm. “Wait!” I shouted, breaking free of his grasp.

In the chaos, the seven-headed serpent had left the python jewel. I grabbed it, tucking it inside Neel’s jacket, which I was still wearing.

Neel took my hand again in his steely grip and pulled me toward his body. “Hold on!” he ordered, and I wrapped one arm around his shoulder, holding Tuntuni with the other. Neel lunged, grabbing one of the branches that shot its way toward the sky.

“Wait a minute!” We were flying straight toward the stone ceiling, chaos and destruction all around us. Oh, I had a bad feeling about this. “Aren’t we right under the …”

“When I say so, you both take a big breath!” Neel commanded. “One … two …”

But he didn’t even have a chance to count to three, because the tree trunk charged a huge hole in the ceiling of the underground cavern, and lake water poured into the room, drowning the snakes. And, oh yeah, us.

We were underwater. I panicked in the swirling tempest and tried to kick away from Neel with my legs, toward what I guessed was the surface of the lake. But Neel held on to me. I fought him, panicking. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even see which way was up. My lungs were going to explode.