The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #1)(66)
It took my parents, Tuntuni, and me a lot of effort to calm them both down. We all tried our best to explain to the Raja what had happened, but it was Tuntuni who actually saved the day with a song.
“The Demon Prince and Moonbeam Girl, each a royal child
One father of the dark, the other loving and mild
To save a brother and a sister
To serpent land descended
With shadow’s force they drowned the snakes
And the python jewel defended
Crossed ruby seas full of jewels beneath the dark red moon
Survived Demon Land in Ai-Ma’s arms but not a minute too soon
In the Mountains of Illusions there sang a golden bird
In the well of demon-birth, loving parents heard
With sword and bow and bravery, the darkness they did hold
Tears’ magic did appear as nature’s power bold
Now home again to plant a seed for friendship’s ever near
The branch grows from the tree of gold and silver spheres.”
“Loving and mild,” the Raja murmured. “We like that.” He’d been eating during most of the song, so I wasn’t sure how much of the rest he actually understood.
Neel stole a glance at me. I nodded.
“Father, for Lal to come back into his human form, you have to guarantee something.”
The Raja narrowed his eyes. “Kings don’t make guarantees.”
“Do you want him back or not?” Neel practically shouted, and was about to say more until I stepped on his foot. Hard.
“Please, sire,” I wheedled. “If Lal and Mati want to spend more time together, you would surely not stand in their way?”
“If we had our son and heir back in human form, that’s all we care about,” said the Raja, wringing his hands. “Yes, yes, best friends since childhood, friendship knows no class, race or creed, blah blah blah. We don’t like it, but we suppose that would be fine.” He waved his hands vaguely in the direction of the golden and silver spheres. “Just bring our boy back to us!”
Neel and I crossed the palace gardens and went back out to the forest. Tuntuni was waiting for us at the base of his tree. There were two shovels propped up against the base.
“Go to it!” the bird squawked.
Neel and I dug two holes next to each other. The sorts of holes we dug at school on Arbor Day to plant a little memorial tree or something. Only, Neel and I didn’t stick bulbs into the holes; we placed the golden and silver spheres inside. They hummed and glowed, even halfway under the dirt.
“You’re sure they won’t … like, suffocate or something?” I asked, rubbing at my forehead with a dirty hand.
“They’re glorified bowling balls right now, Kiran, except for the brief time they were part of the star cycle, so unless you have a better plan as to how to make them human again, I suggest you cover them up with dirt.”
Once we filled in dirt over the spheres, Neel watered the spot. Then there was nothing to do but brush the dirt off our clothing and go check on the horses.
Princess! You made it! Snowy exclaimed when we walked into the stable.
“So did you!” I hugged the horse around his neck. “Was it a long flight?”
Neel looked at me curiously. “Are you talking to the horse?”
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms across my chest. “You got a problem with it?”
“Is that supposed to be an imitation of me or something?”
I laughed. Even if it wasn’t home, it felt good to be back.
In the morning, we ran down to the forest to see what had happened and found a beautiful sight. Lal and Mati, sitting up in a shimmering, silvery tree that had sprouted from the ground overnight. Although most of the branches were silver, it was the long glittering branch of gold on which the best friends were sitting. With them was Tuntuni. Lal and Mati were swinging their legs to his music, and looking pretty happy to be back in human form.
“Brother!” Lal exclaimed, jumping down from the branch.
The two princes bro-hugged. They didn’t, however, cry.
“Cousin!” Mati ran over to throw her arms around me. Unfortunately, she did cry. A lot. Which made me kind of tear up too. Oh, the heck with it, I totally boo-hooed like a baby in her arms. It was awesome to find out I had a cool horse-wench for a cousin.
We left them there then—they didn’t seem to need us anyway. At the stables, I turned right, toward my uncle Rahul’s apartments, where my parents were waiting, while Neel turned left, toward the palace.
“Kind of what it’s always been like for Lal and Mati, I guess,” I said.
“Only, you’re a princess, and she’s the stable master’s daughter.”
“Well, for all intents and purposes, I’m the stable master’s niece, the daughter of Quickie Mart owners,” I corrected.
“That’s not entirely true …”
“It is true.” I kicked a clod of dirt with my toe. “Look, it’s not like I don’t know who I am. But in the end, they’re not the parents I choose. I mean, which would you rather be, a snake princess in a dark cave with a bunch of homicidal relatives you don’t even want to know—or part of the nice, warm, non-royal family that brought you up?”
Neel bit his lip, squinting into the distance. “You’re lucky, you know.”