“Okaaay,” Neel said slowly. “It’s true. Lal and Mati are friends and she is a good influence on his confidence, or whatever. He’s definitely less flaky when he’s around her.”
“Right, but the Raja and the queens will never allow Lal and Mati to continue to be friends, right? Not now that he’s the crown prince. Not as they get older.”
“No way, chickie!” The Rakkhoshi Queen cackled.
“Since they’ve been spheres, they’ve been so happy. Humming and buzzing and hanging out together. But once they become human again, then Mati goes back to the stables and Lal to the palace.”
“I guess.”
“So we’ve got to convince the Raja otherwise.”
Neel looked at me, the truth dawning in his eyes. “So we have to take them home again.”
I nodded.
“Everything is connected to everything,” drawled the Demon Queen in a bored voice.
Neel and I both snapped around to face her.
She arched a wicked eyebrow. “Haven’t you figured out the how part yet?”
I shook my head. To which she belched. Then, rolling her eyes, she shouted, “By love, you morons, by love!”
We stared at her. She moved her gruesome head side to side, cracking her neck with a gesture that reminded me of her son.
“You’re lucky you have Loonie-Moonie here.” She pointed a talon at Neel. “I for one am going to try to raise a real rakkhosh this time!”
As we talked, Bogli had fallen asleep right on her mother’s foot. The Queen shook her off, and the baby demon woke up, bawling. The Queen slapped her hand to her forehead.
“Am I to be forever cursed with imbecilic offspring?” the Rakkhoshi Queen snapped, and the two demons were gone in a puff of smelly darkness.
Her voice cackled through the vapor. “Don’t call me, dum-dums, and I won’t call you!”
The Raja wanted to banish Neel.
“We told you not to come home without your brother!” he bellowed.
“Well, that’s just too bad,” Neel snapped. “Because half rakkhosh or not, I’m still your son too.”
I was proud of Neel for saying that and not just stomping out of the throne room in a huff. I wasn’t quite as proud of the shouting match the father and son then had.
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?”