Grabbing my arm, he bustled me through into the main part of the throne room. “The Raja and crown prince will be so glad you’re here!” he boomed. “Come with me! Come with me!”
He shoved courtiers out of the way, elbowing one old man in the back and practically knocking over a little lady with pearls threaded into her elaborate topknot. As I speed-walked to keep up with him, Lord Bulbul gestured to a silvery tray carried by a servant. “Would you like a sweet? A pithe perhaps? A coconut naru? Or a syrupy chomchom or rasagolla? What about some creamy mishti doi?”
I stared at the tray of desserts. Each sweet seemed to have a bite already taken out of it. From the silver-lined sandesh, to the little crepe of the pithe, to the pretzel-like drippy orange jilipi. Even the sweet yogurt, in its little earthen bowl, had a dirty spoon resting in it, and it was obvious someone had carved a corner out of the brown-white pudding.
“But someone’s already eaten these!” I pointed out. My stomach was growling, but I wasn’t hungry enough to eat someone else’s half-eaten food.
“Of course! Each tasted by the Raja himself!” Lord Bulbul beamed. “Normally I charge a small fortune to people who want to eat the Raja’s leftovers, but for you, I’ll give a fantastic discount!”
“No thanks,” I said faintly.
“Suit yourself.” The minister of sweets shrugged. “But you don’t know what you’re missing, young lady! Royal spittle adds a fantastic level of flavor!”
We were finally through the crowd of lords and ladies. Lord Bulbul gestured me forward, toward the king, announcing in a loud voice, “Your Majesty—I have found her! Princess Kiranmala, the Princess Demon Slayer!”
Everyone in the throne room stopped talking, and all the courtiers in their silks and jewels and feathers turned around to look at me. I squirmed inside, feeling like a bug under a microscope. Since my adventure last fall, I’d gotten a bit more used to being in the limelight, but I still really didn’t love people staring at me. I felt my face and neck heat up as, after a moment of stunned silence, the entire room burst into applause. There were at least a dozen camera people lining the walls of the throne room, and they all whirled on me now, recording my every step, my every word, my every move. I swiped at my nose and really hoped I didn’t have anything in my teeth.
I forced myself to ignore the cameras and walked down the long aisle toward where the Raja was sitting. His moustache seemed more prominent and curly—reaching out way beyond the sides of his face. Mr. Madan Mohan’s Artisanal Moustache Oil™ strikes again. The Raja was lounging on his throne with the peacock back and the lion heads for arms, but leaped up when he saw me.
“Lord Bulbul—for this we will present you with another Princess Pretty Pants factory! Two, in fact! Oh, huzzah, huzzah, she has come to save us all!” The Raja clapped his hands. “Welcome, Princess! Welcome!”
I was both surprised at the Raja’s reaction and super annoyed that the minister of sweets was acting like he’d somehow found me. When I shot him a questioning look, waiting for him to contradict the Raja, Lord Bulbul just grinned and shrugged, as if to say, who would want to contradict a king?
“Greetings, sire.” I bowed low, my hands respectfully together.
“None of that! None of that! Most capital! Most capital!” The Raja clapped his hands together again in delight. “Where is Minister Addabutt Gupshup? Where is our new chief minister?”
A greasy-haired man appeared from behind the throne, like he’d been hiding there the whole time. He had a huge, comical hooked nose, and dark round glasses that helped to hide any expression in his eyes. “Here I am, Your Majesty! At your service!” he said in his oily voice. “And the Princess Kiranmala! Such an honor! Such a delight! Such splendiferousness! Such amazement!”
Adda and Gupshup? Didn’t those words mean “chitter-chatter” and “gossip” in Bengali and Hindi? This guy was Tuni’s replacement?
“It was of course Minister Gupshup’s wise counsel that helped us form this alliance with your dear, dear father, Sesha!” said the Raja.
I stared in amazement at the minister. This guy was responsible for Sesha weaseling his way into a partnership with the Kingdom Beyond?
“So you have come, dear Princess, to be the champion of the Kingdom Beyond?” gushed Gupshup. “You have come to win Who Wants to Be a Demon Slayer? for our own dear Raja and not your estranged father, the Serpent King? What loyalty to your friends! What family drama!” The minister said this last part directly into a camera, working himself up so that tears shone in his eyes. Huh. Somebody was good at this whole reality TV show thing.
“I’ll certainly try,” I said tentatively. “To be a good champion for the Kingdom Beyond, I mean.”
“Louder! To the cameras!” hissed Gupshup through a fake, clenched smile.
“I’ll try to be a good champion,” I said in a louder voice, but I could tell I’d still not done it right from Gupshup’s slightly frozen expression of disapproval. Now that I was here, I couldn’t help but feel nervous. There were more pairs of eyes on me than I could count. And that wasn’t even including the cameras. I hadn’t really realized that part of the reason they wanted me to be the champion for the Kingdom Beyond so much was because it was kind of an insult to Sesha—to have his birth daughter competing for the other team. I wasn’t sure how that all made me feel, but it wasn’t good.
Then my dark thoughts were cleared by a familiar face, a face that was a sight for sore eyes.
“Lal!” I smiled and waved, dorky as a kindergartener spotting her parents during a school play. Dorky as overenthusiastic Naya, I thought with a laugh. “You asked, and I came!”
“Kiran!” Lalkamal beamed at me. But at a stern glance from his father, he cleared his throat, dropping his voice a little lower to say, “Um, I mean, welcome, Your Highness! We are so delighted to have you join the contest to fight alongside me!”
Lal was different since we’d last seen each other, when he was convinced my name was “Just Kiran” and usually called me that. He’d also been so insecure about his abilities to be crown prince, he was always putting on a fake accent and trying a little too hard to be royal. Now he seemed much more comfortable in his skin. When had my friend grown up so much?
As if noticing me studying him, Lal made his fingers into a little gun and shot in my direction, accompanying the gesture with a cheesy little wink. Okay, that was weird. Maybe Lal hadn’t grown up as much as I thought. I looked away. I don’t know why but I suddenly couldn’t help remembering those silly poster slogans, the ones about Lal and me stealing kisses and hugs. I felt my face heat up as I tried to switch the channel in my brain and get the embarrassing idea out of my head.
“Capital! Capital!” The Raja’s eyebrows danced with enthusiasm. “It will look wonderful on the publicity releases!” He waved his hand in a horizontal motion, like he was writing across the sky: “Crown Prince Lal joined by the Princess Demon Slayer in historic game show competition! Who wants to be a demon slayer? Why Prince Lal and Princess Kiran, of course! Crown Prince and Princess Demon Slayer bring home Chintamoni Stone for good!”
“Yes! Yes! Splendid thought, Majesty!” said the greasy little minister. “Splendid! Genius! Brilliant thought!”
I desperately wanted to talk to Lal privately, to ask him how Neel had gotten snatched from the palace and what Lal was planning on doing about it, but I knew that all these cameras meant that everyone in the Kingdom Beyond (and beyond) would hear everything I said. And that included Sesha, who was probably watching me right now from some reality show master control booth. The thought made me shiver inside. This was going to be harder than I thought.
Meanwhile, Gupshup was dashing around the throne room practically in a tizzy. He picked up a microphone attached to the wall and shouted into it, “Code blue. Code blue. Public relations, strategic communications, and beauty teams to the throne rooms STAT. PR, strat comm, and beauty to the throne room STAT.”
The minister paused, turning his head in my direct
ion. Then he picked up the microphone again. “On second thought, we might need some extra beauty backup. Alpha and beta beauty teams to the throne room STAT. Alpha and beta beauty, STAT.”
“Wait, what?” I asked as a gaggle of people slammed into the throne room as if I were having a heart attack.
I was even more wigged out when the beauty, PR, and strategic communications teams started grabbing at me. A tiny woman with large teeth shoved a microphone in my face, asking me a series of perky questions: “How does it feel to be competing for the Kingdom Beyond alongside Prince Lal? Do you feel like you’re betraying your birth father by not competing for the Kingdom of Serpents? I heard King Sesha tried to turn you into a snake on your last encounter with him, do you have any feelings about that you’d like to share with our viewers?”
“Um, yes, I’m super happy to be the Kingdom Beyond’s champion. My real parents—the family who raised me—are from here, after all,” I sputtered. “On all the other stuff, um, no comment.”
At the same time, a fierce-looking older woman with a center nose ring and wildly curly gray-and-pink hair started measuring me, as if for new clothes.
“Excuse me!” I yelped as she stuck her hand into my armpit.
Then I was blinded by a camera flash. A hipster guy with a brocade vest and a weirdly sculpted beard with all sorts of clips and ribbons in it started snapping my picture like a hundred times a minute. His helpers, a tall woman holding a set of lights and a short man with a tray of makeup, worked like busy bees around me.
“Stop that!” I sputtered as the balding makeup guy poofed a bunch of powder all over my face. I noticed that he had colorful pom-poms and feathers glued to his eyebrows.
“Even heroes must look their best for the masses!” singsonged the makeup dude. “Beauty is hard work!”
“Her angles! Her ANG-LES!” The beardy photographer was now under me, shooting up my nose, now standing on a stool and taking a picture from above my head. “Think heroic, but foxy. Expert, but an ingenue. Ferocious, but coquettish!”
“Oh, this is going to be so much better than those computerized images!” Lord Bulbul said as he chomped on a few coconut naru. “So much more earthy and realistic!”
In the meantime, I was getting mobbed by all these people grabbing and pulling and poking at me. “Lal!” I looked desperately for my friend. “What’s going on?”
“You are an official competitor now.” Lal’s smile was stiff with warning. “Isn’t it glorious?”
“Beautify like you’ve never beautified before! Work like the wind!” Minister Gupshup yelled. “I want her ready for the cameras! Fix that hair! Cover up those hideous scars! And those green splotches on her arm! She’s got to look the part! Remember, people, you’re creating the Princess Demon Slayer!”
We’re so deloorious, Princess Kiranmala, that you have given your name and face and honor to the nawble cause of bringing the Chintamoni Stone back to the kingdom again!”
The TV studio audience, led by Minister Gupshup, broke into applause.
It was kind of hard to believe. I was sitting in the palace’s IGNN television studios with Ms. Twinkle Chakra-borty herself, the Kingdom Beyond’s own favorite TV anchor. Ms. Twinkle was dressed in an outrageously fancy sari—the border heavily embroidered with gold thread and the blouse very short and tight. Her tall bun was threaded with jewels in the shape of small animals—so that tigers and hyenas and peacocks all seemed to be peeking out of her hair. She sported huge diamond earrings, a jeweled teep, and a nose ring so heavy it was only by some miracle it stayed on her nose. The woman also chewed a giant wad of pink gum as she interviewed me, which made it even harder to understand what she was saying.
“Um … you’re welcome?” I volunteered nervously. “The Thought Stone! Yeah, awesome, wow!” I pumped two fists halfway into the air with fake enthusiasm.
I still hadn’t had a chance to talk to Lal about his brother, but I’d gotten the clear impression that I shouldn’t ask him anything in the awful Minister Gupshup’s earshot. Had it been Gupshup himself who’d imprisoned Neel—without Lal or the Raja’s knowledge? I wasn’t sure but I had to play it cool until I could talk to Lal alone.
There were bright lights on us, and I was in brand-new clothes—a flowing white kurta-pajama topped by soft body armor that had been made particularly for me. My hair—which seemed to be getting more green highlights in it—had been washed and styled in little braids all over my head with metallic thread woven through. The alpha and beta beauty teams clearly knew their stuff. Despite Gupshup’s insistence that they cover up my neck and arm scars, the makeup team had listened to me and let them be. I did, however, let them cover up the green splotches that seemed to be spreading down my right arm from the serpent scar. I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself, but I was starting to get a little freaked out by them. But the short, little makeup artist with the feathery and pom-pommed eyebrows, Bhashkar-da, turned out to be a total genius and he had made me look like a real hero—pretty, but tough too, with a little green lipstick to top off my look. It was too bad Naya hadn’t been here to appreciate his mad beauty skills.
The team hadn’t skimped on my accessories either. The costume lady had given me a copy of my signature arm cuffs, the ones embossed with the image of the serpent eating the moon, and even given me a new pair of combat boots—sparkly silver. I’d felt a little sad at giving up my signature purple boots, but the silver was just so darn pretty and sparkly. Plus, my purple boots were getting small and they pinched.
“You’re so foonny, sweetheart! Such genooine charm!” Ms. Twinkle twittered through ridiculously pink lips and the wad of ridiculously pink gum. She was reading the questions off a giant notecard on which someone with terrible handwriting had scrawled some really misspelled questions. She squinted at the cue card now, as if she needed glasses but was too vain to wear them.
“Our viewers have a lot of … kwes-tee-ones for you, darling dearie! First, tell us about your storming-hoot romance with Prince Lal!”
I assumed she meant to say “steaming-hot” but either way, her question was awful. “I don’t have any romance with Prince Lal!”
“Oh, come on, daaahling!” Ms. Twinkle Chakraborty gave a conspiratorial wink into the camera. “It’s just between the two of us spicy muffins, us gals about the toon!”
“I’m only twelve!” I sputtered. It was mortifying to think my parents were probably watching this live broadcast. “I’m not a muffin, spicy or otherwise, and I’ve never been about any toon—I mean, town! And besides, Lal and I were never really special friends like that, it was more like him and …”
“Uh-uh-uh!” Ms. Twinkle singsonged. She tilted her head not so subtly at the cue card holder, who held up a big instruction sign that said,
Okay, by that I guess they meant I shouldn’t mention Mati. But how had Mati gone from being beloved and competent stable maid to outlaw?
“Let’s go on, shaaal we, babe? I know you’ve killed many, many, many rakkhoosh. Too many to count.” She snapped her gum with a wet thwack.
“I’ve fought, but I’ve actually never killed—” I started, but the TV interviewer cut me off yet again.
“What’s the story of your bloodiest kill, sweeting?” Ms. Twinkle asked this question with so much enthusiasm it was like she was asking me to describe my favorite homecoming cheer. “Was it when you gootted that rakkhosh’s intestoones with an ice cream scooper or the one where you bit the khokkosh’s joogular vein clean in two with your very own tooths?”
“That’s gross! I never did any of those things!” I protested, but Ms. Twinkle leaned over and pinched my cheek extra super hard. “No need to be so hoomble, darling!”
Then she pushed a button, and a giant screen behind us turned on with an image—my house in Parsippany! There was no sound and the video quality was a little grainy, but I could clearly see two pakkhiraj horses on my front lawn, snuffling our nonexistent grass.
“That was last fall,” I exclaimed, won
dering how in the multiverse they had gotten this footage. “On my birthday.”
“Indeed, it woos. And a sad, sad day it was at that, sweet baby girl.” The woman sniffed, biting her suddenly trembling lip. I saw her take something out of a little bottle in her hand and touch it to her eye. It made her giant brown eyes water like she was crying.
“You can weep if you moost, it’s all root. Let it oot, doll. Let it all oot.” She handed me a handkerchief that seemed to be laced with the same liquid. As I held it close, it made my eyes water. I saw several members of the studio audience lean forward, eager to watch me cry.
“Thanks, I’m okay.” I returned the heavily scented handkerchief back, rubbing my eyes. After a collective sigh of disappointment from the audience, I felt compelled to add, “I’ll let you know when I need it.”
The video kept going and the horrible, drooly rakkhosh who had in fact gobbled my parents up, beginning my whole adventure, broke through the front of my house. He held a porch pillar like a club in his hand. The audio finally came on, and we heard the monster roar, “Dirty socks and stinky feet! I smell royal human meat!”
The studio audience gasped, and even I felt goose bumps break out on my skin as I remembered how scared I had been, and how confused at seeing my first rakkhosh—a monster I had only heard about in Baba’s folktales.
On the video, the demon’s tongue lolled out of its warty head as it approached Prince Lal. “How he’ll holler, how he’ll groan, when I eat the mortal prince’s bones!”
It was strange to see this all on-screen, but cool too, like flipping through an old yearbook. How did IGNN have all this footage? This was, after all, way before Who Wants to Be a Demon Slayer? began, and therefore, at least theoretically, back in a time when everything in my life wasn’t being recorded.
On the screen, Lal did an outrageous back somersault off a nearby tree and landed on the demon’s head, riding him like a cowboy on a steer. “Methinks, sirrah, you need to go on a diet!” exclaimed Lal before attempting to stab the thick-skinned monster with his sword.
Game of Stars Page 12
