Aiden slowly lowered his arms. “Can we agree to start over? We’re not going to find the answers we need until we get to Lanka, and we have to figure out how we’re going to do that when all the portals are closed. Let’s just focus on the next step for now,okay? Brynne, Aru, is there something you want to say to each other?”
Brynne and Aru glared at each other for about five more seconds before Brynne grumbled, “Gods, Aiden, you’re such anammamma.” Brynne looked up at Aru and sighed. “You’re a mess, but you’re still my sister.”
There were a lot of things that Aru didn’t know and didn’t understand, but one thing hadn’t changed. “Love you, hate you.”
“Fair enough,” said Brynne.
And that was that.
Mini and Aiden exchanged classictired-of-these-kidsfaces before Mini said, “It is kinda weird that you can’t remember the wish.”
“I know,” said Aru bitterly. “But every time I try, I see something else. Snow, and a bridge…I dunno.”
Mini went pale. “Shukra’s curse.”
“Who?” asked Brynne.
Aru felt cold.
Shukra. The guardian of the Bridge of Forgetting in the Kingdom of Death.
While Mini explained who he was to the others, Aru felt dragged back into an old memory. Aru and Mini had been forced to fight their way out of that place, and in the process, Aru had hurt Shukra. Badly. In return, he had cursed her.
“In the moment when it matters most, you, too, shall forget,”said Aru. “That’s why I can’t remember….”
Brynne threw up her hands. “But weneedthat wish! It’s the only thing that proves whose side we’re on! Without it, Kubera won’t give us the Nairrata army. I bet he’ll make a deal with the Sleeper. He’d do anything to keep Lanka—and himself—safe.”
“Seriously?” asked Aru. “He would really do that to everyone else?”
“He’s a god,” said Aiden darkly. “It’s different for them. Immortals don’t care about stuff the same way humans do. They never grow old, and they can’t die, so things like war don’t mean much to them.” He sighed, then added, “There’s something else you need to know, Aru.”
Aru frowned. “What? He expects us to compete in his trials as actual mongooses?”
“It’s about your mom,” said Mini quietly.
Aru went cold. “What about her?”
“She waited for you a long time,” said Aiden. “And then, last week, she packed up and left. She said she needed to do some urgent research…. She found something that might give us a clue about the Sleeper’s next move. He’s still after the nectar of immortality, and he’s getting closer to finding it again.”
Aru thought back to the strange Ocean of Milk, and the great silver dome that held theamritaelixir. After the Pandavas had fought near it, the Council had supposedly devised a way to hide the nectar even from themselves. It was the only way to protect the powerful substance. So how did the Sleeper know where to find it?
“Where did she go, exactly?” asked Aru.
“I wish we knew more, dude,” said Brynne sadly.
“She said she knew what she was doing, and she promised to stay out of harm’s way,” said Aiden. “She also gave me a message in case you got back before her.”
“She did?”
Aiden looked deep into her eyes, and Aru felt prickly and warm all over. “I love you, Aru.”
Aru’s whole face went up in flames.Uh,what?“I meant the message?”
Aiden lifted an eyebrow. “Thatwasthe message.”
“Oh my god, I wasjoking,” said Aru, while quietly dying inside. Honestly, now would not be a bad time to bounce Vajra off her forehead and electrocute herself again.
“We’ve been watching the place while she’s gone,” Brynne added quickly.
