And it was that perspective that dragged her gaze upward at the barest flicker of pressure just above their heads.
“Mini, what are you waiting for?” yelled Aru. “Run!”
Mini was done running.
A jet of blue light caught the outline of a large hand swinging down over their heads. Brynne’s back was turned, her wind mace aimed toward the portal. Aru was beside Loose Teeth, grabbing the reins to lead Mini out of danger.
Nobody saw the hand….
Except Mini.
The world went silent. She thrust her own hand into the sky as if she might catch Kumbhakarna’s fist….But instead, something else happened.
A wrinkle of violet light shimmered just above her, hardly larger than the span of her arm. It blinked in and out, and then itburst.
A violet screen mushroomed over the Pandavas, the night mare, and the portal door. Kumbhakarna howled, grabbing his hand in pain after his fist crumpled against Mini’s shield.
He snarled, “WHAT MANNER OF SORCERY IS THIS?”
Energy pulsed through Mini’s veins, and it made her feel as if she were full of shadows and starlight. Her hair blew back as something solidthuddedinto her palm and caused her arm to sag. Mini blinked and looked at it. Her Death Danda shone like a scepter. Mini grinned and stared up at Kumbhakarna.
“It’s my power,” she said.
She raised her hand again and a violet light streamed from the shield, wrapping around Kumbhakarna and flinging him far away from them. In the afterglow, the violet light fell over her sisters’ shocked and happy faces. Brynne looked slack-jawed. Aru’s eyes sparkled.
More than anything, Mini wanted to savor this moment, but the ground beneath them cracked even more. Loose Teeth whinnied, rising up and nearly shaking Mini off her back. Mini jumped down and hugged the night mare’s head.
“I’m really happy for you, Mini, but we’vegotto go!” shouted Brynne.
Loose Teeth nosed Mini sadly, huffing hot air over her face and fogging her glasses. The mare pawed the ground.
“Good-bye, sweet horsey,” said Mini. “I’ll see you in my dreams.”
Then, with the Death Danda in one hand and power still racing through her veins, Mini turned her back on the dark.
Kara stumbled out of her recollections of the Sleeper and Krithika. She fell on the floor of the dream bubble Sheela had put her in. It looked like the sea beneath her fingers, but it felt like cold glass. Kara’s lungs ached.
Sheela walked up to her and patted her head. “It’s a lot,” she said.
“Whatwasthat?” asked Kara.
“Memories. Genuine memories!” said Sheela. “It took me ages to piece it together from everyone’s dreams, but I did it in the end.”
Genuine.
Kara had always liked the etymology of that word. It came fromgenu, Latin forknee, from the ancient Roman custom of a father placing a newborn baby on his knee to acknowledge that the child was his. Fromgenucame words likegenus, like the categorization of a species, and in the sixteenth century it transformed into a word that meant natural and, most importantly, authentic.
Real.
Kara forced herself to stand. When she turned around, Sheela had remade the dream bubble, fashioning it into an underwater glass tunnel with vivid sea creatures swimming outside. The two of them sat down at a fancy white-clothed table set with a full tea service. Instead of a chair, Kara found herself bouncing on a large pink sea anemone.
“I saw something like this in a magazine,” said Sheela, grinning. “Nikki said it would be a good place for a fashion show, butIthink it’s way better for tea parties.”
“None of those memories were—” Kara stopped herself before she could sayreal.
Something told her that wasn’t the case, and yet she didn’t know how to make sense of them. In the scenes Sheela had led her through, Kara had seen Suyodhana as a young man. She saw the prophecy foisted upon him, the way he had struggled in his search for the Tree of Wishes, the final moments when Krithika locked him in the lamp where he would remain for eleven years.
“Why did you show me all that?” asked Kara.
