The Arranged Marriage

Chapter 5

I woke up sweating. I had this awful dream, one where Kiran was getting hurt by her brother.

This is why we don't sleep before a mission, I thought to myself. I always had nightmares about whatever was going to happen on our missions, which is why I'd given up on sleep. But Kiran insisted that I have as much energy as possible before seeing her brother.

"I hear movement," I heard a voice whisper.

"He must be awake then," a second voice said. Before I could figure out who was talking, the door to my room was thrown open.

"Finally," Priya stomped in. "I thought we would have to wake you up!"

Mati followed, limping. "I shouldn't have raced Priya earlier," she grumbled.

Kiran came in next, a tray of food in her hands. "I told you to be careful, Mati," she said as she placed the tray on my nightstand.

"Uh... what are you guys doing?" I rubbed my eyes. It was unusual for them to be wake up before me, unless Kiran and Priya stayed up all night and decided to wake everyone else up, too. Actually, scratch that. It was totally normal for Kiran and Priya to be awake before me. Their sleepovers could get out of hand sometimes. Mati, however, woke up about an hour later than I usually do.

"Naga said you have to be at the Kingdom of Serpents by 10 am," Mati explained. "We don't trust the servants to properly wake you up today, so we decided to do it ourselves."

"Oh, and don't worry," Kiran smiled at me. "I didn't cook this. I just volunteered to bring it up since Priya would probably put some love potion in your food again, and I told Mati to focus on not hurting herself after racing Priya."

"Now hurry up and get ready, princie!" Priya clapped her hands. "We'll be back in 30 minutes. By then, you should be dressed and eating your breakfast."

"Yes, mom," I rolled my eyes and climbed out of bed as Priya, Mati and Kiran left the room.

30 minutes later, I was dressed and picking at my food. I never understood why Lord Bulbul insisted on us eating desserts like pudding for breakfast every morning. It could get sickening.

"We're back!" Kiran kicked open the door, entering my room dramatically.

"How many times are you going to do that?" I asked, eyeing my door to make sure nothing was broken.

"For as long as that door is closed," Kiran sat down next to me and took food off my plate.

"Let him eat, Kiran," Mati said on Priya's back, a piggyback ride, as Kiran called it. "He needs all the energy he can get."

"So do I!" Kiran protested. "I had to wake up at four in the morning, just because the chefs wanted to teach me how to cook for my future husband! Do you know how tiresome it is when your brain cells are barely processed, and you have to pretend that you're learning something when in reality, you know you're never going to use what they taught you?"

"Uh... no," Mati jumped off of Priya's back.

"We're here!" Lal and Naya ran into the room. "We can't miss this!"

"Miss what?" I asked. "Me eating?"

"No, no," Naya jumped up and down. "We're having an intervention."

Kiran and I exchanged panicky looks. An intervention was never a good thing if the two of us didn't know about it.

Run, she mouthed. We jumped up and ran to the door, but Priya seemed to know what we were doing, as she set my door on fire.