Aru Shah and the Song of Death

The second book in the Pandava series finds twelve-year-old Aru Shah and her Pandava sister Mini battling zombies in the Night Bazaar, an Otherworld marketplace. The Pandavas are this generation's reincarnated heroic champions from Hindu mythology. Aru, the reincarnation of Arjuna and soul daughter of Indra, the god of thunder, wields a lightning bolt called Vajra. Mini, the soul daughter of Dharma Raja, the god of death, carries an enchanted stick called Dee Dee. Their pigeon mentor, Boo, directs them to chase a new Pandava sister, a shape-shifting girl carrying a bow and arrow. They find the girl in an arena fighting someone who looks exactly like Aru. The impostor defeats the new Pandava, vanishes with the weapons, and leaves behind a fire. The Guardians, celestial protectors assigned to each generation of Pandavas, arrive to extinguish the flames.

The new Pandava, Brynne, the reincarnation of Bhima the Strong, is claimed by Vayu, the god of the wind, and receives a glowing blue mace. Brynne accuses Aru of theft. The Guardians separate them into glass-bubble prisons, and Aru overhears the Council of Guardians debating. Queen Uloopi, an ancient serpent queen once married to Arjuna, accuses the Pandavas of stealing the bow and arrow of Kamadeva, the god of love, from the treasury of the nagas, powerful serpent beings. Takshaka, the blind naga king, supports the charge. Uloopi reveals that the stolen weapons are turning kidnapped men into Heartless, zombie-like creatures. If the weapons are not recovered within ten mortal days, the victims will remain Heartless permanently, and the Pandavas will have their Otherworld memories erased and be banished forever.

Boo is placed in custody and names a replacement companion: Aiden Acharya, a boy from Aru's school whose mother is a famous apsara, or celestial dancer, making him semidivine. Aiden carries an enchanted camera called Shadowfax and wields twin scimitars. Before the quest, Aru's mother advises her to trust herself. When Aru tries to discuss the Sleeper, her biological father and the demon she accidentally freed during her first quest, her mother refuses.

The apsara Guardian Urvashi advises the group to consult Kamadeva about finding the weapons. They fly to his abode in Loves Park, Illinois. Kamadeva confirms their innocence and explains the weapon's dark power: Anyone consumed by grief who carves out their own soul song, their inner spiritual essence, can wield the bow and arrow to rip hearts from people rather than unite them. The thief's name must be spoken over the abandoned soul song, and then the arrow must be plunged through the thief's heart. Kamadeva directs them to the naga treasury to find the soul song.

Through a hidden portal at the Georgia Aquarium, the group enters the naga realm. Takshaka's trap drops Aru into the ocean, where she discovers she can breathe underwater, an ability inherited from Arjuna. At the Palace of Varuna, the god of the sea, the goddess Varuni delivers a prophecy about a girl with fish-shaped eyes and a broken heart. Varuna grants passage to the treasury if Aru fills his giant guard crab's belly. Brynne shape-shifts into a fly and enters the crab's stomach, fulfilling the bargain on a technicality.

In a tunnel toward the treasury, the group discovers the ruins of Uloopi's old palace. Brynne confides that she is part asura, a semidivine race distrusted in the Otherworld, and that her mother left her at four years old. Three blind naginis, female serpent beings, lure Mini into a trance and drag her underground. Before vanishing, the naginis reveal Uloopi's past: she sacrificed her heart jewel, the forehead gem granting eternal youth and lie detection, to save Arjuna's life, but he never returned it. Takshaka later hid the jewel, deliberately weakening her for centuries. The naginis leave the jewel behind, and Aru pockets it. Mini has been sent to the land of sleep carrying the thief's name.

After Aru and Brynne clash over Mini's capture, Mini visits their dreams urging cooperation. Aru apologizes, and they reconcile. The three infiltrate the naga treasury, where Takshaka awaits. Using songs from Aiden's phone to disorient the sound-sensitive serpent king, Aru locates the thief's soul song, a scarlet orb radiating loss. When the phone breaks, Takshaka's own grandson blasts music to incapacitate the king and opens an escape portal.

The group contacts Sage Durvasa, who indirectly reveals that Mini is trapped on the Bridge of Dawn and Dusk, a perilous crossing in the sleep realm. In the Dreaming Grove of Ratri, the goddess of night, nightmare hounds trap the group in visions of their fears. Aru overcomes hers by recognizing the nightmare is not real. They rescue Mini from the bridge and narrowly escape.

Mini speaks the thief's name over the soul song: Surpanakha, the sister of the demon king Ravana from the Hindu epic the Ramayana. The soul song reveals Surpanakha and Takshaka plotting to steal amrita, the nectar of immortality, from a labyrinth beneath the Ocean of Milk, a mythic cosmic sea. They are using the Heartless, who lack heartbeats, to bypass fire serpents that incinerate anything with a pulse.

En route to the Ocean of Milk, asura thugs working for Surpanakha block the group's path. Among them is Hira, a timid young rakshasi, or female demon, who can shape-shift. After the Pandavas defeat the thugs, a guardian at the final archway reveals himself to be Agni, the god of fire, whose insatiable hunger sets everything ablaze. Aru feeds him a "bright idea" vial, implanting the notion that nothing around him is edible. The fire subsides, and Agni grants passage, warning that the golden dome over the labyrinth deactivates celestial weapons.

Beneath the inverted Ocean of Milk, thousands of motionless Heartless surround the dome. Hira, who followed the group, joins their side. When Mini accidentally touches the dome, their weapons deactivate. Surpanakha appears with Takshaka and the bow and arrow. She reveals her true name: Meenakshi, meaning "the girl with fish-shaped eyes," fulfilling Varuni's prophecy. She was a princess who was humiliated and disfigured for expressing her feelings, and without the amrita, she is deteriorating into the monster others' stories have made of her. Aru sympathizes but cannot justify Surpanakha's enslavement of innocent people and alliance with the Sleeper. The group decides to fight.

When Surpanakha fires the arrow at Aru, Aiden dives in front and is struck, turning Heartless. Brynne's wind separates Takshaka from Surpanakha while Mini traps the demoness under a mirror dome. Hira shape-shifts into Surpanakha's form, seizes the bow and arrow from the deceived Takshaka, and misdirects the Heartless. When the real Surpanakha breaks free, Hira throws the arrow to Aru, who rides Vajra as a hoverboard and plunges it into Surpanakha's chest. Reverting to her true form, Surpanakha asks only to be remembered fully. Aru holds her hand and calls her Meenakshi. Surpanakha smiles and disappears, and the Heartless are restored. Takshaka escapes, taunting that they exceeded the deadline.

The Council of Guardians arrives. When Uloopi insists the deadline has passed, Aiden presents holographic footage from Shadowfax showing Takshaka confessing he betrayed Uloopi and hid her heart jewel. Aru returns the jewel, restoring Uloopi's youth and power. Uloopi apologizes, naga guards drag Takshaka away, and the charges are dropped. Boo is freed.

Two weeks later, the group returns the weapons to Kamadeva, who agrees to remember Surpanakha by her true name. He distributes boons, including an enchanted arrow for Aiden that reveals love already present. On Aru's thirteenth birthday, she finds Aiden agonizing over whether to use the arrow to reunite his divorcing parents. She helps him see the arrow's true purpose, and Aiden uses it on his mother alone. Mrs. Acharya, seeing herself through the lens of her son's photographs, smiles with self-love. That night, Aru receives a cryptic text from Takshaka's grandson promising to call in a favor, and in a dream, twin girls with ice-blue eyes declare that Aru will save them next year.