Aru Shah and the City of Gold

Warning! This page contains spoilers for ***Aru Shah and the City of Gold***. Enter at your own risk.

### Publisher

Disney Hyperion (from Rick Riordan Presents)

***Aru Shah and the City of Gold***, written by Roshani Chokshi and edited by Rick Riordan, is the fourth and the second last book in *The Pandava Quintet*. It was released on the 6th of April, 2021. The story takes place primarily in the ancient and mythical City of Gold, Lanka, approximately 2 months after the events taking place in Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes.

The book follows Aru Shah and her sisters, including Kara, the Sleeper's daughter and Aiden, as they are thrown in a quest to compete in the trials hosted by Kubera, the Lord of Wealth and Riches.

This book is followed by *Aru Shah and the Nectar of Immortality*, the final book in the series.

## Overview

*Aru Shah and her sisters--including one who also claims to be the Sleeper's daughter--must find their mentors Hanuman and Urvashi in Lanka, the city of gold, before war breaks out between the devas and asuras.*

*Aru has just made a wish on the tree of wishes, but she can't remember what it was. She's pretty sure she didn't wish for a new sister, one who looks strangely familiar and claims to be the Sleeper's daughter, like her.*

*Aru also isn't sure she still wants to fight on behalf of the devas in the war against the Sleeper and his demon army. The gods have been too devious up to now. Case in point: Kubera, ruler of the city of gold, promises to give the Pandavas two powerful weapons, but only if they win his trials. If they lose, they won't stand a chance against the Sleeper's troops, which will soon march on Lanka to take over the Otherworld.*

*Aru's biggest question, though, is why every adult she has loved and trusted so far has failed her. Will she come to peace with what they've done before she has to wage the battle of her life?*

## Development

Roshani Chokshi tweeted that a morally grey potentially hot demon king was involved in the book. Roshani Chokshi also said it was the second to last book in in the series.

Roshani Chokshi also tweeted a small excerpt for the book, which mainly consisted of a paragraph, involving Mitochondria.

Another tweet by Chokshi involved the revelation of the chapter titles of chapters 7-14.

ReadRiordan released an excerpt for a sneak peek which consisted of the first two chapters, which is available in the form of an PDF file. However, you need not download it. You can read it by clicking here.

## Dedication

Roshani Chokshi dedicates this book to her three siblings, Cookie & Poggle & Rat, as she describes them to be the most perfect, yet devious siblings one could ever ask for.

## Cover

The gorgeous cover, just like the rest of the books in the series, has been designed by Abigail L. Dela Cruz.

The cover depicts a particular scene from the book; the scene wherein the Pandavas along with Aiden and Kara are fighting Ravana. However, the cover shows only the three Pandava sisters, namely: Aru Shah, the reincarnation of Arjuna standing in the middle with Vajra, her lightning bolt in her hand; Mini Kapoor, the reincarnation of Yudhishthira standing on the left with her Death Danda in the form of a purple shield in her hand; Brynne Rao, the reincarnation of Bhima, standing on the right with the Celestial Mace of Vayu in her hand. In front of them is the terrifying ten-headed Ravana, bedecked in gold and precious jewels and each of his hands holding minacious weapons.

Behind them lies the actual entrance to Lanka, which is a majestic golden gateway with beautifully delineated domes and columns on the sides, and some large dome-like circular structures in the far back. Judging from the starry night, it is obvious that the scene is depicted to be taking place at night.

## Plot

### Of New Sisters and Book Monsters

Aru Shah was chained to a rock in the Sleeper's cave and staring at his daughter, Kara. She said she is Aru's sister but Aru herself isn't so sure. Kara changed the cave into her own actual room, Aru remembered her dad when they fought over *Kalpavriksha*. Kara explained that he wanted her to be safe as a family, but they don't have the same mother. His army is planning on storming Lanka, the City of Gold ruled by Kubera. Aru broke free, all that was holding her was a ribbon, but she couldn't zap Kara's place with Vajra as it's reinforced with enchanted rubber. She wanted to come with Aru if the latter wanted to go free, but she refuses for a number of reasons. Kara revealed that two years prior she didn't know where she lived, that's because the Sleeper erased her apparently bad memories of that life. But he was never home afterwards due his deeds and being locked away. She had a coin-like enchantment on her that prevents gods and demons from finding her, he called her his 'secret weapon' and is waiting for the right time to use her, she didn't want to be part of his wars. Finally, Aru was convinced to take Kara along.

Kara informs Aru that removing a book from the bookcases will trigger the opening of the door, but she doesn't know which one as she's never done it before. Kara reveals that the Sleeper occasionally takes her on visits to the outside world, and Aru feels uncomfortable at Kara's familiarity with their father. They begin to search through the books, and Kara tells Aru that the Sleeper showed her both his memories of Aru and the surveillance his army has done on Aru, which surprises and creeps Aru out. Aru finds the book, Where the Wild Things Are, as well as the note her father left in it addressed to her. However, as the door begins opening, the defense mechanism kicks into action and a monster made of books attacks Aru and Kara. Kara grabs a blue book from the ground before running after Aru into the doorway. The monster follows them, but Kara stops Aru from electrocuting the books and throws Sunny at it instead. An inky tentacle coils around Aru's ankle as she's about to run through the portal, but Kara slashes through it with Sunny, and the two make it through the portal to the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture. Kara passes out, and then Brynne immediately attacks Aru with a gust of wind assuming she's a vagabond. Then she realizes who Aru is, and she and Mini give Aru a hug. Aiden goes to hug Aru, but stops and notices Kara who has fainted on the grass. Aru tells them Kara is the Sleeper's daughter.

### Surprises & Conflicts

The others are initially shocked at this recent development, but then they eventually recover from it, with Brynne whipping up a bunch of different deserts and Aiden carrying Kara inside Aru's home. Despite that, it can be easily seen that the Mini, Brynne and Aiden are the ones with more surprises. Aru learns that two whole months have passed since she had been abducted by the Sleeper, which explained the warm weather. When asked by Brynne how she escaped from the House of the Sleeper, Aru doesn't answer, but she asks about her mother, Krithika P. Shah. At this, the two Pandava sisters exchanged looks and prompted Aru to start off first.

Between bites of the delicious deserts cooked by Brynne, Aru first starts off with Kara and her history, which included everything Kara had told her. When Aru voices her question about Kara's history, Brynne raises another explanation. Apparently, in the Otherworld, the rich families can pay a timekeeper to take a baby and put it in stasis until the parents are ready to raise it. The timekeeper, can't change time, but they can hold pockets of it, and it is a whole another level of magic. After some more questions from Mini, Aru interrupts her two sisters, informing them that the Sleeper's army is on marching to Lanka, the City of Gold, at that very moment. They've been planning to attack on Lanka within that week. Instead of the shocked masks she expects her sisters to wear, the sisters wear masks of resignation, since they already know that, courtesy of the invitation that Lord Kubera has sent them. When questioned by Aru, Mini goes to show the invitation Lord Kubera sent them, but Brynne stops her, pointing to Kara, since the two sisters still don't find reason to trust the newcomer. Aru goes out of her way to tell them that she trusts Kara, despite her being the daughter of the Sleeper. Then she notices the sudden quietness of the whole place and inquires her sisters of the others, namely her young Pandava sisters Nikita and Sheela and the Naga Prince who accompanied them on their previous quest, aka Rudy.

Brynne and Mini fill in Aru on everything that happened after she was abducted. As it turns out, Boo had tracked down the twins' parents and he used his status as a member of the Council of Guardians to speed up their immigration paperwork. Aiden then interrupts the sisters and show them a holographic scene of all that happened. The scene also shows the sudden gold rain that occurs, which mainly consists of literal golden coins falling from the enchanted sky of the Night Bazaar, and a loud voice announcing the following:

> *"Intelligence from Lanka has found traitors in our midst! By order of acting Council Leader Lord Kubera, ruler of Lanka and God of Wealth and Treasures, all travel to and from the Otherworld is terminated until further notice! Lord Kubera has also hereby disbanded the Council until investigations have been completed"*
>
>

Right after the message, the two Pandavas and Aiden continue to fill Aru in on all that happened, finally stopping at the topic of Kubera's invitation, while discussing Kubera's grand, golden *Nairrata* army. To show Aru the invitation, Aiden flips a coin on the table and a golden mongoose appears on the table, out of which a deep and smooth voice comes out. The voice invites them to Lanka, the City of Gold in three days time and demands them to compete in the trials of Lord Kubera and win the Nairrata army as the reward. While talking about the invitation, and how Aru is the supposed traitor, Mini and Brynne stumble upon the topic of how people think Boo is still the traitor, and Aru confirms their suspicions. She tells all that she saw in the Tree of Wishes, but none of the sisters believe her, which makes Aru all the more frustrated.

In an attempt to change the topic, Brynne asks Aru what she wished on the Tree and and Aru admits that she doesn't remember. This makes Brynne all the more suspicious and Aru all the more frustrated, which results in Brynne ultimately attacking Aru, though fortunately, Aiden and Mini manage to stop a potential war between the two sisters. Aru confesses that the only thing her mind can conjure up is a vision of snow and a bridge and then Mini realizes that the reason for Aru's intriguingly selective amnesia is because of the curse Shukra, the Guardian of the Bridge of Forgetting gave Aru on her first ever quest to the Kingdom of Death nearly three years ago.

After informing Aiden and Brynne about all that happened on the Bridge of Forgetting all those years, Aru repeats her first voiced question about the disappearance of her mother Krithika P. Shah, to which she finally gets her answers from her sisters.

All this while, all the four Pandavas and Aiden have been unbeknownst to the fact that Kara had woken up, and had heard part of their conversation.

At first, Brynne is extremely miffed and untrustworthy of the new daughter of the Sleeper, going as far as imprudently and blatantly refusing the help of Kara, and challenging her to prove herself in a fight. Kara, surprisingly, accepts and there and then, a fight between the Daughter of Vayu and the Daughter of the Sleeper breaks out. To entertain herself, and partly as a joke, Aru even goes to make popcorn to watch the show in peace, something that disdains Mini, as she is concerned for both of the sisters.

After the magnificent fight, the outcome of which Kara being victorious, the Potatoes finally accepting Kara into their group, although quite begrudgingly on Brynne's side.

After some discussions, the quintet decides to head over towards the Dahlonega Gold Mini, since, according to Kara, *'all gold roads lead to Lanka'* and the Dahlonega Gold Mines are the nearest place to Atlanta where some gold can be found.

### The Demon Hamsters

Once they reach their destination via the bus, the Pandavas along with Kara soon start to realize that the place they've reached is the Dahlonega Gold Mine *Museum*, and not the real mine. When all of them are in search of the golden roads to Lanka, two golden hamsters appear in front of them.

Once they arrive, the exchange introductions, the cheerful hamsters introducing himself as Sonu and the less cheerful and grumpy hamster introducing himself as Kanak, Sonu explains the Potatoes about all the cities the gold roads can lead to.

While reaching the souvenir shop, Sonu hands them a pamphlet with the words *"this is a pamphlet :)"* written down on each line.

When the rest of the group walked into the shop, Aru lingered in the place for a minute, distracted by the ghost window. Kanak then explains that the history of "Dahlonega" has more to it. He proceeds to tell her that the place was name after the Cherokee word for gold. The first nation people had known about the gold for hundreds of years, until the white people had come and seized the place, making the gold theirs. After finishing, no matter what, Aru couldn't shake the feeling that the place was cursed, even if it shined with gold.

In the souvenir shop, there was a large courtyard, that was very empty, and on a distance, there stood three archways. The first led to the mouth of a cave. The second looked identical to the first one, except, it had small pieces floating in the middle of its opening. The last one, however, looked very foggy, leading to Aru believing that it would lead to Lanka.

The group agreed that while Aru and Kara are off buying souvenirs, Brynne, Mini and Aiden would cause a distraction, so they can escape to the gold road leading to Lanka. When asked for his much to pay, Sonu replied that they have to pay a thousand of anything. Kara, then, told Aru that they can pay a thousand salt crystals. Satisfied with the payment, the marmots left them.

As the Potatoes run for the exit, causing major chaos, the marmots are outraged, making sure that the Potatoes are never welcome here again.

## Chapter List

1. **I’m Your Long-Lost Family! (Insert Jazz Hands)**
2. **Lol NO**
3. **Every Breath You Take and Every Move You Maaake**
4. **TL; DR We’re in Trouble**
5. **Fun Fact: You're Cursed**
6. **At Least There's Popcorn?**
7. **No One Said Anything About Demon Hamsters**
8. **I Ain't Sayin' She's a Gold Digger**
9. **I'm Not Equipped For This Level of Decision-Making**
10. **Aru Shah Eats Humble Pie**
11. **World's Worst Pokémon**
12. **In Which the Pandavas Are Stranded, But, Hey, the Fruit is Great!**
13. **The Ocean Stops Brynne**
14. **That Big Demigod Energy**
15. **Rich-People Problems**
16. **Aim for the Head(s)**
17. **You Get a Quest! And *You* Get a Quest!**
18. **Sorrow with a Side of Cow**
19. **At Least We’re Not in a Parking Lot?**
20. **Souls by the Spoonful**
21. **Congrats, You're a Potato**
22. **Begone, Worthless Rogue!**
23. **Wanna See a Magic Trick?**
24. **The Tale of Uttanka**
25. **Go Ahead, Make My Day**
26. **One Aru Is Enough**
27. **You Seem a Decent Fellow; I Hate to Kill You**
28. **The Mitochondria Is the Powerhouse of the Cell**
29. **The Tale of Shikhandi**
30. **Inconceivable!**
31. **Brynne Cannot Open the Thing**
32. **I Love a Good Ole Deadly Family Reunion**
33. **Hi. Can I Exchange This Prophecy? No? Crap.**
34. **Are You There, God-Dad? It’s Me, Aru.**
35. **I Really Need a Hug**
36. **Big Mistake. Huge.**
37. **The Worst Wish**
38. **Ugly Applause**
39. **ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?**
40. **I Have a Boyfriend in Canada**
41. **Happy Birthday, Aru Shah**
42. **Wait... Who? What? HOW?**
43. **Keeping Promises**
44. **A Game of Hot Potato**
45. **I Don't Want To Be Frodo**

## Characters

### Main Characters

* Aru Shah
* Mini Kapoor-Mercado-Lopez
* Brynne Rao
* Aiden Acharya
* Kara
* Suyodhana/The Sleeper

### Secondary Characters

* Rudy
* Nikita Jagan
* Sheela Jagan
* Boo
* Hanuman
* Urvashi
* Krithika P. Shah

### Gods & Goddesses

* Kamadhenu
* Kubera
* Chaya
* Sarayanu
* Surya (mentioned)

### Mythological Beings

* Queen Tara
* Shikhandi
* Uttanka
* Ravana
* Vanaras
* Vishakanyas (mentioned)

## Trivia

* A *Sal & Gabi Break the Universe* book makes a cameo in Kara's bookshelf.

### Mentions of Other Cultures

* Other books that appear in Kara's bookshelf were a collection of Grimms' fairy tales and three shelves of Amar Chitra Katha comics.
* The book that opened Kara's secret portal shelf is *Where the Wild Things Are* by Maurice Sendak.
* At one point, Aru said that she and the "Potatoes" were like the world's worst Pokémon. Brynne said she'd be a Charizard.
* When a vanara asked what king the "Potatoes" enthralls their land, Aru awkwardly said it's probably Tiger King.