by Alyssa Cole
She’d have to work faster to make her husband into the king his people needed.
Chapter 10
When the door to the king’s personal gym swung open, Sanyu jumped awake from the nap he’d slipped into while sitting on a bench after his workout. He was exhausted from late nights with Shanti, followed by reading everything he could find about the governance of kingdoms. Reading and rereading, rather. He’d studied many of the books long ago, back before he’d understood the difference between theory and practice.
He found that certain concepts jumped out to him now, like the free flow of ideas and checks and balances on leadership. Before, he’d always been overwhelmed by ideas of how to run a kingdom and the possibilities that stemmed off exponentially from them—so many paths that might lead toward Njaza’s doom if he chose incorrectly. But something in his brain’s filter had refined as he discussed things with Shanti. He hadn’t changed, but before he’d taken everything in at once because his only parameter had been “what a king of Njaza must do to prevent disaster.” Now he was able to sort ideas by whether they related to “what King Sanyu II will do to create change for the better,” which wasn’t a small task either, but cut down on the overwhelm of considering every possibility.
“Musoke wants to see you in his office,” Lumu said, with none of his joviality.
“Now?” Sanyu sighed. “I’ll go after I shower.”
He began to pull himself up, the aches and twinges of his body giving him a momentary sense of accomplishment.
“Make it fast,” Lumu said. “He’s in his office with some woman who was found trespassing on palace grounds, and this could go very badly.”
All of the tension Sanyu had just thrashed out of his body returned. He took the shortest shower of his life, sloppily wrapped his robe, and bounded off to Musoke’s office.
The old advisor was seated across from a stranger in a black suit with thick dark hair cut into a bob; he stared at her in a way clearly meant to intimidate. As Sanyu walked round the desk to stand beside Musoke, he saw that the woman had brown skin and eyes that were huge and hazel behind the round wire-rimmed glasses she wore.
She was staring back at Musoke.
She wasn’t blinking.
“Is this the person found trespassing?” Sanyu asked when neither said anything.
“I wasn’t trespassing, I was creatively entering in an effort to carry out our contract,” she replied, keeping her wide-eyed gaze fixed on Musoke. Her accent was one Sanyu had never heard before—a mixture of clipped consonants paired with singsong vowels.
She unbuttoned her blazer with a tight flip of her thumb, reached into an inner pocket to pull out a card, then handed it toward Sanyu’s general direction without breaking her gaze away from Musoke.
“Are you two having a staring contest?” Sanyu asked, reaching out to grab the card and read it.
BEZNARIA CHETCHEVALIERE
JUNIOR INVESTIGATOR
WORLD FEDERATION OF MONARCHISTS
“It appears we are,” she said, resting her hands on her knees. “I’m here to investigate the status of Shanti Mohapti, whose marriage was brokered through RoyalMatch.com. All requests for follow-ups and quality-of-life checks have been ignored, and so I came to ensure said quality of life. Your advisor responded to my questions with staring. Unbeknownst to him, I am Ibarania’s Official Staring Contest Champion.”
“Your country has official staring contests?” Sanyu asked. It was a small island in the Mediterranean, even smaller than Njaza. Maybe there wasn’t much to do there.
“That depends on your definition of official,” she said, hinging forward as if adding the pressure of her athletic frame to her gaze. “At the very least I was regional champion, in the region that is my family’s home.”
Sanyu blinked a few times, wondering if this woman was a spy and this strange behavior was some kind of psy-op.
“She was found scaling the fence, Your Highness,” Rafiq, the head of the guard, said. “A donkey cart full of cabbages had been left in the middle of the main road.”
“You have no right to enter the private property of the royal family of Njaza,” Musoke said.
“You have no right to deny me information about Shanti Mohapti’s well-being, unless the rumor about the dungeons beneath the Central Palace being full of dead queens is true.”
She grabbed the edge of the desk and half stood, her gaze still boring into Musoke’s.
“Ms. Chetchevaliere,” Sanyu warned.
“You blinked,” she said matter-of-factly to Musoke, lowering herself into her seat with an expression of relief. “I won. Bring me the queen.”
“What?” Musoke’s voice was choked with anger.
Ms. Chetchevaliere poked her glasses up the short bridge of her nose, though they could go no higher. “Generally, when one engages in a contest of strength, the winner takes the prize, no? I asked to see Ms. Mohapti, you engaged me in ocular battle, and you lost. What is the confusion?”
Sanyu was trying to channel his father, but the situation was so absurd that he found himself chuckling. “I appreciate your dedication to the truth, but there is nothing to worry about. My wife is fine.”
She startled a bit, stood and bowed, then returned to her seat. “Forgive my rudeness, Your Highness, I was on the edge of victory when you entered the room and couldn’t properly greet you. But”—she crossed her legs again and leaned forward—“I’m not leaving without verifying the queen’s safety. Especially as inquiries have been made into three new potential brides on the site while safety verification and marital questionnaire requests were ignored. I can’t approve any further matchmaking inquiries without investigation.”
New potential brides? No one had discussed that with him. Then again, no one had discussed the first bride with him either.
Musoke stood, gripping the head of his cane. “Of all the audacious—! You enter our kingdom under false pretenses—”
“My pretenses were not false, sir. I said I was a cabbage vendor, and I intend to vend those cabbages as soon as I’m done here.”
“—illegally enter our palace—”
“Creatively enter.”
“—and now you think you can make demands? This is Njaza. We do not tolerate attempts at manipulation or subversion. We crush those who threaten our way of life. What will you say when you’re locked in our deepest dungeon and under investigation for espionage?”
Most people would have at least flinched from Musoke’s aggressive tone and stance, but Beznaria Chetchevaliere looked at him with a blank expression for a few seconds before calmly steepling her fingers.
“Terms and conditions.” She squinted and pursed her lips, studying first Musoke and then Sanyu.
“What nonsense is this woman on about?” Musoke sounded pained, and Sanyu believed he was. The rigid advisor was probably breaking out in hives while dealing with this strange investigator.
Ms. Chetchevaliere sighed. “I’m surprised that someone in the position of head advisor to a kingdom would not read the terms and conditions of a contract, but it’s a common human failing.”
The roar of laughter that almost escaped Sanyu’s mouth would have been entirely inappropriate, but the expression on Musoke’s face was something to behold.
“Terms and conditions? Speak sense, girl. I pay an annual fee for that app, the only condition is you provide matches suitable for a king.” Musoke tapped his cane as he often did, and Sanyu thought for the first time how if he ever did the same he would be called petulant or childish.
“Girl? I am thirty-three,” Ms. Chetchevaliere said. “And the terms and conditions that you lied about reading has a subsection concerning the urgent arrangement feature. For hasty marriages such as yours, there is a required check-in to ensure the health and safety of both parties. Yet all of my attempts to follow up on this have been ignored, and there’s been no public sighting of your queen since the wedding. I know you have a four-month marriage trial here, so the circumstan
ces are slightly different for you, but that changes nothing for me. I will not leave until you have answered my marriage questionnaire and I have verified Ms. Mohapti’s safety.”
Sanyu crossed his arms and considered the woman as if she was touched by Nrij, a lesser Njazan chaos spirit. She hadn’t done anything threatening, but the resolve in her last sentence made it clear that she wasn’t afraid of Musoke, or of him.
“Everyone out,” he said to the guards.
“But, Your Highness . . .” Rafiq hesitated.
“You trained me yourself,” Sanyu said to him. “Do you think I cannot handle this?”
“Rafiq is correct to worry that you can’t handle me, but I am here on a peaceful mission, not a depose and dispose,” Ms. Chetchevaliere said blithely. Her expression was disarming, but her ramrod posture hinted at a military background and she had been found scaling the walls like a Drukian mountain goat.
Musoke tapped his cane a centimeter from Sanyu’s foot. “Don’t tell me you mean to indulge this. What kind of king allows a foreign woman to bring him to heel and threaten him in his own palace?”
Sanyu knew the answer that had been drilled into him over the years—a weak one.
Usually he would allow Musoke to have the guard see this woman to the border, despite wanting to talk to the interloper. He reminded himself that Musoke was not king, and he was.
“I will see what she has to say,” Sanyu said, feeling nausea bloom but ignoring the familiar sensation. “She’s only here because whoever is responsible for the Royal Match account forced her hand with their lack of response. And by searching for wives without my approval. That stops now.”
Musoke’s nostrils flared. “You ignore my advice?”
“We get mad at outsiders for spreading rumors about our rude behavior. If our response to a safety check is threats and anger, is that supposed to disprove them?”
His whole body was taut, straining to maintain the facade of his father’s strength in the face of the man who’d known his father the best. But as he was studying governance it’d become clear to Sanyu that he did have ideas of his own. He did care. And in this one small thing he could put his foot down, no matter what Musoke thought. It didn’t seem weak to treat people with basic respect, and it made him feel better than any of the ways he’d been taught to treat those beneath him.
“When others hear of this, they will know that Njaza is now a kingdom that tolerates having its borders and palace breached. It will be the beginning of the end. And it will be your fault.”
He turned and stomped out and Sanyu took a deep breath. He waved for the investigator to follow him to the balcony, where there were wider seats to accommodate him and fresh air to clear his head. His heart was pounding and he felt a bit sick, but that hadn’t gone as bad as he’d expected.
Ms. Chetchevaliere cleared her throat as she settled into the chair. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m going to be.”
Sanyu knew that his father would have threatened to have this woman hung by her toes; it would have been an idle threat but a terrifying one. That kind of bluster took way too much energy, though.
“Thank you for the advance warning,” he said dryly.
“You’re welcome. Your head advisor unnecessarily catastrophizes and frankly, needs to chill out. I live and breathe monarchical systems and I can tell you that a high-ranking official who resorts to staring contests and tantrums is not an effective one.”
Sanyu inhaled deeply. The investigator was being too familiar, and what she was saying didn’t reflect well on his kingdom, but it didn’t feel like disrespect. He could think clearly and process her words, unlike when he knew Musoke was waiting with his scorpion stinger.
She continued. “And I shouldn’t be telling you this because it is classified information, but top secret is a social construct anyway, yes?”
Sanyu’s forehead creased as he tried to follow her train of thought. “I . . . don’t think that’s how that works, Ms. Chetchevaliere. I’m sure your employer and government don’t think that’s how that works.”
She glanced up and to the side, shrugged, then met his gaze and continued. “Our job is to monitor and promote the spread of monarchical governance and to keep a close eye on the extant ones. Njaza is at the top of our list of kingdoms in danger. I’m not going to try to sell you any of our services because, frankly, the Royal Match app really mines all of the data we could ever need so that your cooperation isn’t necessary.”
“What?” Sanyu leaned up in his seat.
“Listen, Your Highness. Always read the terms and conditions. At one of the meetings someone was floating a clause in the updates that would allow the Federation to intervene in failing kingdoms. That was a wild meeting, I tell you! But it was suggested because of the whole ‘Is Njaza a dictatorship that needs to be toppled?’ debate and—” She pressed her brown lips together, waited a beat, and then continued as if she hadn’t said anything. “Your kingdom needs to get it together. I’m surprised your wife hasn’t been of assistance with that, given the many detailed, and I would say visionary, research papers on systems of monarchical governance she’s submitted to the Federation’s official journal over the years.”
She looked at him pointedly.
“Well. My kingdom has not been entirely welcome to the advice of the queen,” Sanyu said. “Historically.”
“You rule this kingdom,” she said. “Presently.”
“And perhaps you should speak to me as if I do,” he snapped. “I am trying to change things, and I’ve asked for my wife’s help in that.”
“So you like her, Your Highness, sir?” She smiled and raised her brows. “I was the one who matched you with her. We don’t use an algorithm for such high-level arrangements. I thought she’d make a good partner for you because of her brilliant mind, both of your backgrounds, and Njaza’s needs. Imagine my surprise when she disappeared and things in the kingdom started to trend downward.”
“I . . . like her. I’ve only just started to get to know her, though, after the mourning period, and I don’t think I’m doing that great in either the husband or the king department.”
Sanyu didn’t know what was wrong with him. He’d gone so long not telling his fears to anyone, and now he was sharing them with anyone who would listen?
“Have you read the Royal Match Arranged Marriage questionnaire?” she asked. “Ha, just kidding, I know you haven’t. I have it memorized though so we can go through the questions. Do you spend quality time with your arranged marriage partner? Yes or no.”
“Yes,” Sanyu said. “I have for the last week or so.”
“Out of three months? Wow, that’s not good, King Sanyu, sir.”
“Ms. Chetchevaliere.”
“Do you actively inquire as to your spouse’s happiness in and satisfaction with the relationship?” she continued.
“Yes. Kind of.”
“Do you actively inquire as to your spouse’s happiness in and satisfaction with life in general?”
Sanyu began to open his mouth.
“Yes is only applicable if you’ve done it more than once, King Sanyu.”
“No.”
“Do you do nice things for your spouse?”
“I spend time with her,” Sanyu said.
“So that’s a no. Do you actively ask about and encourage her interests—”
“Yes!” Sanyu nodded as if he’d just slam-dunked on her.
“—that are not related to the work of the kingdom?” she finished.
Sanyu groaned.
“Yikes,” she said. “Look, I get it, relationships are hard. Trust me, I’ve seen it all doing the investigations for the arranged marriage division, the marriage counseling division, and the royal divorce division. Humans are terrible, and somehow think they will get better just because they have a ring on their finger from another terrible human.”
She laughed to herself.
“Are you certain you really work for the Federation and for Royal Match?
Don’t tell me employment is a social construct.”
She frowned. “But it is.”
Sanyu began to stand. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll take you to the library where you can see she is fine.”
What if she wasn’t fine, though? Was a couple of weeks enough to make up for months of really, really sucks?
“There is something else. Maybe I shouldn’t share this with you, though.”
Sanyu rolled his eyes. “Why stop sharing inappropriate or top secret things now? Go on.”
“After I got dumped by my latest girlfriend, my father sat me down and told me three surefire ways to make your partner happy since I was clearly so bad at it. One, if she says something pisses her off, do the opposite of that. Two, if you piss her off, apologize. Three, if she likes kissing, kiss her a lot. Four—”
“Didn’t you say it was three surefire ways?” Sanyu interrupted, his amusement starting to shift to annoyance.
Ms. Chetchevaliere clapped loudly and then pointed at him. “Four, pay attention to the details when she talks. See? You’ve already got this.”
Chapter 11
Shanti found that she couldn’t pretend to be interested in the scanning of dusty documents while working at the archives. She was fidgety and annoyed.
Her time was running out, she had a presentation to plan and a kingdom to save, and maybe—just maybe, if what had passed between her and Sanyu meant anything—a marriage to save as well, and she was wasting it sorting through literal garbage. The fact that Njaza had a long and rich history that she could have been immersing herself in but was instead given only the least important things to look through seemed like cruel irony. She was happy to have found the file on the queens, but most of the papers seemed less like archival material and more like a prank.
She huffed and grabbed a stack of papers from the ones Josiane had all but dumped in her lap with a glare, and snatched a paper that looked like the front page of a dissertation. She didn’t read the words until they appeared on the screen of the scanner: