How to Catch a Queen

by Alyssa Cole

  Sanyu felt a twinge of anger at that, despite the fact that it was true, but kept his gaze on Shanti.

  “Hope you’re not tired of my stew,” she said before turning on her heel to walk into the temple with Anise.

  “Come on, Sanyu,” the older acolyte who’d sang to him said, holding out her hand. “Let’s go eat.”

  “Ajira,” he said, her name coming to him as her soft hand closed around his. “Yes. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 21

  Shanti was trying to be logical and not let her anger and disappointment drive her decisions, but she was annoyed as she helped plate up food in the temple’s kitchen. Sanyu was being coddled like a child by a coterie of queens while she did all the work and—

  She felt his presence beside her just before he pulled the ladle from her hand. “I can do this,” he said. “You cooked, so it’s only fair.”

  She glanced up at him from the corner of her eye.

  “Did you come to take the credit for finding the True Queen, too?” she asked tartly.

  “She is the first queen, not the True Queen. I know only one True Queen of Njaza,” he said. “And I hurt her with my foolishness.”

  She dropped her gaze back to the bowl of green bananas before her. The ladle came into her vision, pouring the thick stew over the steaming vegetable. Shanti was unfamiliar with fear, but it gripped her now. She was afraid to believe him. She shouldn’t care whether he lied if those lies meant she’d get her crown, but that wasn’t the only reason she wanted to stay in Njaza anymore. It was to be with him, the husband she had accidentally and quite unnecessarily fallen in love with.

  “I made a mistake when I came to your room that first night,” he continued.

  “And I made a mistake letting you in,” she countered.

  His hand was suddenly a brand on her back, the heat of it warming the stiffness of her spine. She stopped moving but didn’t look up at him.

  “No. You were kind enough to let me in because you saw what I didn’t—that my people needed a king, but they were stuck with a man pretending he didn’t know how to be one because that was easier than doing what needed to be done. I asked you to teach me to be a good king, when even if I wasn’t sure of what to do, I already knew that I wasn’t doing enough.”

  “So you’ve been hit by Amageez’s staff and don’t need me anymore?” she asked, unable to stop the terse responses even though she didn’t want to be angry anymore. Unlike Sanyu, she couldn’t shut down when inconvenient emotions arose.

  “I need you,” he said. “But I shouldn’t have had to lose you to learn that. I shouldn’t have treated you like just a teammate who would understand a political decision. You’re more than that, and your pain shouldn’t be footnotes on my journey to being a better king.”

  “My pain?” she tried to scoff. “You think highly of yourself. I didn’t even want—this whole thing is—”

  His hand slid up to grip the back of her neck, and she turned to look up into his face. He was gazing at her with such tenderness that her breath caught, but instead of feeling better she felt worse. Could she trust him again, now that she knew how badly he could hurt her?

  “You want to be queen because that’s your lifelong goal. I want you to stay by my side and achieve that goal, because you were made for the title.” His dark eyes were blazing as they had the first night they’d met, but not with anger. “You need to understand that I don’t only want you here as a brilliant politician or a strident planner who will benefit Njaza, though I’d like you to be my partner in all aspects of life. I’m a selfish man, though, Shanti. I want you to stay for me.”

  Shanti pressed her lips together against the conflicting happiness and anger churning in her and gathered her thoughts before speaking.

  “I am still furious with you,” she finally admitted. “If you’d conceded at the meeting because you truly thought it was for the well-being of the kingdom, I’d understand. But you did it because it was easier, and because you wanted to smooth things over with Musoke instead of fully confronting him. I still wonder if this is just you saying what you think I want to hear because that behavior is so ingrained in you. I’m not going to make this easy—I can’t. In your effort to keep everyone happy, you disappointed me, and I won’t accept that kind of betrayal again and again. Not for a crown. Not even for you.”

  He blinked rapidly a few times and his gaze strayed from hers, but then returned.

  “I see,” he said. “I understand. Or maybe I don’t because I felt ripped in half when I realized you’d left, but you must have felt a thousand times worse to have left in the first place.”

  She exhaled deeply, fighting the urge to tell him everything would be okay—after all, she was upset with him for doing that with Musoke. She wouldn’t have the status quo in her kingdom or her marriage just because it was easier.

  “I don’t want to feel this angry, but I do and I’m not going to rush through it just because it feels bad,” she said. “I appreciate that you’ve apologized but I need more time to be pissed off.”

  “Okay,” he said and moved away from her. He didn’t travel far, but just left enough space between them for her anger and his contrition.

  She picked up one of the trays of food and he picked up the other and they headed out to serve the queens.

  AFTER THEY’D EATEN, Shanti listened as Anise told Sanyu the same tale she’d shared with her earlier.

  “Every kingdom is a story,” Anise said to Sanyu.

  When she’d told it to Shanti, she’d started with, “Once upon a time, there were three generals.”

  She was changing the framework of this history in the way her specific audience would best understand—the sign of a true communicator, and perhaps the reason why she was the priestess of Okwagalena.

  “Every kingdom is a story,” Anise said. “Every government is a story. Even the gods, the land, and the sea don’t pop up from nothing. We create and shape all things in our image. In Njaza, some humans decided where bogs would be dredged and homes would be built and how the shapes of lakes would be formed. Someone decided where the highway would go and where the Central Palace would sit, looking out over the capital. Someone also decided what our traditions would be—what Njaza’s story would be. Your father, Musoke, and I were the victors after Liechtienbourg was driven out and the inter-Njazan clashes were quelled, and we decided how we wanted to tell that story.”

  Sanyu sat watching Anise, enthralled.

  “We believed we were chosen, you know,” she said with a laugh that had probably once been bittersweet but was now just sad. “We had formed a triad, the pure union, without even really knowing the history and customs that the Liechtienbourgers had almost managed to erase. But the old ways hadn’t disappeared from my family completely, and I found the old histories that hadn’t been destroyed. The tales of the ancient battle, where Omakuumi, Amageez, and Okwagalena joined their powers to defeat those who would harm Njaza.”

  “Okwagalena?” Sanyu shook his head. “I don’t understand this. Njaza is the kingdom of the two gods.”

  “And one goddess,” Anise said. “Though technically in the old tales, Omakuumi, Amageez, and Okwagalena had no fixed gender. Why would gods restrict themselves in such a way?”

  She shook her head.

  “But why would you change things?” Sanyu asked. “Musoke is so set on preserving the old ways that he can’t see to our kingdom’s future. My entire life, he’s tried to make me bend to tradition and to rule Njaza by the ways of the two gods. Strength and wisdom.”

  Shanti wanted to hold Sanyu’s hand—his whole world was being upended, again. But though he often thought otherwise, he was strong. He didn’t make Anise stop.

  “How did this happen? I need to know.”

  Anise sighed.

  “No relationship can exist solely with strength and strategy or force and cunning—there has to be love and peace and hope to bind those things,” she said. “But after the war was won, Sanyu—your
father, that is—began to focus on how military might had been the true cause of our victory. Musoke countered that no, it was his gift of strategy that allowed the military to succeed. Both of them, my dear ones, began to laugh at the idea that love was necessary for anything at all. As if they’d fought without love for their country and without hope for a peaceful future—and as if my own care for them hadn’t driven me to incredible feats to protect them. Love is a fierce thing, as is hope. Peace is harder to cultivate than war, and that is why Okwagalena was the most powerful in the old tales.”

  “And that’s why they decided to erase her,” Sanyu said.

  Anise nodded.

  “We argued many, many times, but they refused to concede that strength and strategy alone are not good guides on the path to a harmonious kingdom. I left. And I guess they decided to never allow love into the palace again. Like the Liechtienbourgers, who wanted to believe we were godless and in need of guidance, they erased the parts of Njazan history that didn’t suit their story.”

  Sanyu heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m so used to someone telling me what is. When I have to decide for myself, there are so many choices. What if I’m wrong? Surely my father and Musoke thought they were right. What if the story I decide to tell is the wrong one?”

  Shanti thought back to her own story, the one comprised of clippings and words from the queens who had inspired her. She wondered if the response welling inside of her was something she’d read before but no—these were her own words.

  “A story can’t be wrong,” she said. “Because a story can always change. Your father and Musoke’s mistake wasn’t that they chose the wrong story for Njaza, it was that they used all their power to keep the story from changing. It’s not only the story that matters. It’s the teller.”

  Sanyu chuckled. “I’m a terrible storyteller.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said. “You once told me a story of a man who wanted to be a better king and would do anything to achieve that, and look at you now.”

  His gaze on her was warm, so she stood up and began to clear dishes, letting the chatter of the women who had preceded her whirl around her.

  She didn’t know what she wanted from Sanyu. She’d left. He’d found her. But did that mean that their story would continue? Or that it should?

  She was so deep in thought as she cleaned the kitchen that she didn’t notice Josiane until she turned to put a plate away and bumped into the woman.

  “Sorry,” Shanti said firmly, unwilling to deal with Josiane’s attitude even if she was a former queen.

  “Do you know I never talked to my husband once after our wedding?” Josiane said.

  “What?”

  “I believe I was wife number thirty, or so. He was long past pretending that he was interested in marriage. I didn’t mind. I’d come from a family home where I shared a room with three aunts and two sisters, and suddenly I had a whole wing to myself, and a very pretty guard to spend my nights with. Who needed a husband?” Josiane laughed. “When I saw you moping about, I thought you were like some of the other foolish queens who convinced themselves they would be the ones to make the king fall in love.”

  “That’s why you were mean to me?” Shanti asked. “As some kind of test?”

  “Oh no, I just didn’t like you at first. You grew on me, though.” Josiane grinned.

  Shanti frowned at the woman.

  “The reason I didn’t like you was because I soon realized it wasn’t love you were after, but power. I saw that you wanted to be the queen, not a queen. Made me feel like . . . maybe I should have tried harder when I was queen. But Sanyu I wasn’t capable of love for his wives, or even friendly affection and camaraderie. That one out there? He was a boy who wanted to be loved so badly, even if just a few months at a time. And that doesn’t mean you have to accept bad behavior but . . . imagine growing up with Musoke for a father.”

  Shanti glanced out into the dining room, where Sanyu sat surrounded by the former queens looking like a happy child.

  “And what about my feelings?” Shanti asked, both to herself and Josiane.

  “That’s for you two to work out. If he doesn’t treat you well, then he doesn’t deserve you, no matter how unfair his childhood was.” Josiane shrugged. “The old queens who talk to each other all believe that he will be a great king. I hope he’s a great man as well, so that you stay, because we think you’ll be a great queen, too.”

  Shanti inclined her head and swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

  When she went back into the dining room, there was a silence that seemed heavier than a lull in conversation. She settled back into her seat around the table and wondered why all of the former queens had their heads bowed.

  “I’m sorry, but we don’t know where your mother is,” Anise said. “She was specifically chosen as a surrogate and volunteered for the job—your father and Musoke were stubborn men, but not evil ones. They didn’t rip you from your mother’s arms and kick her out. She wanted to leave Njaza.”

  “Oh,” Sanyu said. “So she—left me on purpose. I stopped hoping to meet her long, long ago, but . . . I guess part of me always assumed she’d been sad to leave me.”

  “And perhaps she was,” Anise said. “This doesn’t change whatever connection you might have had with her and might still have with her if you decide to find her. It doesn’t mean you were unloved. This is my first time meeting you, but all of these women care for you. Your father loved you. Musoke loves you, though I know his love often doesn’t feel like it.”

  Anise glanced at Shanti, a knowing look in her eyes.

  “I’ve always wanted to run from here,” Sanyu said with a shake of his head. “And I’ve always wondered if I was more like my mother than my father, so maybe I was right.” Then he smiled. “Thank you for telling me more about Njaza’s past, and my own. I would like”—he looked at Shanti—“to focus on Njaza’s future. And mine.”

  Anise nodded. “And what will you do about the past that has been hidden and now revealed?”

  “Shanti uncovered this, so I think she should do what she was going to do—go to the Royal Unity Weekend and share this discovery.”

  “I finished the first draft of my slide show this morning,” she said. “So I’m glad we’re in agreement on at least one thing.”

  He chuckled, then looked to Anise. “When you talked about bringing balance to the kingdom, and I have to ask. Is my, er, is Shanti touched by Okwagalena?”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “I told you gender doesn’t matter. Listen when I speak! How can you not see this woman is touched by Amageez?”

  “What?” Shanti asked.

  “My goodness,” Ajira said. “Of course you are.”

  “Why do you think you clashed with Musoke so much?” Josiane asked with a roll of her eyes.

  Shanti blinked, taking in this new view of herself from the kingdom she’d be queen of for only a few days more. “What about Lumu?”

  Anise laughed. “That boy is not only touched by Okwagalena, he may as well be an acolyte. He would have been had I not sent him to the palace for school.”

  “Lumu is your grandson?” Sanyu almost shouted.

  “My great-grandson,” she said proudly. “He cares for you very much and wanted to tell you the truth about me earlier. But you couldn’t accept that truth without first accepting love. Do you see? Don’t be mad at him. The blessings of the three gods are not always aligned, but when they are, great change may come from it.”

  LATER THAT NIGHT, Shanti sat on a bench behind the temple, looking up at the cloudy sky. A cool breeze blew through her thin nightgown and the bathrobe she wore over it, but she hadn’t brought a heavier jacket.

  She was used to being awake with Sanyu at this time, hashing out plans to change Njaza. She wished she could sleep; being awake without him, especially with him in the same small building, was lonely now.

  “I know we’re not in the palace, but I think our agreement still stands.”

  Shanti suck
ed in a breath at the sound of his voice behind her, then the sound of sandal on dried peat as he approached.

  “Our agreement was that I would come to you at night,” he said. “It’s nighttime, and I’m here.”

  She didn’t say anything. Just kept staring at the sky that was a wall of dark gray. The clouds parted a bit, as if revealing a tunnel to another world full of bright stars, and then Sanyu stood before her blocking the view. He had an apprehensive expression on his face—that’s what it was. Apprehension. The look of a man who spent his entire life being told he was wrong, so that whether he was or he wasn’t became almost secondary.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “How angry I am at you,” she answered truthfully.

  Sanyu sighed and lowered himself to his knees before her, his face at the same level as hers. “I’ve already apologized for what I did at the meeting, but I will apologize again. And again. Some would call me weak, but I’m fine with this particular weakness.”

  Her heart began to beat faster.

  “I’m not mad about the meeting,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I’m mad because I have an incredible first draft of my presentation for the event this weekend. I know it’s going to be the talk of the conference—it’s impressive. My hero, Queen Ramatla, will listen and be proud. My parents, who I’ll be seeing for the first time in months, will be vindicated for having faith in me. But I can’t even be happy because I don’t know if I’ll be coming back to Njaza. To you.”

  She was furious. This was why she’d been fine with a marriage based only on cooperation and respect—more than that and your goals started to go fuzzy at the edges and distractions started to sink in. Was it really worth it?

  Sanyu smiled at her. “Of course your presentation will be the talk of the conference. You’re incredible. In less than four months, you’ve put in motion things that will change the course of Njaza’s history forever, and you did it with your hands tied behind your back. You’re a queen that will go down in the history books, and I’m proud I can say I was your king.”