by Nic Stone
“None of this would’ve been possible without him, in fact! Isn’t that right, Henbane?”
The boy doesn’t say a word.
“This gifted young man was discovered in the act of draining the life from a pawpaw tree behind the home of a Narobian diplomat. He was frail. Dry-skinned and brittle-boned. A beggar orphan en route to becoming a common criminal—or worse.” She turns to Henny, whose narrow shoulders rise and fall with a sigh, though he still hasn’t lifted his head. “In him, I saw great purpose. A sense of destiny. So I took him under my wing and we formed a grand plan that would shove this haughty and uncharitable nation from its self-erected pedestal.”
Shuri flinches but doesn’t respond.
Zanda goes on. “Knowing of the soft spot your countrymen seem to have for orphaned children— including children descended from pale-skinned monsters who would seek to keep our entire continent subjugated—Henbane entered this nation through the mountain region some time back, and was swiftly taken in by your Jabari.”
Now Shuri is so baffled, she has to speak. “Really?”
“Told you they weren’t so bad,” K’Marah says from beside her. “Though he clearly is.”
And then he speaks. “K’Marah, I’m—”
“Silence, Henbane,” Zanda commands.
“But I need to tell her tha—”
“You need to tell her—them—nothing but ‘Goodbye.’ ” She shifts her focus back to Shuri and K’Marah. “Your precious herb is gone, so once we eliminate that arrogant brother of yours, there will be no Black Panther strutting around with an unfair advantage. While your beloved king is engaged in that sham of a ‘ritual Challenge’—as if any normal person could best a superhuman—the joined armies of we neighboring countries you neglect will invade this selfish nation. Troops have already begun their journey through a path our beloved Henbane set into motion through your border forest this morning.”
Shuri shakes her head then. “They’ll be stopped as soon as they cross the border. T’Challa already knows—”
“T’Challa knows NOTHING!” Zanda spits.
“Someone’s delusional,” K’Marah murmurs.
But Zanda rails on: “When I have secured access to your Vibranium and control over your goods and technology, I will be able to assist those who are suffering and dying in neighboring nations, as well as sell off some of your precious resources to interested buyers. I will appear to the wider world as wise, rich, and benevolent. And Narobia will finally receive the place of prominence it deserves on the international stage,” she says, lifting her arms and sun shield into the air.
“Delusional,” K’Marah says again.
Shuri risks a flick of her eyes past Zanda and sees that there are two rows of herbs left. Maybe ten plants total. She wishes she could focus there longer so she could estimate the rate at which they’re fading into uselessness.
“Hey, S.H.U.R.I! What time is it?” Shuri shouts.
“The time is four thirty-seven p.m.,” the voice replies from her Kimoyo card.
Twenty-three minutes until the Challenge—so eighteen before the path through the forest is clear and the armies break through.
Shuri plants her hands on her hips and shakes her head. “I could’ve sworn I set that BLASTED thing to the twenty-four-hour clock,” she says.
Zanda cocks her head, momentarily thrown off—and successfully distracted—by the princess’s bizarre declaration. Which gives K’Marah just enough time to react to the code word and toss Shuri the kitty cannon blaster prototype—a cat-shaped, handheld device that shoots bursts of electromagnetic energy from its open maw.
“K’Marah, kill the light!” Shuri fires off two shots—one at Zanda and one at Henbane—and because Zanda’s sun shield is hanging at her side, she takes the hit right to the chest and cries out just as the field goes dark.
Henbane manages to dodge, the shot glancing off his right shoulder, but as Shuri takes off running in the direction of the remaining herbs, she hears a grunt and his voice shout, “Ow, not cool!” just before K’Marah says, “You sent me a poisoned bracelet? Really?”
Shuri manages a smile as she races toward the remaining plants … though what she plans to do when she gets to them, she doesn’t know. There are seven herbs left, and as she runs, the number fades to six. Then the sixth one begins to fade. How is she supposed to stop something so clearly unstoppable?
So focused on the what next? is Shuri, she doesn’t notice the figure who steps into her path until a beat too late. She runs smack into Zanda’s sun shield and is subsequently blown back as the energy transferred to the shield in the collision is shoved back out into her chest.
All the air is knocked from her lungs when she hits the ground and her CatEyez tumble off. “Oof!” The back of her skull throbs—though she’s sure the cushion of her giant bun of braids prevented an actual concussion—and spots appear in her line of vision.
By the time her head clears, there’s someone standing over her.
“So young and overconfident,” Zanda says, leaning down so Shuri has a better view of her face in the darkness. “Seems to run in the blood.”
“Where”—Shuri coughs—“did you get that shield?”
Now Zanda laughs. “Henbane has been moving about your cherished nation for quite some time, Shuri. Poisoning your precious plants and shutting down a swath of the forest were aspects of his assignment, yes. But he learned a few other useful things as well.”
“Henbane forged that shield?” As Shuri knows from her own work, crafting an object of that sort is no easy feat.
Pity. Those abilities would’ve been quite useful in a laboratory technician.
Shuri’s head drops to the left, and that’s when she sees it: one last heart-shaped herb plant still glowing bright. She stares, breath held as her heart sinks into the ground beneath her, awaiting the telltale fade of life.
Waiting …
But it doesn’t come. The single stalk stays erect, a beacon of light in the darkness, both literal and figurative.
Zanda turns then, and Shuri gasps, cursing herself for her carelessness. “K’Marah—!”
“Henbane!”
They shout the names almost simultaneously, but K’Marah leaps into action first, her Kimoyo light re-illuminated and rigorous Dora Milaje training coming to the fore. Henbane, though, is right on her heels.
But then Zanda is up and headed toward the plant as well.
Shuri scrambles into action, sitting upright and feeling around on the darkened ground for her spectacles. She finds the little cannon blaster first. Knowing there’s no time, as soon as her hand closes around it, she takes aim and fires, praying to Bast the shot doesn’t hit K’Marah.
It goes wide, but the light from the blast glints off something shiny.
The glasses.
Shuri forces them onto her face and watches in horror as Henbane leaps toward her friend. “K’Marah!” Shuri is on her feet and dragging her way forward.
And though Henbane barely grazes K’Marah’s back with his fingertips, the Dora girl stumbles and collapses in a heap.
“I’m so sorry,” Shuri hears him say as he drops to his knees beside her friend and lays a hand on her face. “I didn’t have a choice. Zanda was going to kill my grandpapa … I left one plant alive—”
“Don’t touch her!” Shuri fires another shot, and it hits him square in the left shoulder. He falls back, arm limp and useless at his side.
But it’s too late: Zanda has reached the final herb. “Oh, Princess,” she says, standing over it, as haughty and triumphant as Shuri’s ever seen anyone look. “You try so hard. But as you Wakandans will have to learn: Sometimes failure is inevitable.”
She reaches down and wraps a hand around the plant’s stalk.
“STOP!” Shuri fires a shot at Zanda. Again the woman uses her shield to absorb and redirect the blow. The princess does her best to dodge, but it glances off her leg. “Ahhh!” She collapses as the entire left side of her body goe
s numb.
“Give UP, Princess!” Zanda shouts, reaching for the herb again.
“NO—”
But her cry is drowned out by an earth-trembling rumble of thunder.
Zanda freezes and looks skyward.
“Oh, you’re in big trouble now,” Shuri says, relief flooding every cell of her body.
Lightning flashes, and illuminated for the briefest of moments is a brown-skinned, white-haired woman, descending from the sky.
And then the rain begins.
“Ororo!” Zanda shouts, releasing the herb and standing upright in evident panic. “What are you doing here?”
“Assisting my family,” Storm says, white eyes blazing. “Shuri, you and K’Marah must get down to the baobab plain. The invading armies have broken through—”
“But T’Challa said we were prepared!” Shuri exclaims.
Zanda laughs, briefly distracted from her fear of the Mistress of the Elements. “Arrogant and witless, that T’Challa. Too full of self-importance to recogni—”
“Keep his name out of your wretched mouth!” Storm’s eyes flicker, and a rogue gust of wind swirls around Zanda, twisting the thin fabric of her robe, and whipping her long braids into her face.
Shuri chuckles as she watches Zanda’s arms flail about, but Ororo’s sharp-edged voice brings her back to reality. “Your defenses were able to rout the ranks that made their way through the forest, Princess. But there were two other entry points, both of which went unguarded.”
It clicks for Shuri then. “The forest entry was a diversion!”
“A successful one,” Zanda shouts triumphantly from the midst of her personal tornado.
“Shut it!” Ororo flicks a hand in Zanda’s direction, and the winds around her pick up speed.
“Gah!” Zanda shouts.
“Shuri, you and K’Marah must get down to the baobab plain to warn T’Challa. Two other factions have entered: one through the border with Azania, and one with Canaan. It would appear that both gained entry through tunnels.”
“Tunnels?” Shuri says. “But how—” She looks over at where K’Marah is unconscious and Henbane is standing over her, very much not completing his task of killing the final herb. He looks up at Shuri. “Tunnels, too?” she says, and he averts his eyes. “K’Marah certainly knows how to pick a winner …” Shuri mumbles.
Henbane peeks over his shoulder at the still-struggling Zanda, then turns to Shuri. “I can wake her,” he says, reaching for K’Marah.
“I told you not to touch her!” Shuri levels her cannon blaster at him again. “Get. Away.”
He raises his working hand. The other arm is still limp and useless at his side.
“I’m sorry!” he says. “I didn’t mean for things to go this far—” He shakes his head.
Shuri eyes him with suspicion. “How do I know you won’t just hurt her more?”
“I didn’t intend to hurt her at all. She’s the only real friend I’ve ever had and … all of this was a mistake. I should not have responded to her message knowing of my mission—”
“Appreciate the heart-to-heart you kids are having, but there is an invasion happening. If you could wrap it up …” Ororo says.
Henbane drops down and runs his fingertips over K’Marah’s cheek—and then quickly backs away.
Which is a smart move. Because as soon as she sits up, fully back to herself and looking like she just had the best night of sleep in her life, she’s searching for him, eyes wide, rage heaving in her chest. “Where is he?”
“No time,” Shuri says, pulling her friend to her feet and away from Henbane. She’s more than a little nervous about what she plans to say to the boy, but there aren’t any alternatives. So she steps right into his face. “If you’re really sorry, and you care about her, protect that plant with your life.”
“Huh?” K’Marah says. “If he—”
“We gotta move, K’Marah. Wakanda is under attack. We need to get to T’Challa.”
As the Predator soars toward the site of the Challenge—which should be getting under way right about now—the girls pass over one of the other two entry points Ororo mentioned. The invading soldiers are flooding out of a hole in the ground at the edge of a patch of forest like deadly siafu ants fleeing a poked mound. Unable to just zip by as though nothing is happening, the princess pulls an astonishing midair U-turn and gets to firing round after round of bright-blue electromagnetic energy bursts into the ranks of interlopers. Depending on where they’re hit, some are blown back, or trip and go sprawling, or are pulled to the ground when the arm holding their weapon goes limp, and gravity takes over.
“YES! Shuri! Knock them dead!” K’Marah shouts with a clap of her hands.
Of the soldiers who manage to evade Shuri’s onslaught, only a handful refuse to abort their mission and attempt to press forward toward the baobab field. Most, however, scramble back to their entry point.
“Hold us steady,” Shuri says, and K’Marah slides over to take the two-pronged steering mechanism. Then Shuri kneels down. “Full disclosure: I haven’t actually tested this particular armament. It is very powerful and lined with Vibranium, and it utilizes kinetic energy collected in flight from contrary winds.” There’s a chi-chock sound as she loads the thing. “I call it the Imperial Blaster.”
“Uhh …” is all K’Marah can muster.
“There will likely be a recoil.”
She fires.
FWOOMP … BOOOOOOM!
“Ahhh!” K’Marah screams and bounces into the air as the Predator jolts like someone smacked it on the rear.
“Sorry!” Shuri says, taking over the reins again. “Did the trick, though!”
And she’s right: There may still be a tunnel beneath the forest floor, but it officially leads to a dead end—the blast remolded the earth and sealed off the exit.
“Onward!” Shuri says. “The guards near the Challenge grounds can handle the stragglers.”
It takes three minutes for the girls to reach the edge of the baobab field. “Can you believe just two days ago we were looking down at a gathering of Wakanda’s greatest warriors from that ridge over there?” K’Marah says, pointing. “And trying not to be seen?”
“Definitely feels like longer,” Shuri replies, circling the perimeter of the field to prepare for landing.
Ororo revealed that she’d considered going to T’Challa herself, but with the Challenge looming, she felt that, as an outsider, interrupting the ritual would give the people of Wakanda the wrong impression. (Politics: barf.)
And though Shuri is a member of the royal family, something about Ororo’s reasoning rings in her ears. The elders—Mother included—already feel the princess is frivolous. Adorable at times (she hates when they use that word, adorable, like she’s one of the border clan’s rhinoceros calves), but a nuisance at others.
She has a hunch that if she and K’Marah storm the plain, they’ll be leaning into the latter, even if it is to shout that enemy forces have invaded.
Shuri parks the Predator not too far from the spot where they last laid eyes on T’Challa, and as they exit the vessel, they can hear the rhythmic rumble of drumbeats that precedes the tribal-clan roll call. They creep to where the land begins to slope gently downward, and then drop to a knee to avoid being totally conspicuous—two stalks, one long and reedy, the other short and stocky, but both stark against the horizon were one to look up in their direction.
“So what do we do now?” K’Marah whispers. The procession, where each clan of tribal representatives makes a grand entrance by heavily ornamented caravan, and then takes up their positions around the perimeter of the Challenge Ring—a glorified circle drawn on a patch of land where the grass doesn’t grow—is ending as the final two delegations file into position to the beat of the drums. T’Challa has yet to make his grand appearance, but the girls can see the tent he will exit a few meters back from the edge of the ring.
“Oh look, there’s Grandmother!” K’Marah says with a point and a smi
le.
Eldress Umbusi’s shoulders and arms are bare, and the gold-and-bronze-threaded halter-tunic she’s wearing makes her skin glow that much more. She looks … radiant. In fact, all the elders have come out in their finest, and from up here on the hill, the clumped clans look like precious gemstones, gathered in piles and glittering in the midafternoon sunlight—rubies, sapphires, emeralds, citrines, amethysts.
“We need to figure out—”
“Hey, S.H.U.R.I.,” K’Marah says, “scan the perimeter.”
“Scanning the perimeter,” comes the reply.
“Hey, she’s not supposed to respond to you,” Shuri protests.
“Shhh.”
There’s a ding.
Shuri continues to scowl into the distance.
“Will you stop being ridiculous and check your Kimoyo card?”
“What for? We’re supposed to be forming a plan—”
“So we can see where the final faction of invaders is coming from, duh!” K’Marah shakes her head. “You could never be a Dora Milaje.”
“Oh, whatever.” Shuri taps the screen of her Kimoyo card so that a hologram of their surroundings within a fifty-kilometer radius floats before their eyes. “There!” she exclaims, pointing out a gap in the woods to the northeast—and the insect-looking figures filing out of it. “That’s about a half kilometer away—”
There’s a loud and final BOOM from the drums, and then the whole plain goes silent. The girls watch the proceedings beneath them, now unable to pull their eyes away.
Okoye and Nakia, who are standing guard to either side of the tent’s opening, turn to face each other with a snap.
Then T’Challa steps out.
“Great BAST!” Shuri’s hands fly to her mouth, and she turns to K’Marah. “He’s wearing the new habit! Your uncle must’ve completed and delivered it!”
Shuri watches spellbound as her unmasked brother, king, and protector of her and her people strides toward the circle. Okoye and Nakia fall into parallel rank a step behind him, staffs in opposite hands, chins slightly aloft. The silence—and reverence—are so absolute, it seems even the creatures of the air have ceased their movement.