by Alyssa Cole
Nya grabbed a pear tart, biting into the pastry and sighing with delight. She hadn’t been allowed to have sweets very often before—her father had told her that her stomach couldn’t tolerate them.
While she was in the hospital, recovering from the shock of her father’s crime and detoxing from the awful evidence of her father’s love, she’d raided the vending machine and eaten the sweets she always eyed at the market. She’d figured if what her father said was true, the hospital was the best place to test it. Nothing had happened besides a wild sugar rush and, a few days later, an acne outbreak.
She’d decided to take Ledi’s advice and go to New York immediately after.
“I have to talk to you about something,” Johan said as she chewed. “When you’re done eating.”
She glanced at him, took in his nervous state. “Are you all right? Are you worried about the referendum?”
He startled. “You know about that?”
His gaze dropped to her mouth and she wondered if she had smeared her lipstick.
“There’s this invention called the internet,” she said with a little more attitude than was necessary.
“Right. Sorry. A lot of people don’t even know Liechtienbourg exists,” he said. “Outside of royal watchers. But no, it’s not that. Not directly at least.”
“Are you worried about your trip to Njaza?” Thabiso called across the table. “Even I don’t really mess about with that Sanyu. His father was mean, and they say he’s meaner.”
“It’s just one day,” Johan said in that stiff aristocratic way he spoke in sometimes. He didn’t speak like that when they were alone, Nya realized. “Besides, how intimidating can a man whose first name is Stanley be?”
“May the goddess protect Johan tomorrow, especially if he calls Stanley Sanyu by his first name,” Thabiso said solemnly, hands clasped. Then he reached out and grabbed one of the goat meat pastries from the middle of the table with a gleam in his eyes.
“Tomorrow?” Nya felt panic stir in her. The wedding obviously wouldn’t last forever—three days was short for a Thesoloian wedding celebration, but it’d been adapted to fit the modern schedules of the guests. But it seemed much too fast, and she was shocked to find that she was sad that she wouldn’t see Johan anymore. Sad like she had been when Portia had left for Scotland, and Ledi and Thabiso had gone back to Thesolo.
She’d be alone again, alone with the decision of what job to take, where to live, and whether or not to see her father.
“Oh,” she said.
She ate quietly after that, unable to shake the sadness that had descended upon her while the conversation continued around her. Guests began to leave the table eventually. Likotsi was taking Tavish and Portia to the palace guard museum, and Fabiola had to go call her cousin and aunt. Ledi and Thabiso started making lovey-dovey eyes at one another, and Nya stood.
“I’m going to go for a walk,” she said, and then sped away before anyone could stop her.
She hated the feeling rising in her. The wedding had been difficult and full of strange events, but her friends had all been together. They’d talked and laughed and had fun, despite the worries pressing in at her from all sides. Now they would leave, paired off and happy. Portia had her new life coaching business and Tavish had peerage duties. Ledi and Thabiso would be occupied with royal duties, and Ledi’s STEM program for young girls would be launching in the coming weeks. Likotsi and Fabiola had their own lives to attend to. Johan had his own life to go back to, as well, and because she was a girl who didn’t crush her dreams when they were small enough, now she would miss him.
He wouldn’t give her a second thought—it had only been a few days, and their interactions had been forced by the wedding. It wasn’t as if he’d sought her out. She’d taken a few coincidences and blown them up into something more. He’d find some beautiful Njazan woman who didn’t make a mess of herself and have fun with her.
Ugh. Why did it hurt to think of that? Nya followed the gossip columns, and read about the people Johan was alleged to be dating. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to do that anymore.
Foolish girl.
She found what she was looking for—the gazebo where she had gotten to know Naledi during her recovery in the royal hospital. It was surrounded by honeysuckle plants, the air sweet with their scent, and she took a seat on her favorite bench so she could feel sorry for herself without standing on four-inch heels.
“Nya?”
His voice was outside the gazebo; she was hidden by the greenery wrapping itself around the wooden posts, and she stayed quiet. She wanted to see him but also wanted to be alone with her loneliness, to not have to put on a smile and reassure someone that she was okay when she wasn’t. She wanted to sit with the knowledge that she was a silly girl who would miss a man she barely knew.
Just then her phone chimed in her hand.
Hanjo: Have you heard the news? Someone graffitied DOWN WITH THE MONARCHY over the entry to the palace. The royal guards saw no one. I’m shocked to say the least.
Nya:
Oh no, how horrible!
Good! The monarchy needs to be destroyed.
Do you know who did it?
“Dammit, Hanjo!” she muttered, tapping C without really reading and then putting the phone beside her on the bench. She was turning off the sound when the response popped up.
Hanjo: It would have to be someone with access to the palace and who knew the guard schedule . . .
She heard the creak of Johan’s footsteps on the wooden boards of the gazebo, but kept her eyes on her phone. When the black wing tips were in her line of sight, Nya looked up into Johan’s eyes. They were an impossible shade of blue, and his lashes were long and thick, and goddess, why did he have to look like a sim dating hero come to life?
It wasn’t fair, wanting and never having. She was tired of it.
“There you are,” he said in the voice he used when they were alone. The one that wasn’t cloaked in sarcasm and dry wit.
She blurted out the first thing that came to mind as she stared up at him. Anything that would drive away the looming embarrassment of what had happened between them the previous evening, and the crushing reality that she didn’t want him to leave, and probably not just because he was her friend.
“Do you use Jamaican Black Castor Oil?” she asked, pointing to her own lashes.
“Pardon?” His auburn brows rose in very reasonable confusion.
“Your lashes. They’re very . . . lustrous.”
He blinked a few times, inadvertently showing them off.
Embarrassment flamed through her—this was one reason she stuck to the dating sims when it came to talking to men. Choosing a pithy response from a list was easier than coming up with conversation on your own.
“Thank you?” His deep, accented voice was tinged with amusement. “I’m glad my lashes please you.”
Oh goddess.
“I should go,” she said, standing to move past him before more silliness flew from her mouth.
“Nya.”
He didn’t reach out to stop her, but the beckoning in his voice was as good as his fingers curling around her wrist. She looked back at him over her shoulder.
His gaze was warm and inviting and if Nya didn’t know better, she might imagine that the Tabloid Prince of Liechtienbourg fancied plain boring her.
You dream too big, girl.
His full lips pulled up into a grin. “You should stay.”
“Why?” she asked, her voice sounding high and girlish and exactly how people would expect she’d sound while alone with a handsome man. She reminded herself that she had been alone with him several times. There was no need to act like anything had changed, apart from him offering to debauch her, and parading her through the reception, and almost kissing her.
“You’re upset.” He held up a hand, miming for her to wait, then pulled open his pocket, pretending to take out a small square. Nya squinted at him, amused, as he pretended to unfold the square into
a larger rectangle, which he then hung from an invisible hook near his head. “Confidant services are now open.”
He pointed encouragingly at the invisible sign, brows raised, and she laughed, shaking her head. Some of the tension that had ratcheted itself up in her dissipated. This was Johan. Who always encouraged her and secretly slept with an angry teddy bear.
“Oh, if only your fans knew you’d hidden your sexiest skill—miming.”
“Miming is a respected art in Liechtienbourg,” he said, then pointed to his invisible sign. “What’s wrong?”
“My father wants to see me.” It was easy to tell him, now that he’d reminded her that they were friends. “He’s making threats about what he’ll do if I don’t come to the prison.”
Johan’s lips pressed together into a tight line, and he folded his arms across his chest, shifting from mime mode to something like a stern bodyguard. “Do you want to see him?”
“Maybe I will one day,” she said. “But not now, and definitely not because he forced my hand. I’m trying to figure out what I want to do once everyone leaves and I’m alone again.”
“I see.” He uncrossed his arms and made a big show of taking down his imaginary sign and refolding it, glancing up to see if she was pleased. After he’d crammed it into the pocket of his slacks, he beckoned her. “Come. Let’s sit down.”
She moved to walk toward him, but the heel of her shoe had found a comfy resting place in a knothole in the gazebo’s wood floor. Nya went sprawling forward, arms windmilling as she searched for something to hold on to before face planting.
Her fingertips brushed something metal and smooth as her hand slapped against Johan’s chest. She grasped his shirt and he caught her beneath her armpits and righted her.
“There we go. Now we’re even,” he said, looking at her with amusement. “You caught me, and now I’ve caught you.”
He didn’t let her go, and his gaze didn’t leave her face. She watched as his eyes seemed to darken a shade, as his tongue darted out to run over his lips.
“Nya.” He shifted his hold on her and there was a distinct metallic clink on the wood. She looked down and saw his silver chain in a puddle at his feet between them.
“Scheisse, no!” Johan usually spoke with some level of smooth refinement, but there was ragged panic in his tone before he released her and lunged toward something rolling away from them across the floor of the gazebo. Whatever it was threw off light as it bounced along the planks, like he was chasing one of Ingoka’s sprites, and then his palm closed over it, flattening it to the ground.
He dropped his head in relief where he kneeled.
Nya clenched her fists, frustrated that her clumsiness was the reason Johan had completely lost his cool.
“I’m sorry!” She tried to go to him, but her heel was still firmly stuck and she was strapped into the shoe.
He was quiet for a moment, and when he turned around his expression was somber, as it had been in the photo she’d accidentally snapped of him on the plane. He moved toward her, still on his knees as if he wasn’t thinking of his expensive slacks at all.
“It’s all right. And I didn’t mean to curse—it was an accident.” He reached her and held up his hand, a ring pinched between thumb and forefinger. It had a thin band of silver, and a small blue garnet in the center with even smaller diamonds nestled on either side. “This was my mother’s. I never take it off, and I was just a bit shocked to see it making a run for it.”
She could only imagine the fear that must have surged through him as he watched it roll away. She’d been allowed to touch very few of her mother’s things as a child, as her father had wanted to keep them in their original state. She remembered how it had felt to lose access to even the few things she’d cherished.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, reaching toward it.
A voice sounded from outside the gazebo. “Here they are, Elder Jerami!”
Nya swiveled to find Annie walking toward them, shaking her head and wearing an expression so foreboding that Nya had never seen it, even when her grandmother had dealt with hecklers at town meetings in Lek Hemane.
“Ah, so here you are, Granddaughter.” Something in Annie’s tone made Nya’s jaw clench.
“Is something wrong, Grandmother?”
Annie looked past her to glare at Johan. “You said you wouldn’t debauch her. You lied.”
“That’s technically true,” Johan responded casually, dusting his knees as he stood. “I don’t see how it’s any business of yours.”
“Eh! Speak respectfully to your elders, Phoko!” Nya chided, her upbringing warring with her confusion at her grandmother’s behavior.
“I apologize for my rudeness,” he said to her and not her grandmother.
Annie shook her head. “I do not want the apologies of a jackal who would seduce a helpless woman on a plane, like Lineo’s sister Mariha witnessed. Then throw himself on her in the sauna, like Lineo herself witnessed. Then take her virginity and discard her, like Lineo’s cousin Indira discovered when she gathered the laundry this morning and overheard Nya being comforted. You could not wash away the evidence of her maidenhead!”
The words resonated through the gazebo.
“Oh my goddess! Seriously? Please just kill me now,” Nya blurted out. This was too much—this would be the humiliation that broke the camel’s back. “Lineo, bring that scimitar over here.”
“Hmm.” Johan calmly brushed back the hair that had fallen over his eyes. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Like a zebra misunderstands that a hippo is more dangerous than a lion?” Annie asked.
“I—I’m not familiar with that phrase,” Johan said, still calm.
Nya’s humiliation was pushed away by anger—she was not calm.
“Nkhono, I love you very much, but you dishonor me right now with this talk of debauchery and maidenheads,” she said, angry tears stinging her eyes. Her grandparents and Ledi were all she had left of her family, and now her grandmother was just another person who thought she had no sense. “This is completely inappropriate.”
“Dishonor? You should have thought about dishonor before letting this man seduce you. Do you read the papers, my child? He has no morals and no taste, on the arm of a different man or woman every night.”
Johan cleared his throat and raised his hand. “That’s a bit harsh, and an exaggeration. I have exquisite taste. That said—”
Nya cut her hand through the air, waving his jokes away. This wasn’t the time.
“And what if he did seduce me? Ingoka does not believe that desire is a sin,” Nya reminded her grandmother. “Did you chastise Naledi for being with Thabiso? Or is everyone else allowed to find happiness except me?”
Her grandmother looked like she’d been slapped, and though she had just chastised Johan for his disrespect, Nya didn’t care as much as she should have. She was tired of swallowing her anger like stinging nettles, cutting herself on the way down so she wouldn’t harm others.
“They have experience,” Annie explained in the same voice Nya had used with the youngest children at the orphanage. “Others are not easily influenced like you, especially now that you have no one to look after you.”
Nya grit her teeth, her ears ringing from an anger that threatened to overwhelm her. She tried to walk toward her grandmother, but her shoe was still stuck—she was stuck, and she hated it. “Eh! If you’re so concerned about me, you might have paid more attention twenty years ago. My whole life! You were perfectly happy to turn a blind eye to a father who treated me like a prisoner instead of a daughter, who purposely made me ill! And now you care about my well-being?”
There was a sudden unnatural silence in the gazebo, apart from Nya’s heartbeat pounding in her ears and her breath coming in shallow gasps.
No. She hadn’t meant to say that.
“What? What are you saying, child? Alehk has made many . . . mistakes. He has hurt many people. But he loves you. Everyone knows that.” Annie
raised her hand to her chest, and Nya remembered that, though she was tough, her grandmother was old.
She remembered the few times she had spoken back to her father when she was younger. Sometimes she would get sick right after, ending the discussion. Other times, her father would leave for a day and come back with medicine from the doctor for himself, saying that he’d been warned he would die of a broken heart if she didn’t listen to him.
You must be a good, obedient girl, Nya. Or do you want to be in this world alone?
That threat had lost its potency over time, partly because of age and common sense and partly because she hadn’t thought it possible to feel more alone.
“Nya? What are you saying?” Annie asked again, pulling her from her thoughts.
“Nothing,” she said, wringing her hands and looking down. She hadn’t swallowed her anger this time, but it seemed those nettles stung her when she spat them out, too. “I’m sorry. I’ve behaved very improperly toward you. But you are mistaken. I am not . . . no one wants . . . there is nothing between Johan and me.”
Annie was still silent, but Lineo would not be deterred. “If that is true, then why did we catch him down on one knee with a ring held out to you, Ms. Jerami?”
“Because sometimes the goddess needs a laugh?” Nya whispered, fighting scalding tears of humiliation.
“Because I was proposing, actually,” Johan said. He was speaking in the strange tone again, and she recognized what it reminded her of. It was how she imagined Phokojoe the trickster god would sound as he lured hapless humans to his lair.
He looked at her, and his gaze was unreadable as he took her hand in his.
“If you accept, you can come with me to Njaza, and then to Liechtienbourg. There’s no pressure, and you can return home whenever you want.” He leaned closer to her and whispered, “I expect nothing of you if you say yes, and it is fine to say no.”
Her head was spinning. Arguing with Annie. Accused by Lineo. A proposal from Johan. “I need to sit down,” she said.
