A Prince on Paper

by Alyssa Cole

  Nya hugged Portia back, hard.

  “My dungeon is always available if he hurts you,” Ledi said. “And I can lose the key if need be.”

  “I love you both,” Nya said, throat tight. She paused for a moment, a sudden choking happiness making her catch her breath. She had friends. Real friends, who loved her more than her imaginary childhood companions—constricted by the bounds of Nya’s imagination—ever had. “But I think this is one of those quests where I have to find my own tools.”

  After they helped Nya pack, laughing and talking about highlights of the reception, like the king and queen being caught kissing behind a giant floral arrangement, Ledi and Portia went back to their own rooms.

  Nya sorted through the correspondences in the basket beneath a slot on her door, an old-fashioned holdover at the mostly technologically advanced palace. There was one from a fellow teacher at the orphanage, asking Nya to stop by and chat.

  Ah well, maybe when I get back.

  The next envelope had her name in familiar flowing handwriting.

  No.

  She opened it, even though she knew nothing good awaited her.

  My obedient daughter,

  Have you truly forsaken me? Do you not understand that everything I have done, I have done for you? Every night, I sit in the silence of my cell and I speak to your mother. I tell her that what I always feared has come to pass—that our child has left me—and that I will soon join her and the ancestors because my heart cannot take such a blow.

  Nya stopped reading, even though several more paragraphs followed, crumpling the paper into a ball as she fought the waves of panic rippling through her. She dropped the paper to the floor and curled up on her bed, heart thudding in her chest and nausea roiling her stomach.

  She was ready to leave for Njaza. Now. Thabiso had warned that King Sanyu was frightening, but nothing scared her more than the effect her father’s words had on her.

  The unfamiliar coolness of the ring Johan had slipped onto her finger grazed her face as she pressed at her cheeks, and she allowed it to calm her.

  She already had the first tool she’d need for her quest, and she wouldn’t let her father hold her back any longer. She was going to travel, have fun, and not regret a damn minute of it.

  Chapter 9

  Jo-Jo Single No-Mo?

  We’re hearing reports that Johan is leaving Thesolo an engaged man!! We’re waiting for confirmation from Castle von Braustein before breaking hearts around the world, though popping the question at someone else’s wedding sounds par for the course for a scene stealer like Jo-Jo. The globe-trotting prince is scheduled to visit Njaza next. Sign up for our Royal Watchers app to get updates about the trip in real time!

  —The Looking Glass Daily, Royal Beat

  Johan had spent most of the night in Thesolo, and their plane ride northeast across the Continent to Njaza, telling himself that this wasn’t perhaps the worst miscalculation he’d ever made. It wasn’t that he regretted this—oh no, he didn’t, and that was the problem.

  He already felt despair pressing in at him each time Nya gave him a sweet smile or excitedly pointed something out as their car rolled toward the Njazan royal compound. She was so . . . open. He’d suited up, but she’d dropped whatever figurative armor she’d worn, as if his ring had cast off some evil sorcerer’s spell.

  As if this was real.

  If, when he’d first met her, she’d been the bud of a plant, curled in on herself, now she was unfurling, spreading her leaves. He wasn’t sure what he would do when she began to bloom in earnest, especially if it was for him.

  “Look at how beautiful it is! On the news, they only show bad things from Njaza,” she said. “But this is just a place like any other.”

  She sat with her face turned toward the window, her long braids spilling down her back. The tips of the bow she’d tied on her head wrap peeking up like cat’s ears. Her dress was a subdued Ankara print dress in orange and green, with capped sleeves and a skirt that went past her knees. A conservative “visiting royalty” dress that shouldn’t have made his heart hammer like it did.

  “Sugar Bubble.”

  “Yes?” She turned to look at him, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

  Johan’s emotions splashed up, a storm surge that was met with the barrier of his resolution that he wouldn’t feel more for her.

  “We should discuss how to handle this relationship. Since it’s fake.” There, it was out in the open again, that reminder that she shouldn’t expect too much from him. He thought the sparkle would leave her eyes, but instead she grinned.

  “Yes! I’ve been thinking about this. It’s going to be so much fun!”

  It bothered him, how she always seemed to defy his expectations, but it delighted him, too.

  “And how do you suppose we handle this fun?” he asked, trying to keep his expression neutral.

  Her face scrunched a bit, something she did when turning a thought over in her mind, he’d noticed. “We just have to do what we’ve been doing. Being friends. Isn’t that what a relationship is? Friendship?”

  Merde. She was so goddamn earnest. She was looking up at him with those big brown eyes, proudly declaring herself as his friend, a direct hit to the barriers Johan had thought almost invulnerable. Then her gaze dropped from his eyes to his lips and she made a small sound in her throat. “I guess there are other things.”

  His whole body went tight.

  “What other things?” he asked, his voice suddenly deeper. He wanted to hear her say them. He wanted a whole list, spoken in that sweet unassuming voice of hers.

  “You can hold my hand sometimes,” she ventured, tangling her fingers together in her lap. “Kiss my temple, gently, if you think that’s okay. When things get tense, you can do a wall slam. Oh, and you can threaten to kill anyone who looks at me!” She scowled menacingly after that, as if giving him instruction.

  “Pardon?” Johan cocked a brow.

  “This is how people show romantic affection for one another in my . . . experience. And we can look at each other like this.”

  Her chin lifted and she narrowed her eyes, then ran her gaze up and down his body. The pink tip of her tongue darted out over full dusky lips, and oh god, Johan had been wrong again. He was the one who didn’t want this to be fake. He wanted to know how soft those lips were, to feel that tongue slip against his.

  Oh là là là là là là là là.

  The air in the backseat of the Rolls-Royce was suddenly stifling, and sweat beaded beneath the hair at the nape of his neck.

  “How?” The word came out as a squawk and he cleared his throat. “How exactly does one re-create that look?”

  The sultry expression dropped away, replaced by her sunny smile. “I was just thinking about the comments I’d read about you on social media. ‘I would climb him like a redwood!’ and ‘I would lick him like an orange Creamsicle!’ You know, sexy things.” Her smile wavered and her head dipped with uncertainty. “Was it convincing?”

  Yes. The answer was a resounding yes. He could have just nodded and looked away.

  But.

  Johan’s control was gone, and there was nothing to leash him.

  He slid across the leather seat, closer to her, just shy of crowding her, and stared down into her eyes.

  “You did great. Maybe something like this would work, too,” he said. He imagined taking her face in his hands, kissing her deeply. Wondered whether the same curiosity she showed in everyday life would follow her into their bed.

  Their bed? What?

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked quietly. “It’s very effective.”

  You, he wanted to say. He couldn’t think of anything else. He was submerged in the warm brown depths of her irises. His nose was filled with the sweet scent of her, and he wanted to taste her, to sip at the nectar of her gentle kindness, as alluring as gingerbread houses and poisoned apples.

  “Schnitzel,” he replied, sliding back to his side of the seat. “A r
eally tender, delicious schnitzel.”

  “I’ll have to try this schnitzel when we get to Liechtienbourg if it can make you look like that. Oh, there’s the palace!” She turned and pressed her face closer to the window again as they approached the structure, which looked like an exercise in East African gothic design.

  Johan pressed a fingertip to the bridge of his nose. He needed to focus. He was an ambassador, and this meeting was important. He threw back his shoulders and lifted his chin as Nya looked back at him

  “Can I admit something?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes,” he said. “You can tell me anything. Confidant, remember?”

  He pointed to his imaginary sign, which was apparently always hung at his side now.

  “I’m really nervous.” Her eyes were huge and round. “I’m trying to be brave, but I tried to be brave in Manhattan, too, and I failed.”

  She trusted him enough to tell him her fears. Johan tried not to let that affect him, but it did, the warm sensation slipping into the cold and lonely passages of his soul.

  She sighed. “I don’t want to fail again, especially since you’re going to all this trouble—”

  “Spending time with you is not any trouble,” he said firmly. Not in the way she thought it was, at least. “And this isn’t some test. What is ‘failure’ here?”

  She paused. “I make mistakes and embarrass myself, and you. I prove everyone right who says that I am a silly girl who should have just stayed at home.”

  Johan had the feeling that “everyone” was her father. “Look. Only you get to decide how much a mistake embarrasses you, or what failure means. It’s normal not to feel brave. I never do.”

  “Really?” Her mouth quirked and one brow rose. “But you always know what to do. You never look worried.”

  “That’s bullshitting, not bravery, Sugar Bubble. It’s okay to be nervous. But you’re smart and engaging, and it shines through even when you try to hide yourself away.” He almost didn’t say the next thing, but even if she always surprised him, she was still human and he knew what she needed to hear. Maybe because he needed to hear it, too. “Besides, we’re in this together.”

  “We are,” she said, the fear leaving her eyes. “Thanks, Phoko.”

  “What is the Phokojoe tale, by the way?” he asked, memory sparked by the name. “Thabiso mentioned it to me.”

  “Oh.” She smiled softly. “Phokojoe was a fox god—demigod, really. A trickster with the ability to shape-shift. He could change himself into whatever the humans he encountered desired most.”

  He knew she wasn’t being unkind. She was unaware that she’d so deftly summed up his essential nature. This was why he both loved and hated fairy tales; they told you things about yourself you didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “Why?” he asked. “Does he eat them?”

  He cringingly remembered that he’d offered to do the same to her on the plane. That she was in Njaza with him, willingly, was some kind of miracle. Or maybe like the priestesses had implied, it was fate.

  “No! Phokojoe wasn’t bad. He was just lonely, and tricking people into liking him was easier than admitting that,” she said, head tilted. “At least that’s how I read it. But you know, everyone interprets stories differently.”

  Johan bristled, feeling as if she’d stripped him down in the backseat, and not in an enjoyable way.

  Mercifully, the car pulled to a stop then, and the door was opened by a serious-looking young man dressed in a long black robe.

  “Njaza welcomes you,” the young man said, bowing his head so that Johan could see the intricate patterns in his braids. The man glanced up at Nya, then quickly back down again. “And your betrothed.”

  “Thank you for having us,” Johan said, bowing as well.

  “Yes, thank you,” Nya said, stepping out of the car and matching the man’s low bow. “Your hairstyle is very becoming.”

  When they both straightened, the man was smiling—he wasn’t immune to Nya’s sweetness either, it seemed. “Thank you. I am Lumu, advisor to the king. You can both come with me.”

  They strode through the palace’s front door, a huge oval port with doors of what appeared to be gold. Images of warriors in battle stood in relief on the doors, a reminder to all that entered that Njaza was a land that had been feared for its fierceness, even when under the control of colonial forces.

  The hallways featured huge wooden statues in the same theme, and the ceilings were painted with images of their war gods, elegantly slaughtering invaders in baroque frescoes.

  “I see you brought me a gift,” Sanyu said grandiosely as they entered the receiving room, his gaze trained on Nya’s bow-tied head wrap.

  Johan could see why people deferred to Sanyu’s wish not to be called Stanley. He was even more massive than he had been as a teenager, taller, with a thick, muscular body—Johan considered asking him who his personal trainer was because his thighs were like damn tree trunks. His hair was shaved around the sides and at a slightly asymmetrical angle, and his goatee was styled in a similar fashion. His mouth was pressed into a line of bored amusement.

  “Does my present have a name?” Sanyu asked in his commanding voice, once again eyeing Nya.

  I’ll kill you for looking at her, Johan stopped himself from growling, and then marveled that Nya had been right about this relationship stuff, though he wasn’t faking that sentiment.

  He took her hand.

  Johan had prepared himself to put up with a certain amount of well-deserved shit from the newly installed king, but not this.

  “This is Nya, my fiancée, but very much her own woman.”

  Nya executed a curtsy, but her voice was colder than usual when she responded. “A pleasure to meet you, King Sanyu.”

  “It is a shame that she does not belong to you,” Sanyu said, meeting Johan’s gaze. “I thought I might take something precious and irreplaceable from you and then offer you a trifle in return, since you said you wanted to learn more about the historic relationship between our countries.”

  Johan said nothing, because the king was right on some level but was also about to get decked if he mentioned Nya one more time, thick thighs or not.

  Sanyu began to laugh, a belly laugh that held no mirth. “I am joking. I have a beautiful bride of my own, and unlike the Liechtienbourgers, I do not take things just because I have the strength to do so.”

  “I’d heard that the new king of Njaza was a man to be respected,” Nya said, surprising Johan. “Your bride hails from my kingdom, so I hope that this is the truth. I understand the point you seek to make, Your Highness, but treating me as an object does not deepen my regard for you or relations between our three countries.”

  Johan was a bit taken aback by her formal iciness but then he remembered that, sheltered as she had been, Nya was the granddaughter of respected elders and the daughter of a royal minister. She likely knew how to play at aristocratic brinkmanship, even if it wasn’t her forte.

  Sanyu stared at her, and then he nodded his deference. “I apologize, Nya, granddaughter of Annie and Makalele, daughter of Alehk. I see that you have inherited the Jerami pride, though I hope certain other traits skip a generation.”

  He motioned to an aide who took away a steaming cup of tea from the table beside him, then turned his gaze back to her.

  Nya gave him as hard a look as Johan had ever seen on her face, but then her gaze moved past him and softened.

  “Shanti!” she exclaimed, dropping both the aristocratic pretense and Johan’s hand as she hurried over to the dark-skinned woman in a yellow tunic dress who had entered the room. Johan noticed two things about the woman, immediately: she was both beautiful and enormously unhappy. Her surprise as Nya ran to her, the way her eyes filled with tears that she blinked away as Nya began speaking in Thesotho—Johan looked away to give them privacy.

  “My wife,” Sanyu said, watching with a closed-off expression as Shanti slowly became more animated, picking up on Nya’s enthusiasm.

>   Sanyu was unhappy, too.

  Hmm.

  “I again extend my hearty congratulations on your coronation and nuptials, and King Linus and Prince Lukas send theirs as well,” he said. He thought about what he knew of Sanyu. The new king of an unstable kingdom, raised by a father considered cruel and formidable. “Your father, and now you, have done and continue to do the actual work of rebuilding your country. I’m happy to discuss how Liechtienbourg contributed to the problems of this region, and what we can contribute to make it right. I’m not happy to let you insult my fiancée, though. Don’t do it again.”

  Sanyu smirked.

  “Your African fiancée, acquired just in time for a visit to a former colony? Do you think I was born this morning? I’m sure you’ve already alerted the paparazzi. What a great photo opportunity! The benevolent European prince and his African betrothed, washing away the sins of the past.” Sanyu spread his hands as if shaping a rainbow, then dropped them into his lap and gave Johan an unamused look.

  “I hadn’t thought of that angle,” Johan said, ruffling his hair. “That would play really well with the referendum crowd. ‘Prince Jo-Jo Solves Racism’ would be one of my better headlines. My stepfather could actually put that one on the fridge.”

  Sanyu looked at him for a long moment, again, and then allowed himself a chuckle. It wasn’t his boisterous laugh, but it was authentic and slightly less filled with malice.

  He clapped once. “Well. Since you have solved racism, you can come meet the children. Perhaps you can solve their problems as well.”

  WHEN THEY SHUFFLED into the modern hospital, which looked like a giant alien duck had laid a metallic egg alongside a beautiful lake, Johan felt at ease for the first time since his arrival.

  There was a certain lack of surety when it came to fake fiancées and angry kings and their silent wives, but talking to children was something Johan was good at. It was something he enjoyed—his mother had brought him with her on her travels, and she always made sure to talk to children, and more importantly to listen to them, just as she had listened to him when he was a boy. He made hospital visits often, but those were usually private and those that weren’t were considered PR to cover his ass for not covering his ass.