by Alyssa Cole
“Love them,” Sanyu repeated, then cleared his throat, as if the words had left a saccharine residue. “That’s what I don’t get about this. With my marriage, I can send my wife away when she displeases me. Just like that.” He snapped. “Isn’t that simpler? And what does love have to do with marriage anyway? The king’s union is a tribute to Omakuumi and Amageez—strength and strategy.”
He thought of the possibility he’d seen in Shanti’s eyes the night they’d met, when she’d said she’d honor and protect him.
“I know you’ve taken the things your father and Musoke taught you to heart, but even you have to see that this makes no sense,” Lumu said.
“It does make sense, though,” he said. “As a king, I can love my kingdom and know that it will never leave. Why would you do that with a person, who can go at any time? And all my kingdom asks is that I be fierce. A partner requires . . . things that are less pleasant and way more difficult.”
“I was taught in the palace school, so I know why you say these things, but I was not raised in the palace,” Lumu reminded him. “I had other people to explain to me what love and care was, and to model what a relationship entailed.”
Sanyu regretted bringing the topic up. Lumu was supposed to be a disciple of Amageez but always spoke of things that didn’t seem logical to Sanyu at all, like love and communication, and feelings.
“The wives of the Njazan king are for physical needs, not emotional ones,” he said bluntly. “What else do I need to learn?”
Not for the first time in their lives, Lumu looked at him with undisguised pity. “Sanyu.”
“What?” He shrugged again, the weight on his shoulders feeling heavier than usual. “You just give your love to people, freely and with confidence that it will last, or that you won’t disappoint them? And you think I’m the one behaving strangely?”
Lumu shook his head. “I’m not confident that it will last. I’m confident that we’ll do everything we can to ensure it does. Matti and Zenya enrich my life, but I can’t ask them to stay just so I won’t be unhappy. I do what I can to make them happy so that they want to stay, just as a king does everything he can to ensure his subjects are satisfied so they don’t stage a revolt.”
“So you make an exchange?” Perhaps Shanti had been attempting to trick him when she said she wouldn’t barter.
“No,” Lumu said. “I love. And I communicate. And I try to understand and apologize when I can’t or don’t do either of those things well. That’s it.”
The thought of doing all that made Sanyu’s heart beat too quickly. It was against everything his father and Musoke had taught him, in word and in action. It wasn’t how a king treated anyone. Not his child. Not his subjects. Most certainly not his queen. Maybe if he’d truly escaped when he was younger, or when he’d shamefully run from his father’s death bed, he could entertain the idea of that kind of relationship. But now, as king . . .
“Isn’t such deference weakness?” he asked before he could stop himself.
Lumu sighed deeply and ran his hand over his cornrows, then made the curled fingers gesture of annoyance common amongst much older Njazans. “You are always talking about this weakness. Love is weak! Kindness is weak! Understanding is weak! I know why you speak like this. But ask yourself, what is it for a man to be so worried about appearing weak that he’ll deny himself every pleasure in life to prove his strength? I know what I would call it.”
Sanyu popped an antacid before meeting his friend and advisor’s too-knowing gaze.
“You will be late for Matti and Zenya’s meeting, Lumu. You may go.”
Lumu came around the desk and placed his hand on Sanyu’s shoulder.
“I hope you know that what I said today comes from a place of caring, not judgment,” he added, and those words were a balm for the embarrassment Sanyu still felt. “You are my king, and you are my friend. What you are not, and don’t have to be, is your father.”
Sanyu made a gruff sound in response and Lumu clapped him on the back before leaving.
Sanyu didn’t know what to call the constant need to prove his strength to his people. All he knew was that he was failing badly at it.
In any event, he was glad the minister had chanced seeing him. This meant that he had no reason at all to go speak with Shanti to discuss Njaza’s financial matters. He could now return to his original plan—ignore her and wait for her to leave.
It was the smart thing to do.
SANYU HAD CREPT around the palace at night often as a boy, when he’d still been curious about things. Sometimes, it had been to sneak out and look at the stars. Sometimes, it had been with the intention of running away, of finding his mother and asking her how she could leave him.
He knew which crevasses hid him from view of guards doing their rounds, and the best tapestries to hide behind if you heard someone approaching.
He was still creeping around the castle like a child up past bedtime, hiding from his royal retinue, even though he was king. Even though he had told himself he would not go to see her.
Iron fist, my ass, he thought as he turned down the corridor that led into the queen’s wing. The guard there looked at him again in surprise.
“Is there a problem, Your Highness?” Kenyatta asked.
Sanyu paused, wondering what would cause a guard to have the audacity to question him not once but twice. “Why would there be a problem with a king visiting his queen?”
“It is unusual, and I have to note unusual things in order to best do my job, Your Highness.”
“While I appreciate your dedication, there is no problem.” Kenyatta nodded, but he felt her eyes on him as he walked toward Shanti’s door, as if he were an intruder.
He knocked on her door only once. She opened it like she’d been waiting for him, and his greeting caught in his throat.
Though she had her usual red lipstick on, she wore pajamas: a yellow velour camisole and matching pants that clung to her hips and thighs and belled out around her feet. She looked soft and plush, like a naughty Pikachu. Sanyu was horrified that such a cursed phrase had ever formed in his mind, but . . . it was accurate.
“Hello, Husband,” she said, then smiled. She looked pleased to see him, as if he were there for a social visit. “I’m glad to see you.”
“If you show a wife kindness, they’ll always expect more from you, like a stray cat you throw a scrap to that then returns every morning.”
His father’s words played in his head but they were an automatic reaction—he’d spent a lifetime breaking the bones of his own instincts, his own needs, resetting them to fit the mold laid out for him by those he loved the most.
But Sanyu wasn’t his father—he’d always wanted a cat.
“Hello, Wife,” he said, keeping any warmth from his voice even though he felt it in his body as he looked down at her. “I trust you’re prepared for our meeting.”
Her smile didn’t falter but her gaze slid away from his.
“Of course. Come in.” She stepped aside and the scent of tea reached him—the nighttime blend he’d drunk as his father told him bedtime stories. It was a scent wrapped up with memories of his father’s love and his father’s expectation, and smelling it in this unexpected place made his throat go rough.
He subtly cleared his throat and walked toward the intricately decorated teapot with matching cups set up on a carved wooden tray resting on the table in her receiving area, feeling bulky and stiff when he sat. Shanti glided gracefully into the seat across from him.
They just looked at each other for a long moment, as they’d been doing for months—as if someone was still in the room with them.
But no one was with them.
They were alone.
Just him and sexy Pikachu.
“I’ll pour the tea,” he said suddenly, needing to do something with his hands. It was fine to be attracted to his wife, but he certainly wasn’t going to act on it.
“You’re my guest,” she said in a tone that was steel w
rapped in silken velvet. “I’ll pour.”
“A guest who is king,” he reminded her. “The king can be served or he can serve. He does whatever he wants.”
Shanti held his gaze as she reached over, picked up the teapot by the wooden handle, and then poured tea first into his cup and then into hers.
“Do you take sugar?” she asked, as though she hadn’t just blatantly defied his wishes. He remembered that quiet strength he’d seen in her from their very first meeting—a strength that he’d sought his entire life but could only mimic.
Every time he glimpsed that set of her shoulders and raising of her chin, it confused him. He’d been told all his life that no woman was strong enough to be a True Queen. No wife was strong enough to stay—he’d seen that himself over the years. But maybe . . .
No. Shanti would leave in just a few weeks. He doubted he’d take another wife soon after—although he needed to produce an heir, so there would be at least one.
Even if there was only one wife there should be more than one child; bearing the weight of an entire kingdom’s future on your own shoulders was too much for one person. The one time he’d ever firmly spoken back to his father and Musoke was during a turbulent argument about whether it was safe for him to go to high school abroad. Musoke had been listing all the terrible things that could happen, leaving the kingdom without an heir, and Sanyu’s teenage temper had erupted in a shout.
“If an heir is so important, just have more children and let me live my life! What is the point of so many wives if not to have children?”
Musoke had taken a deep breath as if to bellow, but the king had sighed heavily. “You push the boy to be strong but expect him not to speak back? Leave him. He is right.”
Sanyu had expected to hear a birth announcement all throughout high school, but his father had never sired another child—the last queen arrived and left during Sanyu’s senior year. He never even met her; he’d stopped visiting the queen’s wing well before he’d left and had forgotten most of the queens. The only reason he remembered anything about the last one at all was because of the shock she’d caused by not telling anyone about her appendix pain.
But he was here now, with a queen who seemed like she’d be impossible to forget.
“Tell me how living in Njaza has been for you,” he commanded just as she slipped a cube of sugar into his cup. It landed with a splash as her gaze jumped to meet his, revealing nothing.
“I thought we were going to talk politics, Husband.”
“Your thoughts on my kingdom is politics,” he said. “Humor me.”
“It’s been . . .” She held out his teacup with one hand and made a gesture he didn’t understand at all with the other, a kind of circle, as if she were whipping cake batter.
He took the cup with one hand and mimicked her hand motion with the other. “What does that mean? Is it some kind of Thesoloian gesture?”
“No.” She appeared to roll her eyes, but he decided it was a nervous tic because his wife wouldn’t do such a thing. “Do you want me to be honest?”
“Of course,” he said. “Why would I want you to lie? That would be pointless.”
Now he wondered if lying was the norm for her since she had to ask whether or not to tell the truth. It occurred to him that he was probably overthinking. Not overthinking was difficult, which was why he occasionally preferred the numb state he’d been in until very recently.
“Well, then.” She ran a manicured thumb around the gold-painted rim of her cup, then glanced up and met his gaze. “It’s sucked,” she said with a bluntness that surprised him even though he’d asked for it. “It’s really, really sucked. Truly.”
So she wasn’t a liar, then. Even he, who had grown up with Musoke’s sharp words constantly jabbing him, thought she could have been more polite.
He leaned forward. “You’ve been well taken care of. You have food, shelter, a job to keep you busy. I didn’t think you wanted for anything.”
No, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d seen the way she’d looked at him, eyes full of an unfathomable something whose meaning seemed to overlap with the pull he felt toward her. She wanted something, but he was certain he couldn’t give it to her.
“I thought you were . . . not unhappy,” he added.
He was the liar. The fog that had gathered around him following his father’s death hadn’t been opaque—he’d seen her unhappiness and frustration. He’d ignored it and pushed it to the back of his mind because it hadn’t seemed important to him. Because it shouldn’t have been.
“Why do you think I came here?” she asked. “Why do you think I married you? I knew you warned me not to, but why do you think I did?”
He could say the first crude thing that came to mind, words like barbed wire to keep her from getting closer when he was supposed to be the one asking questions here.
“Women come for the coin and the crown,” his father’s voice echoed in his head, even if it didn’t feel right applying that to Shanti.
“I don’t know. I didn’t understand why anyone would willingly come to this place,” Sanyu said. He sipped his tea so fast after that admission that he burned his tongue.
“I married you because I wanted to become a queen,” she said.
So she had come for the crown, he thought bitterly, when of course she had.
“I wanted to be a queen so I could help people and change the world.” She put her cup down. Her eyes were bright with a determination that both shamed and awed him. “It’s as simple as that. It didn’t matter where. It only mattered that I have enough power to do it.”
Sanyu suddenly remembered what she’d said during their first meeting: “I came to Njaza to be queen. If you don’t want to make me one, say so and stop wasting my time.”
He’d thought her a crown chaser after the prestige and the nonexistent coins in the Njazan coffers. He’d been a fool. When she’d wandered the halls looking sad, he’d thought it was because she wanted his love—wanted him. Some part of him, buried beneath the sadness and not-fear, had taken a fucked-up delight in the fact that maybe someone cared enough about him to be miserable because of him instead of making him miserable.
He hadn’t considered that her disappointment wasn’t from lack of a fairy-tale marriage, but from watching her dreams wither. In a way, Sanyu could understand—his dream for a future where he wouldn’t be a failure to his people had disappeared when he’d become king. Still, he felt an odd ache from the realization that his wife had never wanted him at all.
“Why do you need to be a queen to help people?” he asked gruffly. “That’s very specific.”
And it didn’t fit at all with how he saw being a king.
“It—I—well, so what if it is?” She crossed her arms. “I’ve always wanted to be a queen. And my parents worked so hard to help me become one, made so many sacrifices. They were the laughingstocks of the village and people seemed to be waiting for the day I got a regular job and married a commoner so they could tell my parents they’d wasted their lives. My resolve is impressive but even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t let them down by changing my mind.”
Sanyu sipped the dregs of his tea and looked into the cup—no leaves to tell him how to proceed.
“I can understand wanting to please your parents,” he said. “But you should have been a bit more discerning. You chose the wrong kingdom for making change.”
She made a sound of annoyance and his head jerked up to meet her gaze. Now she looked like a Pikachu ready to shoot lightning bolts.
“Don’t you want to help your people?” she asked. “Why do you want to be king?”
“I don’t,” he said, rolling his shoulders to loosen the tension. “I was born into the job.”
That wasn’t quite true . . . beneath the layers of not-fear and expectation and frustration was buried the part of him that sometimes thought he could be a good king.
“These are your people, and no one has let them become mine.” Shanti’s fists were balled in h
er lap. “Njaza could be a mighty kingdom, Husband. If you don’t want to help make it that, the least you can do is not let the council further weaken it.”
By the council, she meant Musoke, and he heard Musoke’s words from years back echo in his head now. “A wife uses your desire to win hers.”
“Don’t mistake my command that you help me for weakness.” He glowered at her. “And don’t try to turn me against my advisors.”
Shanti leaned forward, breasts swelling over the neckline of her camisole, eyes wide and lips luscious. His wife could enchant him, if he let her. Was she seeking to lead him by his . . . nose?
“Sanyu. We need to be very clear about what will happen between us here.” She pushed her hair back over her shoulder, exposing the soft skin of her neck, the dip of her clavicle.
Sanyu’s hands clenched. This was where she would try to trap him, bend him to her wishes. This was why wives were for comfort and not counsel.
She ran her tongue over her lips, then spoke. “You’re going to tell me what you want to do to make your kingdom great and I’ll help you figure out how to do it.”
He stared at her, so shocked that his words tumbled out without him thinking. “I thought you were just going to tell me what you wanted me to do.”
That was what his life had been for so long—people telling him how to act, what to wear, what to think. He’d resented the thought of his wife leading him, but he realized that part of him had wanted her to.
She snorted, a surprisingly indelicate sound. “Oh, I could. I have definite ideas about what this kingdom needs. I’ve run projections that show the probable futures of Njaza, compiled dossiers on organizations that can help and countries that might be allies, summarized reports on better farming practices and environmental conservation, and I really love imagining Njaza with a thriving tourism industry. I take my job as queen very seriously, even if I’m the only one who does. But I’m not going to just hand over my brilliant ideas. This is a group project and you’ll have to put in some work, too, O great and mighty King.”
Sanyu’s whole body went tight with a sudden, sharp hunger sparked by the way there wasn’t one millimeter of give in her voice—he was used to people speaking to him sternly, but this was something else. It wasn’t an attempt at control; it was respect enough to push him to make his own decision. By Omakuumi, he wanted to step over the coffee table that stood between them in one stride.
