Shuri

by Nic Stone

  She exits the throne room with what feels like sacred fire crackling in her bone marrow, formulating a plan as her feet pad soundlessly over the marble floors. From what she’s deduced so far, something is destroying the plant cells from the inside. Which seems like a simple problem to solve: Isolate the foreign agent, figure out how it’s getting in, and find a way to eliminate it.

  But it hasn’t been simple at all. And after watching T’Challa’s vessel shoot toward the storm cloud–filled horizon, Shuri gets a flash of an idea, not unlike the brilliant strike of lightning in the distance, that she hopes will get her one step closer to figuring out why.

  What every Wakandan primary schooler knows: Thousands of years ago a meteorite made of Vibranium crashed to Earth, creating the Sacred Mound that, to this day, is mined by members of K’Marah’s home tribe for the highly valuable substance. Civilization eventually sprang up around it, and now Wakanda, secret bastion of science and technology, exists as one of the most advanced nations in the world.

  And something Shuri knows as a member of the royal family and descendant of Bashenga, the first-ever Black Panther: The heart-shaped herb’s panther-prowess-giving properties come from a Vibranium-rooted mutation that permanently altered the composition of the plant.

  But there’s more. Something that hadn’t occurred to her until that jagged shoot of electricity in the sky jogged her memory.

  Three years ago, while working on a project for her History of the Wakandas course with a professor so mystical in his leanings that Shuri had a tendency to write off just about everything he said, she stumbled upon the digital archive of an ancient text. Like, words-hand-printed-on-what-looked-like-pages-made-from-the-papery-casing-that-protects-the-pulp-of-the-baobab-fruit type of ancient.

  At the time, she chalked the reading up to myth, but now, a piece of it pulses at the front edge of her consciousness, almost like it’s radioactive: According to the parchment, ancient Wakandans figured out how to manipulate storm clouds in a way that channeled celestial energies. This—supposedly—created the pathway that pulled the Wakandan Vibranium meteorite down to Earth.

  As the princess practically skips back to her chambers, a series of mildly unscientific ideas begin to coalesce in her head. She’ll have to leave Wakanda to get to the source of the information she’s after … but if there’s a chance of saving the herb—and her own potential future by extension—it’s worth both the risk and extra effort.

  Shuri carefully closes her door and rushes into her closet to begin making calculations and gathering supplies.

  A check of her Kimoyo card reveals that there are precisely three days, six hours, twenty-seven minutes, and forty-four … forty-three, forty-two, forty-one, forty … seconds until the Challenge will commence.

  Once inside her own travel vessel, Shuri will need approximately eighty-six minutes to reach her destination. Hopefully, it won’t take long to make contact with her … contact. The princess will explain the dilemma and ask her questions, then get on her way back home with the right answers—or at least some new information that will help lead her in the right direction.

  She can depart in the morning and return within twenty-four hours. Which will leave her with just over two days to complete a version of the Panther Habit that will get T’Challa through Challenge Day minimally scathed and with maximum flexibility, and if not solve the issue with the herb, at least deduce what is causing it.

  So absorbed is the princess in her planning, she doesn’t realize she has a visitor until a voice rings out from behind her.

  “I take it your conversation with the king was fruitful?”

  Shuri, who is kneeling to gather a few items from beneath the normally hidden lab station, startles and pops up too quickly, smacking the back of her head against the underside of the slide-out table.

  “OW!” Rubbing the forming knot, she turns to find the queen mother now looking past her at the no-longer-secret science sanctuary.

  “What in the name of—”

  “The conversation went great, Mother!” Shuri says, closing the space between herself and the queen, then grabbing her mother’s hand to pull her out into the open space of the bedroom. “Let me tell you all about it.”

  Queen Ramonda allows herself to be led to the bed, but when Shuri sits and pats the open space beside her—“Join me!” Smile for effect—Mother refuses to take the bait.

  Crosses her arms instead. “What are you up to, child? And what is that … contraption inside your dressing chamber?”

  “That old thing?” Shuri makes her best attempt at a dismissive wave. “Nothing at all! A small … experimentation-site-sort-of thing I built for those early-morning Eureka! moments. You know how fleeting they can be. T’Challa sends his regards!”

  The queen’s eyes narrow, and then she cocks her head to one side and a slight grin tugs at the corners of her mouth.

  This is when Shuri knows she’s in trouble.

  “And where are you going, Daughter?”

  A miniature big bang occurs at the base of Shuri’s throat, creating a universe of panic she can’t seem to speak beyond. She swallows in an attempt to force it down, which only serves to create a spinning, churning sensation in her stomach.

  She does manage to hold the gas in this time. “Hmm?”

  “The open carry case on your dressing chamber floor you were filling with different items when I came in. Are you planning a trip somewhere?”

  “Just to my lab!” Shuri practically shouts, so excited by the validity of the lie, she can hardly contain herself. “I brought those vials and flasks here last week while working on a trial I needed to monitor overnight. I know how you feel about my staying in the lab past curfew. Just trying to fulfill your wishes, Mother.”

  “Mm-hmm. And the change of clothes I saw?”

  Geesh, the woman has the eyesight of an African hawk eagle. “Those are for, uhh … in case I spill something! I read somewhere that working in clean clothes is good for productivity. Cleanliness is next to Bastliness, you know!”

  “Cleanliness is next to—?” The queen mother shakes her head, but Shuri can see that her blathering is working. “What am I going to do with you, Shuri?”

  “Trust me more,” the princess says as she rises to gently usher her mother to the door.

  “I trust that T’Challa impressed upon you the importance of keeping us abreast of your movements?”

  “Absolutely,” Shuri replies. “One-hundred-and-fifty percent, Mother.” Almost there. “If I move, there will be a full announcement over the intra-palace communication network.”

  The queen turns to glare at her. “Do not patronize me, child.”

  Whoops! Too far.

  Thankfully, they’re at the door now.

  “I think I’m going to call it a night!” Shuri opens her mouth wide in a fake yawn. “Thanks for coming by to check on me, Mumsie!”

  The queen mother steps into the hall, and the two Dora Milaje guards posted outside the princess’s chambers fall into formation at the queen’s sides, ready to escort her to wherever she’s headed next.

  As they walk away, Shuri exhales.

  But then Mother stops.

  “Shuri,” she calls without turning around.

  The princess shuts her eyes. “Yes, Mother?”

  “I have your word that you will permit at least one guard to escort you to your laboratory?”

  Fabulous. “Yes, Mother.”

  “Excellent. I will alert General Okoye of your intentions to make the journey. I am trusting you to be in contact with her with the details of precisely when. Am I understood?”

  Shuri sighs. “Yes, ma’am.”

  The queen gives a curt nod and continues up the hall, away from her daughter and the smoldering wreckage that is Shuri’s Save-the-Nation-in-Three-Days-or-Less plan.

  Once Mother and her pair of (unnecessary, considering they’re inside the most fortified edifice in Wakanda) warrior companions disappear around a corner, Shuri t
urns around, slumps back against her gilded bedroom wall, and slides to the floor like low-viscosity silicone oil down the side of a glass vial.

  Except this time when she closes her eyes, she sees the globe of her homeland crushed to dust, and hears an echo of one of the words she heard near the fire: khusela.

  Protect.

  In fact, if she didn’t know better, she’d swear someone is whispering it into her ear.

  Her eyes snap open, but this time, instead of panic, Shuri feels only the prickling sizzle of determination ghost over her skin.

  She lifts her arms, shifts her Kimoyo beads, and taps to call her dear brother.

  And … T’Challa doesn’t answer. (Typical.)

  Which leaves Shuri with no choice but to camp outside his quarters until he returns from wherever he zipped off to.

  It’s after ten p.m. when he finally does. He’s still in his Panther suit, but without the mask. And he appears weary.

  He’s also clearly not expecting to find his little sister waiting outside his door, looking like she has lit charcoal powder coursing beneath her skin.

  He stops dead when he sees her. Then shakes his head. “I should have known you would be here,” he says, nodding at the two Dora Milaje standing sentinels in turn. He pushes the door open, and as Shuri follows him into the vast space beyond, she notices his slightly wonky gait, and how the habit he’s wearing … rides up in the back.

  Looks quite uncomfortable.

  So there’s no turning back.

  “I need your help,” she says, pushing past the urge to ask why his shoulders are slumped and what’s happening at the border and why it took so long for him to return and if they’re going to be invaded. It’s not as though he would actually answer any of those queries.

  “We are not postponing Challenge Day, Shuri. Herb problem or no herb problem, it is completely out of the question—”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  Now he turns to look at her.

  Shuri takes a deep breath. “I need you to cover for me, T’Challa.”

  He crosses his arms. “Cover for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “While you do what, exactly?”

  On the walk over from her own rooms, Shuri decided she’d lean into the lie she’d told Mother: She wants to spend some uninterrupted time in her lab. She’s hoping that because T’Challa gave her the suit task, and she has to be in the lab to complete it, he’ll do as she asks and tell Mother there’s no need for her “guards.”

  “I mean, nothing too terrible or risky. Just want to work on your suit. That wedgie looks …” She cringes for effect. “Yikes.”

  T’Challa scowls. “Why do you need a cover?”

  “Wellll … after learning of my visit to the Sacred Field, Mother is watching me more closely. If she had her way, I’d be consistently surrounded by her informants so she can keep minutely detailed tabs on my every movement.”

  Now T’Challa smirks. “Not too terrible an idea, if you ask me.”

  Shuri rolls her eyes. “So you’ll do it, then? I need freedom to work from approximately zero eight hundred hours into the evening.”

  He shakes his head. “You know how Mother is, Shuri. I’ll request that the guard stay outside the lab so as not to distract you—”

  “T’Challa, please. The presence of a guard within a one-hundred-meter radius would be distracting. You know how experimentation goes … one wrong move triggered by an unexpected sound or motion or anything, and KA-BLOOEY! The last thing I need while working on YOUR new habit is some sort of intruder-triggered accident.” She throws her hands up.

  T’Challa merely raises an eyebrow. “You are not making a good case for your request, Shuri.”

  The princess sighs. “Are you going to vouch for me or not?”

  When he looks away, Shuri knows what his answer will be. “What Mother wants, Mother gets, little sister. You know this as well as I do.”

  “But she will listen to you, T’Challa! There is no way I can truly work with a Dora hovering about, watching my every move! This affects you, too, you know …”

  “I’m sorry, Shuri. New suit or not, I will not oppose Mother so overtly.”

  So blackmail it’ll be, then.

  Shuri lifts her chin. She’s not the only one who has slipped into neighboring nations without the queen mother’s knowledge. “Cover for me, or I’m going to tell Mother where you were really going on those ‘covert scouting missions’ last year. And the year before. I have video and records of your flight paths.” She humphs.

  For a moment T’Challa is silent. Then: “So you intend to play hardball, eh?”

  The princess lifts her chin higher.

  “I must admit, I would not have expected such underhandedness from someone like you, Sister.”

  “I will do what I must for the good of my country.”

  At this, T’Challa chuckles. Which ignites a torch of rage within Shuri’s chest. This … dismissal is precisely what she must stand in defiance of. She opens her mouth to respond, but T’Challa speaks again: “Take Ayo,” he says. “She can post outside the entrance chamber.”

  “No way,” the princess replies. “Ayo is bound by an oath to the throne. You are the sitting king, and she will do as you say, yes. But as you continue to point out, Mother is the queen. If she did as she said she would and instructed General Okoye to have all Dora Milaje report back to her regarding my activities, they are bound to do so, T’Challa. No matter which Dora is sent, I’ll be monitored more closely than our Vibranium stores.”

  T’Challa considers this for a moment, then sighs and lifts his arms. “Sorry, Sis. No guard, no go,” he says.

  His Kimoyo card chimes, and as he checks it, Shuri glances around his surprisingly sparse quarters. Baba had been more extravagant than T’Challa. Gone is the massive four-poster bed with black chiffon canopy. The long, curved leather couch and gold-legged granite table that sat atop the also-missing (synthetic) panther-pelt rug. The pair of larger-than-life-size, hand-carved, black alabaster panther statues that stood sentinel on each side of the room’s double doors.

  Even the floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books are gone. (“Better for them to be in the library instead of here collecting dust for the sake of a look,” T’Challa had said. And he hadn’t been wrong, but still.)

  The difference in the space gives her a chill. She tries not to think about it too much, but Shuri misses her father. She has a hunch Baba wouldn’t have been opposed to her learning hand-to-hand combat and gaining proficiency with various weapons. Undergoing the same rigorous study-and-training regimen as T’Challa had.

  Especially since she’s first in-line to the throne.

  Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but standing in this room, remembering the way her father would launch her into the air above his head and catch her, how excited he’d get when she’d come to him with something she’d built from the little click-blocks she loved to play with as a child, Shuri is fully convinced Baba would be behind her in this.

  She has to make him proud.

  Time to bring out the big guns. “I won’t have a Dora stationed outside my lab, T’Challa.”

  “Then perhaps you won’t be spending as much time there as you’d like. Frankly, there isn’t much Mother can do about my past indiscretions, so your threat is without impact, and, therefore, without power.”

  Shuri locks and loads. “Okay,” she says with a shrug. Then aims and … fires. “Guess I’ll just have to tell Nakia how you really feel about her.”

  T’Challa’s eyes go wide. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, I absolutely would. Remember that night you drank a bit too much pineapple wine at Eldress Umbusi’s birthday party, and I had to assist you?” Shuri reaches into the pocket of her tunic and produces a single Kimoyo bead, which she drops into her bracelet. The moment she taps it, T’Challa’s voice fills the cavernous space. “She is more beautiful than the baobab plain at sunrise. More delightful than the pulp of a
ripe mango. She smells better than—”

  “Okay, okay! Stop it!” T’Challa says, and Shuri smiles as she shuts the bead off.

  “Quit your grinning,” he continues. “You will have six hours.”

  “Six?” That won’t work for her true plan. At least two would be eaten by travel, and once you add an additional half hour on each end to prepare for travel, half of the allotted time is gone. “But that’s not enough time!”

  He shrugs. “You want more time, take a guard.”

  “I won’t be able to truly focus!”

  They fall into silence.

  But only for a brief moment. Because then T’Challa’s face illuminates like an LED filament light bulb.

  And in that instant, Shuri knows precisely what he’s going to say.

  “No …” she begins just as he shouts the exact thing she’s hoping he won’t:

  “K’Marah!”

  Based on the generic “K” response Shuri received on her Kimoyo card when she sent K’Marah a text message asking if she would fill the role of “lab assistant” the following day (“and wear trousers,” the message said), she’s expecting K’Marah to arrive at their meeting point cool, calm, and collected.

  She does not expect K’Marah to burst into her quarters before sunrise, and squeal like a tickled piglet as she somersaults through the air, and lands perfectly on her back in the bed as if she’d slept that way. She turns her face toward the princess, smiling as though the entire scenario were the most normal thing in the world. “Hi.”

  “You’re not serious,” Shuri replies, squeezing her eyes shut in hopes that when she opens them again—at least an hour from now—she will find herself alone and discover that this was nothing more than a terrible dream.

  But then there’s another high-pitched squeal. And her bed begins to shake.

  Because K’Marah is pounding her arms and kicking her legs like a jittery pre-primary schooler.

  “K’Maraaaaaaaaah!”

  “I am so EXCITED!” K’Marah practically screams.

  “Can you keep it down?” Shuri says, walloping her friend with a pillow. “Let’s not wake the entire palace!”