dropped his hand. “Distractions. Goddess grant me patience, my hard work is a distraction. My future is a distraction?”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, taking her hand again. “I weighed how the meeting was going and decided that we had overburdened the agenda. I didn’t want to add one more thing and then have the advisors revolt because that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Having you stand and speak might have made them reconsider everything else that had been agreed to.”
She tugged her hand away again and paced away from him, a sick feeling settling in her stomach. “So my ideas and my time are good enough for you to claim, but I still get to sit quietly on the queen’s bench. You moved it closer to you, but that only gave me a better view of the process I’m not allowed to take part in.”
He scrubbed his hand over his beard in frustration. “I don’t understand. You want me to make my own decisions, and then when I do, you get mad at me over them?”
“I’m allowed to get mad,” she gritted out. “It wasn’t Musoke, or the council members who have no idea what’s going on, who chose to cling to tradition. This was you! My teammate. We’ll never know how everyone would have reacted because, when it came down to it, you cut me out to prevent imagined pushback. You didn’t even risk a real discussion. Because maybe you feel the same way they do.”
The idea hurt her, but maybe she’d fooled herself into thinking Sanyu wanted the same things she did.
His expression was thunderous.
“You’re so obsessed with making change so that you can feel you’ve achieved your goal that you’re forgetting I know the advisors better than you,” he said. “I’m not throwing the work we did away or ignoring your opinion. The matters were pushed to the next meeting, and they will be addressed then. That was my decision as king.”
Shanti shook her head, disbelieving.
“The next meeting? The next meeting scheduled for after I’m supposed to be gone?” She paced harder. “In private you treated me as your True Queen, your equal, but you haven’t told anyone I helped you with your decision and you haven’t kept your word about bringing the matter of equality before the council. I’m supposed to trust that you will, eventually, do the right thing? And you wonder why the people of this kingdom doubt you!”
Sanyu’s shoulder hunched and his gaze dropped away. “This is why I didn’t even want to try. What’s the point? I thought today went well. I thought it was the best I’d ever done—even Musoke complimented me afterward for finally taking command of my kingdom. And yet all you can do is point out my errors. Teamwork, yes?”
She frowned at him. “This isn’t about getting a pat on the head from Musoke. The fact that you spent hours talking to him, the man who’s trying to rule the kingdom while standing in your shadow, instead of me, your queen, makes no sense. He threatened to put me on trial and you speak of him as if he’s someone who can still be trusted. Did you mention moving the military parade during your chat?”
“What, am I supposed to banish him? He raised me, Shanti. I can’t cut him out of the process entirely—I can’t cut him out of my life or out of this kingdom! His kingdom!” He threw his hands up. “The parade will be scaled down without being moved. I thought it best to offer a concession, given the other changes I’ll be making.”
“You don’t offer concessions that hurt other people, and will eventually hurt you, too,” she said, incredulous. “And am I not to represent Njaza at the summit?”
Am I supposed to beg you to tell me whether you’re going to end the marriage trial or not?
“You don’t have to give that talk,” he said in a cold voice. “I know you’re excited to play royalty, but you didn’t even ask whether you had the right to speak for Njaza before you accepted, and now you want me to move a parade honoring my father and my kingdom to accommodate you. Part of being a queen is making sacrifice.”
“Sanyu—”
She stopped, recognizing the stubborn set of his jaw from the first night she’d met him. The night he’d decided he would have nothing to do with her, and had kept to that decision for months.
“You’re the one who reminded me