sound filling the car.
“No. To destroy the monarchy in all its forms,” Marie said.
The woman next to Sanyu patted his arm. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure you’re spared from the guillotine.”
He glanced down at her. “What?”
“We’re joking,” another of the acolytes said.
The car made a hairpin turn in the road just then and pulled up in front of a beautiful house of wood and stone and iron, a merging of ancient Njazan with the modern. The sun was setting behind it, bathing it in a fiery orange glow.
“We’re here,” Marie shouted out of the window. The queens piled out of the car, and Sanyu followed, still too dumbstruck to fully comprehend what was going on.
There was a ramp leading into the house, and above the doorway a phrase was carved:
Temple of Okwagalena of the Peace
The wooden double doors at the entryway opened and Shanti walked out, clad in jeans and boots and a light sweater but looking as beautiful and regal as when she sported her gowns.
The robe-clad woman who shuffled out beside her was shrunken with age, her hair a cap of soft gray curls, but her eyes were bright and assessing.
Around him, the former queens dropped into whatever level of curtsy they could safely perform. Sanyu didn’t know what was going on, but he dropped to one knee before the woman, keeping his head raised.
“You kneel before me, Sanyu II, King of Njaza?” The woman’s voice seemed too big for her small frame, and was carried on a frequency that made the hairs on his arms rise.
“Yes,” he said, studying her.
“Do you know who I am?”
“I do,” he said, because in that moment he understood. “You are the first queen of Njaza.”
The prototype.
Sanyu realized that he was looking at the reason no other queen had ever measured up in his father and Musoke’s eyes, the reason why so many women had been brought in for show and then tossed aside. And his own wife, his Shanti, stood side by side with her, as her equal. She was familiar to him somehow, though he was certain she’d never been at the palace when he was a boy like the other queens.
“I am Anise, attendant of Okwagalena. I am the one who left,” she said. “And you? You are the one who will restore balance to our kingdom.”
“Didn’t expect this when you came sniffing after your wife, did you?” Josiane asked with a laugh as she straightened slowly with assistance from Gertinj.
A cell phone timer went off and Anise pulled a sleek new model from a fold in her robe and tapped to stop it, then broke her serious expression with a smile.
“Come. It’s time for dinner. Shanti has cooked for us and we have much to discuss.”
Sanyu held his wife’s gaze. There was still anger and betrayal in her eyes, but he felt that she was glad he’d come to find her. The women around him had stopped holding their curtsies but he remained on one knee.
“Shanti,” he said. “Wife. What I did was wrong. I knew it was wrong when I did it, and I put my own desire to be praised and keep the peace before your happiness and the well-being of the kingdom. I am sorry.”
“He certainly didn’t inherit that from his father,” Anise said, glancing between the two of them. “That man wouldn’t apologize if he had a knife to his throat, Okwagalena soothe his spirit.”
Sanyu felt a twinge of anger at that, despite the fact that it was true, but kept his gaze on Shanti.
“Hope you’re not tired of my stew,” she said before turning on her heel to walk into the temple with Anise.
“Come on, Sanyu,” the older acolyte who’d sang to him said, holding out her hand. “Let’s go eat.”
“Ajira,” he said, her name coming to him as her soft hand closed around his. “Yes. Let’s go.”
Chapter 21
Shanti was trying to be logical and not let her anger and disappointment drive her decisions, but she was annoyed as she helped plate up food in the temple’s kitchen. Sanyu was being coddled like a child by a coterie of queens while she did all the work and—
She felt his presence beside her just before he pulled the ladle from her hand. “I can do this,” he said. “You cooked, so it’s only fair.”
She glanced up at him from the corner of her eye.
“Did you come to take the credit for finding the True Queen, too?” she asked tartly.
“She is the first queen, not