How to Catch a Queen (Runaway Royals #1) - Alyssa Cole Page 0,110

travel far, but just left enough space between them for her anger and his contrition.

She picked up one of the trays of food and he picked up the other and they headed out to serve the queens.

AFTER THEY’D EATEN, Shanti listened as Anise told Sanyu the same tale she’d shared with her earlier.

“Every kingdom is a story,” Anise said to Sanyu.

When she’d told it to Shanti, she’d started with, “Once upon a time, there were three generals.”

She was changing the framework of this history in the way her specific audience would best understand—the sign of a true communicator, and perhaps the reason why she was the priestess of Okwagalena.

“Every kingdom is a story,” Anise said. “Every government is a story. Even the gods, the land, and the sea don’t pop up from nothing. We create and shape all things in our image. In Njaza, some humans decided where bogs would be dredged and homes would be built and how the shapes of lakes would be formed. Someone decided where the highway would go and where the Central Palace would sit, looking out over the capital. Someone also decided what our traditions would be—what Njaza’s story would be. Your father, Musoke, and I were the victors after Liechtienbourg was driven out and the inter-Njazan clashes were quelled, and we decided how we wanted to tell that story.”

Sanyu sat watching Anise, enthralled.

“We believed we were chosen, you know,” she said with a laugh that had probably once been bittersweet but was now just sad. “We had formed a triad, the pure union, without even really knowing the history and customs that the Liechtienbourgers had almost managed to erase. But the old ways hadn’t disappeared from my family completely, and I found the old histories that hadn’t been destroyed. The tales of the ancient battle, where Omakuumi, Amageez, and Okwagalena joined their powers to defeat those who would harm Njaza.”

“Okwagalena?” Sanyu shook his head. “I don’t understand this. Njaza is the kingdom of the two gods.”

“And one goddess,” Anise said. “Though technically in the old tales, Omakuumi, Amageez, and Okwagalena had no fixed gender. Why would gods restrict themselves in such a way?”

She shook her head.

“But why would you change things?” Sanyu asked. “Musoke is so set on preserving the old ways that he can’t see to our kingdom’s future. My entire life, he’s tried to make me bend to tradition and to rule Njaza by the ways of the two gods. Strength and wisdom.”

Shanti wanted to hold Sanyu’s hand—his whole world was being upended, again. But though he often thought otherwise, he was strong. He didn’t make Anise stop.

“How did this happen? I need to know.”

Anise sighed.

“No relationship can exist solely with strength and strategy or force and cunning—there has to be love and peace and hope to bind those things,” she said. “But after the war was won, Sanyu—your father, that is—began to focus on how military might had been the true cause of our victory. Musoke countered that no, it was his gift of strategy that allowed the military to succeed. Both of them, my dear ones, began to laugh at the idea that love was necessary for anything at all. As if they’d fought without love for their country and without hope for a peaceful future—and as if my own care for them hadn’t driven me to incredible feats to protect them. Love is a fierce thing, as is hope. Peace is harder to cultivate than war, and that is why Okwagalena was the most powerful in the old tales.”

“And that’s why they decided to erase her,” Sanyu said.

Anise nodded.

“We argued many, many times, but they refused to concede that strength and strategy alone are not good guides on the path to a harmonious kingdom. I left. And I guess they decided to never allow love into the palace again. Like the Liechtienbourgers, who wanted to believe we were godless and in need of guidance, they erased the parts of Njazan history that didn’t suit their story.”

Sanyu heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m so used to someone telling me what is. When I have to decide for myself, there are so many choices. What if I’m wrong? Surely my father and Musoke thought they were right. What if the story I decide to tell is the wrong one?”

Shanti thought back to her own story, the one comprised of clippings and words from the queens who had inspired her. She wondered if the response welling inside of her was something she’d