How to Catch a Queen (Runaway Royals #1) - Alyssa Cole Page 0,21

not mean to diminish your achievements,” he said, his voice strangled. “You—”

“I have been making sure this kingdom doesn’t fall apart for decades,” Musoke said. His voice was sharp and the tone oh so familiar, the poisonous tip of the scorpion’s tail that had hovered over Sanyu his entire life waiting for one misstep to strike. “There would be no throne for you to sit on if I didn’t manage everything, and you think to tell me what is acceptable and what isn’t?”

Sanyu’s stomach roiled. “Musoke—”

“Maybe you should be more concerned about your wife’s behavior than how I’m spending money,” Musoke continued, pushing the barb of the stinger in. Sanyu still wasn’t immune to this poison, not after all of these years. He was a grown man, and a strong one, but that stinger was sharp and Musoke knew where to jab. “You tell me what I should do, and yet you can’t keep your wife out of the council meeting or even keep her silent when you indulge her by letting her attend. You certainly haven’t changed much since you were as tall as my kneecap.”

Sanyu suddenly remembered the first time he’d known he couldn’t be king. Musoke had been drilling him on his speed and dexterity and his legs had become so tired he’d tripped over himself.

He’d been five, and Musoke had seemed huge to him then.

“You are weak, boy. Your father will not tell you plainly because he wishes for you to have a normal childhood, but I have always done what needed to be done, even when it was hard. If the future king cannot be told he is weak, so that he may grow stronger, there is no hope for this kingdom. Njaza’s future rests on your shoulders. Will you be strong enough to carry it when your father and I have passed on?”

The muscles in Sanyu’s neck locked up at the memory and his breathing sped up, but he held his chin high and shoulders back from sheer muscle memory as Musoke continued.

“All of the advisors are concerned about your ability to manage the kingdom since you can’t even manage your wife. Some even suggested you send her away earlier than scheduled. I told them to hold their tongues, not to speak against their king, but I can’t say I don’t agree with them.”

Shanti, a stranger to this kingdom, had spoken up against Musoke this morning. Sanyu wanted to run, to cave, but he had a bit of pride.

“I’ll take that under advisement, though sending her away early reflects worse on me, and our kingdom, than it does her.” Sanyu steeled himself before speaking the next sentence. “And that doesn’t change the fact that the funds have to come from somewhere else.”

Musoke turned and seemed to look down at him even though Sanyu towered over him.

“Has it even occurred to you that this parade will celebrate the loss of our greatest military hero? Your father? You would deny him this?”

“I have given my father, and my kingdom, everything,” Sanyu said. There was an angry growl in his voice, though his heart felt like it was being skewered on the end of a spear. “I will continue to do so by leading as best I can for as long as I live. Asking you not to misappropriate funds while our people question our financial standing is hardly denying him.”

“I will bring it before the council,” Musoke said, waving his hand with finality, and Sanyu felt the familiar urge to run from the eventual outcome—the not-fear that he’d first felt as a small boy standing in the center of a circle of guard trainees as Musoke pointed out his terrible form, not caring that he’d been given the heaviest practice staff. The not-fear that always bound him when he had to speak before a crowd or even in council meetings, that made him second-guess his opinions and strangled his words in his throat when he needed them.

The council would side with Musoke, as they always did, and he would either have to take this show of disregard for his opinion or fight back. He’d been raised to be a warrior king in a world that didn’t need one, but somehow he’d never won a battle of stubborn will with this whip-thin old man who’d never raised a hand to him.

“Fine,” Sanyu said. “So be it.”

He turned on his heel and strode out of the room, his frustration choking him and the retinue that had resumed trailing