How to Catch a Queen (Runaway Royals #1) - Alyssa Cole Page 0,33
spar this evening?” Lumu asked, smiling. “I know it helps clear your mind, and you have much to think on.”
“Maybe tomorrow. I have plans.”
“Plans? That aren’t on the agenda I made for you?” Lumu eyed him curiously, then shrugged when Sanyu didn’t respond. “Fine. Matti and Zenya have an important meeting tonight and asked me to come. They’ll be glad I don’t have to work late again.”
“About that . . .” Sanyu leaned back heavily in his seat. “Isn’t it a lot of unnecessary work dealing with one person, let alone two? I’ve never asked, but why did you do it? And how do you manage it?”
Lumu tilted his head to the side and regarded Sanyu shrewdly. “You want to know how I manage my relationships with my spouses?”
He tilted his head and blinked rapidly, a grin on his face.
Sanyu waved his hands. “No! No. I was just curious because, ah, it seems like a good exercise in . . . how to interact with the council. Yes.”
“Well, the triad marriage is about as traditionally Njazan as you can get, even if it has fallen out of fashion, so there is no special ‘why.’ It just happened.” Lumu glanced to the side, as if remembering how it had happened, and the contentment in the soft curve of his mouth before he continued speaking jolted Sanyu. “I don’t see it as work. Things that make me happy and give my life meaning aren’t unnecessary, even if they’re hard. Just like being a king is hard, but if you do the job in a way that makes you happy, it’s worthwhile.”
“Humph,” Sanyu said, raising and dropping one shoulder. “Being a king isn’t a choice and comes with a lifetime mandate. I’m stuck with it. Neither of your spouses has to stay with you, even though you actually like them.”
“Love them,” Lumu gently corrected. “I love them.”
“Love them,” Sanyu repeated, then cleared his throat, as if the words had left a saccharine residue. “That’s what I don’t get about this. With my marriage, I can send my wife away when she displeases me. Just like that.” He snapped. “Isn’t that simpler? And what does love have to do with marriage anyway? The king’s union is a tribute to Omakuumi and Amageez—strength and strategy.”
He thought of the possibility he’d seen in Shanti’s eyes the night they’d met, when she’d said she’d honor and protect him.
“I know you’ve taken the things your father and Musoke taught you to heart, but even you have to see that this makes no sense,” Lumu said.
“It does make sense, though,” he said. “As a king, I can love my kingdom and know that it will never leave. Why would you do that with a person, who can go at any time? And all my kingdom asks is that I be fierce. A partner requires . . . things that are less pleasant and way more difficult.”
“I was taught in the palace school, so I know why you say these things, but I was not raised in the palace,” Lumu reminded him. “I had other people to explain to me what love and care was, and to model what a relationship entailed.”
Sanyu regretted bringing the topic up. Lumu was supposed to be a disciple of Amageez but always spoke of things that didn’t seem logical to Sanyu at all, like love and communication, and feelings.
“The wives of the Njazan king are for physical needs, not emotional ones,” he said bluntly. “What else do I need to learn?”
Not for the first time in their lives, Lumu looked at him with undisguised pity. “Sanyu.”
“What?” He shrugged again, the weight on his shoulders feeling heavier than usual. “You just give your love to people, freely and with confidence that it will last, or that you won’t disappoint them? And you think I’m the one behaving strangely?”
Lumu shook his head. “I’m not confident that it will last. I’m confident that we’ll do everything we can to ensure it does. Matti and Zenya enrich my life, but I can’t ask them to stay just so I won’t be unhappy. I do what I can to make them happy so that they want to stay, just as a king does everything he can to ensure his subjects are satisfied so they don’t stage a revolt.”
“So you make an exchange?” Perhaps Shanti had been attempting to trick him when she said she wouldn’t barter.
“No,” Lumu said. “I love. And I communicate. And I try to understand and