it some kind of Thesoloian gesture?”
“No.” She appeared to roll her eyes, but he decided it was a nervous tic because his wife wouldn’t do such a thing. “Do you want me to be honest?”
“Of course,” he said. “Why would I want you to lie? That would be pointless.”
Now he wondered if lying was the norm for her since she had to ask whether or not to tell the truth. It occurred to him that he was probably overthinking. Not overthinking was difficult, which was why he occasionally preferred the numb state he’d been in until very recently.
“Well, then.” She ran a manicured thumb around the gold-painted rim of her cup, then glanced up and met his gaze. “It’s sucked,” she said with a bluntness that surprised him even though he’d asked for it. “It’s really, really sucked. Truly.”
So she wasn’t a liar, then. Even he, who had grown up with Musoke’s sharp words constantly jabbing him, thought she could have been more polite.
He leaned forward. “You’ve been well taken care of. You have food, shelter, a job to keep you busy. I didn’t think you wanted for anything.”
No, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d seen the way she’d looked at him, eyes full of an unfathomable something whose meaning seemed to overlap with the pull he felt toward her. She wanted something, but he was certain he couldn’t give it to her.
“I thought you were . . . not unhappy,” he added.
He was the liar. The fog that had gathered around him following his father’s death hadn’t been opaque—he’d seen her unhappiness and frustration. He’d ignored it and pushed it to the back of his mind because it hadn’t seemed important to him. Because it shouldn’t have been.
“Why do you think I came here?” she asked. “Why do you think I married you? I knew you warned me not to, but why do you think I did?”
He could say the first crude thing that came to mind, words like barbed wire to keep her from getting closer when he was supposed to be the one asking questions here.
“Women come for the coin and the crown,” his father’s voice echoed in his head, even if it didn’t feel right applying that to Shanti.
“I don’t know. I didn’t understand why anyone would willingly come to this place,” Sanyu said. He sipped his tea so fast after that admission that he burned his tongue.
“I married you because I wanted to become a queen,” she said.
So she had come for the crown, he thought bitterly, when of course she had.
“I wanted to be a queen so I could help people and change the world.” She put her cup down. Her eyes were bright with a determination that both shamed and awed him. “It’s as simple as that. It didn’t matter where. It only mattered that I have enough power to do it.”
Sanyu suddenly remembered what she’d said during their first meeting: “I came to Njaza to be queen. If you don’t want to make me one, say so and stop wasting my time.”
He’d thought her a crown chaser after the prestige and the nonexistent coins in the Njazan coffers. He’d been a fool. When she’d wandered the halls looking sad, he’d thought it was because she wanted his love—wanted him. Some part of him, buried beneath the sadness and not-fear, had taken a fucked-up delight in the fact that maybe someone cared enough about him to be miserable because of him instead of making him miserable.
He hadn’t considered that her disappointment wasn’t from lack of a fairy-tale marriage, but from watching her dreams wither. In a way, Sanyu could understand—his dream for a future where he wouldn’t be a failure to his people had disappeared when he’d become king. Still, he felt an odd ache from the realization that his wife had never wanted him at all.
“Why do you need to be a queen to help people?” he asked gruffly. “That’s very specific.”
And it didn’t fit at all with how he saw being a king.
“It—I—well, so what if it is?” She crossed her arms. “I’ve always wanted to be a queen. And my parents worked so hard to help me become one, made so many sacrifices. They were the laughingstocks of the village and people seemed to be waiting for the day I got a regular job and married a commoner so they could tell my parents they’d wasted their lives. My resolve is impressive but even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t let them