as a meal to make the king strong.”
“I heard she disintegrates,” Nneka cut in, voice full of drama like she was telling a scary story. “Yes! She turns to dust, her purpose in life having been completed. That, or the shame of her weakness eats her from the inside out. Either way, POOF! She’s gone.”
Fear made a quick dash up both Shanti’s arms as she worked, raising the fine hairs in its wake.
Marie laughed, shook her head. “No. I think in the past most of them left this country and went to a place where they could be happy and where they never had to think of their time as queen again.”
“I just don’t understand the point of this tradition,” Shanti said, venting in a way that she couldn’t at the palace. “On the surface, it looks progressive—a marriage that isn’t truly binding until the couple has had time to see how they work together. But in reality, they bring in woman after woman, trapping her in a powerless role, and for what? It’s impossible to build a marriage in just four months, let alone change a kingdom. She isn’t even allowed to serve as a figurehead. It couldn’t be more pointless if they tried.”
She slammed her mouth shut—surely, they’d wonder why she was so upset over a tradition that wasn’t hers.
Nneka sucked her teeth, an exquisitely long and exhausted sound that resonated with the anger inside of Shanti. “The council are a bunch of old men who don’t care about waste or common sense. They are the ones who decide what is logical and what is fair, and if they’re incorrect, then they decide that being incorrect is logical. They then lay their decisions at the feet of Amageez, who I’m sure is somewhere on the mount of the ancestors saying, ‘No, no! Leave me out of this, okay?’”
Marie’s glass scraped against the table as she placed it down. “Oh, my young friends. These decisions that seem wasteful to us always benefit someone. A queen without power who can be replaced at any time,” she said darkly, then shook her head. “Whatever the initial reason for it, it lets every woman in Njaza now know her place. If the most important woman in the land is little more than a temporary trinket—not even a trophy, which is shown off—then the seamstress and shop owner and the shepherdess shouldn’t expect any better. There’s an ugly brilliance to it, and the fact that it might not have been purposeful makes it worse.”
There was a heavy pause as the weight of Marie’s words settled over them. Shanti actually felt a bit ill—Marie had put a label onto the terrible feeling that permeated the palace and forced Shanti to sneak out to make change with her subjects since her words meant nothing in the kingdom’s heart. Ugly brilliance. Shanti had never considered herself naive, but even she hadn’t thought of the many ways her position reflected that of all Njazans not seen as important enough to listen to.
Eventually, Jendy chirped that she had a USB drive with some new TV shows on them. They watched a couple of episodes of a popular Nollywood sitcom on Marie’s laptop, their shared laughter clearing the unbearable cloud Shanti’s question and its answers had brought to rest over them.
IT WAS VERY late when Shanti got back to the palace—much later than she usually returned home. She’d known she shouldn’t stay for two episodes, but it had been hard to leave the comfort of people who, even if they didn’t know who she really was, welcomed her. It had been even harder to come back to the palace aware that those same people knew she’d done nothing at all in her role of queen since she arrived, and blamed her for it.
She was careful entering the secret passageway, but was still jumpy. She whirled when she heard something behind her, but there was nothing but darkness.
When she got to her room, she placed her wig and glasses back into the largest secret compartment in her desk, showered, and then crawled into bed, something else settling over her along with the blanket: worry.
Marie was fine for now, but would there be retaliation? And the people of Njaza were growing restless—she was sure Jendy and Nneka weren’t the only ones thinking of burning it all down or busting out the guillotines.
She’d have to work faster to make her husband into the king his people needed.
Chapter 10
When the door to the