How to Catch a Queen (Runaway Royals #1) - Alyssa Cole Page 0,82

your mail is passed on to you. After inspection by the council.”

It was only logical that the mail of a king and queen should be inspected for threats. And of course he wouldn’t be told, if it was normal protocol. But still, something seemed off about this.

“Please allow my wife’s packages through,” he said. “Forward all of our mail to Lumu, instead of the council. They already do so much for our kingdom that they don’t need to bother with this.”

“Are you sure?” the clerk’s eyes were pleading. “I just want to make sure I’m doing my job correctly, Your Highness.”

Tell me about it, Sanyu thought.

“I’m sure,” he said, then looked around the drab mail room. He hated his job but couldn’t imagine spending all of his time in a converted dungeon. “Do you want a television? I have one in my chambers that I don’t use. And maybe we could have someone paint? A bright color to cheer things up?”

He’d painted houses being built for displaced people on some of his yearly trips with Anzam, and had found the work calming. He wouldn’t be allowed to paint here of course, but someone else could.

“Of course not,” the man said. “I am happy with my current circumstances and would never complain. Whatever I have is good enough!”

Sanyu almost nodded and walked away. But then he remembered how Masane had shaken with fear while presenting him with facts about their nation. The women from Njaza Rise Up who’d heckled him because they had no other way to be heard.

Something he’d never considered struck him like Omakuumi’s mind-clearing thunderbolt: he was not the only one who shaped himself to the rules of Njaza. He’d known people feared his father and the council, and now feared him, but he’d never examined what that meant. His not-fear made him unhappy; wouldn’t it be the same for his subjects? And wouldn’t they find it almost impossible to speak up and push back, as Sanyu had until very recently?

He was a lion and this man was an aardvark. An aardvark wouldn’t complain if doing so made the lion stick around longer than necessary and possibly decide to eat him.

Instead of leaving, he took a step closer to the mail clerk, who squeezed his eyes shut.

“How long have you worked here?” he asked.

“Twelve years, O mighty King. Every year prouder to serve your father, and now you.”

“Have you ever asked for changes to be made? Repairs? Entertainment?”

Sunlight? he thought.

“Work is not meant to be pleasurable,” the man said automatically, meaning he probably had asked for one of those things and had received that reply from the same man Sanyu often heard it from: Musoke.

“Well. As your king, I am commanding you to accept the television. And to make a list of things that can be improved down here. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Highness! Of course! Whatever you want!” The man bowed repeatedly, and Sanyu left before the clerk hurt himself.

The man’s unease hadn’t lifted even though Sanyu had ordered him to accept good things. Still, he thought he was moving in the right direction. He was king, and he could do small things to make the lives of his people better. There was nothing to be ashamed of in that.

A WEEK AFTER Sanyu and Shanti had started to have dinner together nightly, and after Sanyu had truly thrown himself into working toward his preparation for the upcoming council advisory meeting, Sanyu pushed his chair back and stared at the desk that had been his father’s—that was still his father’s. It felt too odd to be putting the final touches on a presentation detailing the foundation breaking changes he was going to make in Njaza at this desk where his father had spent so much time working to keep things as they were.

He gathered his papers and went to sit in the Royal Library, hoping to find Shanti there, but when he didn’t he settled in at one of the tables in a corner alcove. Something about the area, dark wood shelves oiled until they shone and lined with old books, was comforting and familiar to him, and he always gravitated to it. It was where he had worked until his father’s death, when he moved into the king’s office.

The head of the library, an elderly woman named Josiane, came over with a small bowl of peanuts. She had the pinched expression of someone who’d spent their life sucking their teeth in distaste, but she smiled gently at