How to Catch a Queen (Runaway Royals #1) - Alyssa Cole Page 0,87

important invitations had been missed? How many countries thought they’d been snubbed and would never be direct enough to say so, but added it to their already fraught feelings about Njaza? But she couldn’t reveal that her mail had been kept from her—and possibly answered for her—for months.

Face hot, she scrambled for a believable lie.

Shanti: Oh no, we don’t hate you. I believe that Sanyu was still in mourning at that time and we were unable to leave Njaza. Our own wedding was subdued for the same reason. We appreciated the invitation, as I appreciate the invitation to the RUW. And no hard feelings about the shoes.

Well that was two lies, but for the greater good she supposed.

Ledi: Cool. I’ll ask the organizers to add you to the schedule and save a space for your presentation. Half an hour plus ten minutes for questions. Looking forward to it, and I know Ramatla is, too.

Shanti: Thank you. I’m honored. I can’t express how honored I am.

Ledi:

Hmm. Was that a dismissive thumbs up? No. Naledi was . . . straightforward. Shanti would have to adjust to her lack of both formality and exclamation points. And it didn’t matter because Ledi had just said that Queen Ramatla knew she existed! Shanti sat down, overwhelmed.

Portia: Is that a von Krebblenheilm desk in the pic??! With the secret compartments? I just sent a video about those to Tavish!

Shanti: Maybe? It has secret compartments. It’s beautiful.

Shanti sent over a short video of one of the small drawers opening at the press of a button.

Portia: OMG! I have been obsessed with these! Did you know that while Ludwick von Krebblenheilm gets the credit for the mechanisms that release the compartments, he was only the artist. His wife was the engineer!

Portia: In fact, he never knew where all the compartments were, and she kept letters from her lovers in their shared desk! She was an old-school fuckperson!

Nya:

Shanti placed the phone down and stared at the invitation, and then the date, her breath catching as realization hit her.

It was in a week’s time. The same weekend she would be expected to take her place beside Sanyu or officially be sent away.

And she’d already agreed to go and even to give a presentation.

Her stomach plummeted like a boulder that crushed all good feeling in its path. She hadn’t been thinking clearly—just as she hadn’t when told there was a marriage offer in Njaza that had to be accepted now or never.

If she withdrew from the conference, she’d be disappointing her new friends, rejecting an invitation from the woman who was her hero, and missing out on something she’d aspired to for two decades. If she brought it up with Sanyu, she’d basically be asking him whether he intended to truly marry her or to send her away, and telling him that she valued this conference above whatever his choice was—which she did, in a way, and shouldn’t have to apologize for.

She’d painted herself into a corner, and though she couldn’t yet see a way out, she knew there had to be one. She flipped to page twenty-five in her “Field Guide to Queendom” where a quote from Queen Tsundue of Druk clipped from a magazine was pasted.

“Before I was a queen, I was a girl who grew up climbing the mountains our kingdom is carved into. No safety gear. No fancy shoes, like the tourists. Some people would call this foolish—it was! But I knew that I had two strong arms, two strong legs, and one hard head that had gotten me through life thus far, and each time I climbed, I placed my trust in myself that I would succeed. All trust is foolish, but none so much as the trust that you, one small speck in the universe, can achieve your goals. Failure is a most common experience, after all. But there is nothing so soul killing, or such a sad use of your brief time as one small speck in the universe, as assuming you can’t achieve them.”

Shanti ran her hand over the glue-warped words, remembering when she’d pasted it into the book almost half a lifetime ago. Age fifteen, after having met with her school’s career counselor and finally told him she planned on being a queen. The mocking laughter had followed her out of his office, but now she was here, a queen in name if not power. She’d climbed with no safety net and she was here, so close to the summit. People had