“Oh.” She smiled softly. “Phokojoe was a fox god—demigod, really. A trickster with the ability to shape-shift. He could change himself into whatever the humans he encountered desired most.”

He knew she wasn’t being unkind. She was unaware that she’d so deftly summed up his essential nature. This was why he both loved and hated fairy tales; they told you things about yourself you didn’t want to acknowledge.

“Why?” he asked. “Does he eat them?”

He cringingly remembered that he’d offered to do the same to her on the plane. That she was in Njaza with him, willingly, was some kind of miracle. Or maybe like the priestesses had implied, it was fate.

“No! Phokojoe wasn’t bad. He was just lonely, and tricking people into liking him was easier than admitting that,” she said, head tilted. “At least that’s how I read it. But you know, everyone interprets stories differently.”

Johan bristled, feeling as if she’d stripped him down in the backseat, and not in an enjoyable way.

Mercifully, the car pulled to a stop then, and the door was opened by a serious-looking young man dressed in a long black robe.

“Njaza welcomes you,” the young man said, bowing his head so that Johan could see the intricate patterns in his braids. The man glanced up at Nya, then quickly back down again. “And your betrothed.”

“Thank you for having us,” Johan said, bowing as well.

“Yes, thank you,” Nya said, stepping out of the car and matching the man’s low bow. “Your hairstyle is very becoming.”

When they both straightened, the man was smiling—he wasn’t immune to Nya’s sweetness either, it seemed. “Thank you. I am Lumu, advisor to the king. You can both come with me.”

They strode through the palace’s front door, a huge oval port with doors of what appeared to be gold. Images of warriors in battle stood in relief on the doors, a reminder to all that entered that Njaza was a land that had been feared for its fierceness, even when under the control of colonial forces.

The hallways featured huge wooden statues in the same theme, and the ceilings were painted with images of their war gods, elegantly slaughtering invaders in baroque frescoes.

“I see you brought me a gift,” Sanyu said grandiosely as they entered the receiving room, his gaze trained on Nya’s bow-tied head wrap.

Johan could see why people deferred to Sanyu’s wish not to be called Stanley. He was even more massive than he had been as a teenager, taller, with a thick, muscular body—Johan considered asking him who his personal trainer was because his thighs were like damn tree trunks. His hair was shaved around the sides and at a slightly asymmetrical angle, and his goatee was styled in a similar fashion. His mouth was pressed into a line of bored amusement.

“Does my present have a name?” Sanyu asked in his commanding voice, once again eyeing Nya.

I’ll kill you for looking at her, Johan stopped himself from growling, and then marveled that Nya had been right about this relationship stuff, though he wasn’t faking that sentiment.

He took her hand.

Johan had prepared himself to put up with a certain amount of well-deserved shit from the newly installed king, but not this.

“This is Nya, my fiancée, but very much her own woman.”

Nya executed a curtsy, but her voice was colder than usual when she responded. “A pleasure to meet you, King Sanyu.”

“It is a shame that she does not belong to you,” Sanyu said, meeting Johan’s gaze. “I thought I might take something precious and irreplaceable from you and then offer you a trifle in return, since you said you wanted to learn more about the historic relationship between our countries.”

Johan said nothing, because the king was right on some level but was also about to get decked if he mentioned Nya one more time, thick thighs or not.

Sanyu began to laugh, a belly laugh that held no mirth. “I am joking. I have a beautiful bride of my own, and unlike the Liechtienbourgers, I do not take things just because I have the strength to do so.”

“I’d heard that the new king of Njaza was a man to be respected,” Nya said, surprising Johan. “Your bride hails from my kingdom, so I hope that this is the truth. I understand the point you seek to make, Your Highness, but treating me as an object does not deepen my regard for you or relations between our three countries.”

Johan was a bit taken aback by her formal iciness but then he remembered that, sheltered as she had been, Nya was the granddaughter of respected elders and the daughter of a royal minister. She likely knew how to play at aristocratic brinkmanship, even if it wasn’t her forte.

Sanyu stared at her, and then he nodded his deference. “I apologize, Nya, granddaughter of Annie and Makalele, daughter of Alehk. I see that you have inherited the Jerami pride, though I hope certain other traits skip a generation.”

He motioned to an aide who took away a steaming cup of tea from the table beside him, then turned his gaze back to her.

Nya gave him as hard a look as Johan had ever seen on her face, but then her gaze moved past him and softened.

“Shanti!” she exclaimed, dropping both the aristocratic pretense and Johan’s hand as she hurried over to the dark-skinned woman in a yellow tunic dress who had entered the room. Johan noticed two things about the woman, immediately: she was both beautiful and enormously unhappy. Her surprise as Nya ran to her, the way her eyes filled with tears that she blinked away as Nya began speaking in Thesotho—Johan looked away to give them privacy.