The Vanished Read online

  “You may accompany me with one stipulation.”

  Now the queen mother looks shocked. But she doesn’t interject.

  “Okay,” Shuri says, her excitement beginning to build. “What is it?”

  “You must complete Phase One of your training and earn all ‘exceptional’ marks on assessments before we depart.”

  Fourteen days.

  That’s how much time Shuri has to complete three combat modules and ace four fairly intensive courses: Wakandan Diaspora and the World; Diplomacy 101: Historical Causes and Prevention of Warfare; Vibranium: Origins, Potentiality, and Limitations; and Gods and Ancestors: A Guide to the Orisha and Djalia. The Vibranium assessment is one Shuri could ace while unconscious and wandering around the ancestral plane, but the others will require some deliberate study. Especially the diaspora one. The princess has no problem learning things that require problem solving of some sort, but just remembering things and regurgitating them? On her last assessment, she attributed the first Wakandan expedition to the North Pole to a guy who attempted a coup in the seventeenth century. (Whoops!)

  As she leaves the throne room, more resolute than ever, Shuri plans the rest of her day. She can do this.

  “So the outfit worked,” Ayo says with a smirk.

  “Oh, shh,” Shuri’s replies. But she’s totally smiling, too.

  “Is there anywhere you need to go before we return to your chambers?” Ayo continues. “According to my schedule …” She taps a Kimoyo bead on her bracelet, and a glowing list appears above her wrist.

  Shuri sighs. Oh, to have her freedom back.

  “Yes, okay,” Ayo goes on. “Looks like you have ninety minutes of downtime … well, technically eighty-seven now. Then your Diplomacy lesson with Scholar M’Walimu—”

  “Blegh.”

  Ayo laughs. “Trust me when I say I understand, Princess. I’m almost certain the old man struck terror in the dinosaurs. He has definitely been around long enough.”

  Shuri smiles. As far as glorified babysitters go, Ayo’s not so bad.

  The Dora returns her attention to the floating agenda. “After Diplomacy, you have supper, and then a private Yoga and Strike Precision session with Okoye. Anything you need to do now?”

  Despite her slight annoyance, Shuri is secretly glad to hear the rest of her day read aloud. It’s helping her to strategize. “I’m going to go study,” she says. Of the eighty-two minutes she’ll have by the time she reaches the mini-lab in her closet, she can spend seventy-five with her head in a book or two.

  K’Marah would be appalled.

  “As you wish,” Ayo says, leading the way back to the princess’s chambers.

  As they walk the final hallway, Shuri’s mind whirs until Kocha M’Shindi’s lined face has made its way back to the forefront. After all that talk of burdens and unworthy pursuits and Shuri’s lack of understanding, she gave Mother a good report? Why would she do that?

  And more disturbing to the princess’s more rational inclinations: What exactly did the old woman see when she looked into Shuri’s eyes?

  To her own shock, Shuri finds herself standing in front of a full-length mirror she typically avoids.

  One thing is for sure: Ayo was right. Teal is definitely Shuri’s color.

  “Huh,” she says to her reflection.

  She’s also gotten stronger. She stands taller, and her arms look a bit less string-beany. It’s strange: seeing the transformation from her training taking place. She still has no idea what Kocha M’Shindi was referring to with her frustratingly obscure jibber-jabber about Shuri’s gifts, but in this moment the princess feels as though she’s seeing herself clearly. In her fancy outfit with her chin lifted, it’s clear: Shuri is a Wakandan royal.

  She can nail her assessments in the allotted time.

  Without changing her clothes—which is what the old Shuri would’ve done the moment her chamber door was closed—Shuri goes into her closet to retrieve her Gods and Ancestors textbook from her knapsack.

  Which is when she notices the red dot blinking on the screen of her Kimoyo card.

  She freezes. More out of surprise than anything. The card is connected to a different part of her P.R.O.W.L. system: one she has set to monitor activity in every nation where Wakanda has known enemies and allies. The network is connected to every major news outlet—and in the cases where she was able to secure access, a few governmental entities—with alerts set to ping whenever certain keywords are mentioned: Wakanda, T’Challa, Shuri, Ramonda, Hatut Zeraze, White Wolf, Dora Milaje, Queen Ororo, Zanda, Narobia, Vibranium, and a handful of others.

  This is the first time she’s received an alert since setting the thing up two weeks ago. In fact, until now, she’d wondered if it was even working.

  She takes a deep breath before approaching the work desk, now utterly terrified of what she’s about to discover. What if it’s some multinational plot to overtake Wakanda, imprison everyone, and sell off all their Vibranium to people who still have antiquated ideas about how “uncivilized” people on the continent of Africa are? The princess has been learning all about nuclear weapons. With what she knows about the sound-absorbing nature of the celestial substance she uses in so many of her inventions, she’s fully aware of how awful it would be for the resource to wind up in the wrong hands.

  “Okay,” she says, wiping her damp (and trembling) palms off on her trousers. “Better to know than not know, right? Worst-case scenario, you run straight to Mother and T’Challa and tell them what you’ve learned.”

  She nods and reaches for the device. Shuts her eyes as her hand wraps around it, and doesn’t open them again until she has the thing held up to her face.

  Of course, she’s holding it backward.

  She huffs and flips it around. Then exhales. The alert is from Kenya.

  An ally.

  Though when the princess reads it, her eyebrows pull together.

  The word that pinged was Ororo, but the alert … isn’t about the gorgeous mutant woman who has power over the weather.

  ALERT: KEYWORD ORORO

  LOCATION: HAIPO, KENYA; METEOROLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER

  TIME: 09:19

  TRANSCRIPTION:

  “… ORORO SHOULD HEAR OF THIS. I MEAN NO DISRESPECT TO OUR QUEEN, BUT SHE GAVE [UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE] YOUNG LADY TO BE PLACED IN SUCH AN ELEVATED ROLE. I WAS OF THE OPINION THAT THE GIRL [UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE] MATURITY—”

  “WE ARE WELL AWARE OF YOUR OPINION. YOU VOICE IT [UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE].”

  “WELL, IT WOULD SEEM MY INSTINCTS WERE CORRECT. [UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE] DAY FOUR THAT SHE HAS BEEN A—WHAT’S THAT PHRASE USED IN AMERICA? NO CALL, NO SHOW?”

  “PERHAPS SHE IS ILL—”

  “WELL, SHE COULD SHOW A BIT OF DECENCY AND AT LEAST [UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE] PHONE, COULD SHE NOT? SHE IS OUR CHIEF RESEARCHER!”

  “I WILL LOOK INTO HER ABSENCE. THERE IS NO PURPOSE IN TATTLING TO QUEEN ORORO [UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE] MORE PRESSING MATTERS.”

  “THIS WEEK WILL GO ON RECORD AS THE HOTTEST [UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE] NATION! AND YASHU—”

  “YASHA IS HER NAME.”

  “YASHU, YASHA. [UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE] FACT REMAINS: SHE HOLDS A POSITION OF UTMOST PRESTIGE AND RESPONSIBILITY! FAILURE [UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE] UNACCEPTABLE—”

  END TRANSCRIPTION.

  For a beat, Shuri stares, baffled. Then she rereads.

  Yasha.

  If this is the same grumpy girl Shuri and K’Marah shared a meal with while visiting with Ororo in Kenya during their quest to save the heart-shaped herb, her missing four days of work does seem … out of character. Though Shuri hates to admit it, she did see a bit of herself in the older girl when they met, and there’s no way the princess would voluntarily spend four days away from her lab and research.

  Another thing Shuri hates to admit? She’s concerned.

  Which doesn’t make sense: For one, the princess has zero relational ties to the older girl. In fact, Shuri has a hunch even Yasha would roll her eyes at the thoug
ht of the Wakandan royal being “concerned.”

  Besides, there are significant unknown variables at play. Perhaps she is sick. Or maybe she got tired of being demeaned by whoever was going on about Yasha’s not being the right person for her position (surely some cranky, old-fashioned man). Shuri knows from experience that those kinds of attitudes definitely leak into the way people treat one another. She certainly wouldn’t want to work in an environment where some grown-up full of opinions was constantly looking down their nose and questioning her maturity.

  Shuri dismisses the alert. Whatever the cause of Yasha’s absences, the Wakandan princess is sure it’s nothing serious. And anyway, even if it is serious, it’s not as though there’s anything the princess can do about it from Wakanda. She and K’Marah might’ve managed to sneak out of the country before, but with a Dora Milaje always nearby now, the same feat is virtually impossible.

  She places the Kimoyo card facedown and shakes her head. Attempts to refocus. After her training time with Okoye this evening, she will add additional keywords and tighten the parameters of the P.R.O.W.L. system so that it won’t ping over something as mundane as a teenage girl not showing up for work.

  Then she grabs the book she came in for and heads to her window seat to spend the remaining seventy-one minutes of her break imagining the Djalia—that elusive plane of Wakandan memory where the spirits of the ancestors are said to reside—and memorizing the attributes of Wakanda’s gods.

  The rest of Shuri’s tightly scheduled evening goes off without a hitch (though she might’ve hyperextended a hip during her kick precision drills).

  But her night gets overrun by strange dreams.

  All involving Yasha, chief researcher of meteorological phenomena in Haipo, Kenya.

  It surprises Shuri that she has a clear memory of the older girl’s face, but there it is, tinted a putrid green, covered in boils, and full of rage.

  Yasha is also as tall as Wakanda’s seven-story capitol building.

  Shuri has no idea where they are or what time of day it is, but there’s a storm swirling overhead, casting the surroundings in shades of gray. She watches on as the Yasha monster rips the roof off a long tan edifice and lets out a roar that makes the ground shake. Then she reaches inside, and as she stands back upright, Shuri can see three people clutched in her giant hand. They all look too shocked to scream, but then the Yasha monster brings them up to eye level and roars again. Into their faces.

  There is definitely some screaming now.

  “You doubt my capabilities!” the Yasha monster shouts in a voice that sounds like a chorus of tortured ghouls.

  And then she eats them.

  By the time Shuri wakes the following morning, groggy and with an aching back from all the tossing and turning, she is so furious about this Yasha thing invading her subconscious, she’s ready to scream herself.

  “You did not sleep restfully,” comes a voice from her left.

  Shuri startles so forcefully, she falls off the bed. “Oww!”

  “I have been told of your aim to attend a political forum with T’Challa,” the voice continues. “You are not yet ready, Panther Cub.”

  Panther Cub …

  “M’Shindi?” Shuri scrambles to her feet while simultaneously adjusting the wrap around her hair. It’s always lopsided when she first wakes. “What are you doing here in my chambers?”

  “That is, Kocha M’Shindi,” the tiny old woman says from her perch on Shuri’s window seat. “And I am here to observe.”

  “You were watching me sleep?” Shuri blurts, unable to contain her incredulity.

  “Indeed. A trainee’s rest patterns reveal infinitely more than a perfect punch or exquisitely executed blade swing. I said it before and will say it again: You, my dear, are most burdened.”

  The princess can do nothing but scowl.

  “Dress,” the Kocha says, rising to her feet.

  “Dress?” Like an actual dress?

  “In your training attire. We have much to accomplish.”

  “But—” I haven’t even woken up yet! Shuri wants to shout.

  But she doesn’t. Because the Kocha hits her with a glare that could liquefy gold.

  “Yes, Kocha,” she says with an irresistible bow.

  Then she scampers into her closet, planning to leave all thoughts of Yasha on the floor with her nightclothes.

  * * *

  Shuri spends the next twenty minutes so focused on walking with poise beside the Kocha, she doesn’t deduce their destination until they are standing right outside it.

  “Wait …” Shuri says, coming to a halt. Her eyes trace over the dusty, nondescript stone building. It’s two stories high and the color of wet sand. Remarkable only for its lack of remarkability in comparison with the glisten and pomp of typical Wakandan architecture.

  There is one thing of note: Above the glass double doors is a symbol—the red-green-and-black flag of Wakanda, with a pair of sharp-tipped spears crossed over it.

  At that moment, a pair of uniformed Dora Milaje exit the building.

  Their headquarters.

  “You brought me to Upanga?”

  “It would appear so,” the Kocha says.

  M’Shindi lifts a hand in a quick wave to the two women, and they smile at her before bowing their heads in greeting to Shuri. “Good morning, Your Majesty,” one of them says.

  “Uhh … good morning!” the princess replies with a tad too much enthusiasm. As soon as they’re out of earshot, she turns to the short, older woman. “Not to question your destination choices, Kocha, but what are we doing here?”

  “You,” she says, “are here to learn. Come.” And she takes off toward the entrance on her eerily silent feet. (The princess still hasn’t been able to deduce how the Kocha moves so quietly without Vibranium. Because her footwear doesn’t contain any. Shuri sneaked and checked with the miniature alien-metal detector she invented.)

  The tiny woman is halfway to the doors by the time Shuri realizes she’s still rooted to the spot.

  “Wait!” She rushes to catch up. Once she does and the way inside looms larger, she could swear her heart flat-out quits its job. “Am I even allowed in there?” she whispers as the Kocha reaches for the door handle.

  M’Shindi freezes. And turns.

  Icy invisible fingers wend their way down Shuri’s spine.

  “So you invite yourself on a journey to a different nation, but feel discomfort at the notion of entering a building within the land you are first in line to rule?”

  Well, when she puts it like that … (Touché, Kocha.)

  M’Shindi opens the door, and they cross the threshold. Shuri is … surprised at the sparseness of the interior. Especially considering how ornate the Dora Milaje uniforms are. Half of the building is one big, open space with a sunken floor—three steps down—that contains a series of foam-padded sparring squares. They remind Shuri of floor-level boxing rings with no ropes.

  The other half of the building is split into two stories, and based on the breathless, sweating women going up the stairs, and the refreshed-looking ones coming down, Shuri would guess there’s a place to bathe. Is that where the warriors live and sleep while off-duty?

  Along the far wall are various weapons—scythes, spears, the signature rings Nakia prefers. (A glorified Frisbee with no middle and a knife’s edge? The princess was petrified learning to wield one.)

  “Whoa,” Shuri says.

  “Effective straightaway, you will train four days per week with the Dora Milaje candidates,” comes M’Shindi’s voice, cutting into Shuri’s awe.

  Her newly muscled body goes hot as her eyes bounce between the sparring squares. In two of them, pairs of well-toned girls a few years Shuri’s senior are engaged in combat—with very sharp-looking weapons. And in a third, a group of twelve identically dressed girls moves through some type of drill in perfectly formed ranks. K’Marah is among them.

  “Uhhh …”

  “KHUSELA!” comes a collective shout fr
om the group of twelve as they simultaneously shift into a wide-legged stance and cross their arms over their chests in a show of communal strength that makes the princess’s heart swell with pride. She and K’Marah lock eyes, and the Dora-in-training nods in welcome.

  * * *

  But something is off with Shuri’s best friend.

  In fact, during their first round of one-on-one sparring—with all the other trainees watching on—Shuri manages not only to dodge one of K’Marah’s strikes, but also to wedge a shoulder into her friend’s midsection, flip her, and get her pinned.

  Within less than a minute.

  The whispers start almost immediately: “Wow!”

  “Did you see that?”

  “Pretty princess got moves!”

  “Did Mining Queen just get owned??”

  “She sure did. Bet that’ll teach her a thing or two …”

  Not sure what else to do, Shuri reaches a hand down to help her best friend up off the floor. “Good job,” K’Marah says as she stands. But she won’t look at the princess.

  So of course, that’s all Shuri can think about as she and K’Marah stand side by side watching the remaining matchups with the rest of the group: What could be wrong with the strongest, brightest girl Shuri knows?

  Did K’Marah allow Shuri to win the match so she wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of the others? Is K’Marah upset about Shuri training with her people? Yes, she and K’Marah spar all the time in Shuri’s private sessions with M’Shindi and sometimes Okoye (which … is odd, now that Shuri thinks about it), but does the real Dora-in-training feel slighted by the princess being allowed to invade her space?

  A sniff jolts Shuri from her ponderings, and she turns her head just in time to see K’Marah swipe at her eyes.

  Now she’s really worried.

  “K’Marah,” she whispers, facing back forward. “Are you—?”

  “Shhh,” the other girl replies. “Later.”

  Shuri practically holds her breath through the final handful of matches, and the moment the presiding Dora says, “You all are dismissed,” Shuri rounds on her friend.