The next morning, no guards greeted her. Instead, Fen was lurking about in the room with a bundle of fabric in her hands. Shuri groaned and rolled over at the noise, but then the unmistakable gurgling through a rebreather hovered over her ear. She lurched of off the bed and soundly onto the floor. The healer had the audacity to laugh.
Shuri sent her a mock glare, now fully awake. "Didn't think you had it in you."
"My husband says I'm endearingly annoying. Now, get ready." The Talokanil paused. "K'uk'ulkan requests your presence at this hour. If you want. But you should."
She rubbed her eyes. Her Kimoyo beads told her that it was midday in Haiti, but she felt robbed of rest. Resigned to having a perpetually confused sleep cycle for time being, she lifted herself off the ground. The wound on her left arm itched, though that was probably because she had slept in her tracksuit.
Fen set down the fabric on the bed and immediately latched onto her with soft hands. "Why did you take your bandages off? I was going to unwrap them today and rub a salve."
Shuri massaged her arm, shrugging, not wanting to explain the bathing ordeal. "I checked with my Kimoyo beads. It was fine."
Annoyance marred Fen's face but she said nothing. She retreated to the bundles of fabric and ordered Shuri to change.
There were three new outfits. The first was a white gown that reached her shins, so simple that Fen's lack of explanation that it was for sleeping confirmed her guess that it was a nightgown. Next to it was a dress strikingly similar to the white, jade-studded piece she'd worn after Namor's minions kidnapped her and Riri.
"The seamstress made some alterations. She wanted to make a new one but K'uk'ulkan said this was fine."
Good, she thought, touching the fabric. It was one of the most beautiful dresses she'd ever seen. Not her usual style—a bit traditional and too evocative of the 19th century for her—but the alterations toned down the neckpiece and added a sash around her waist. The last item was a gold cloak that would drape over her shoulders and meet at the base of her neck with a jade clip. "For when you're cold," Fen said, as though it necessitated explanation.
The memory rushed into her mind unbidden. "You're shivering," he murmured into the crook of her neck.
Cheeks burning, Shuri waved Fen out of the room and took a few shaky breaths to ground herself. She'd hugged boys before—namely cute boys her age in the River Tribe after T'Challa's coronation before him and Nakia sent them scurrying.
The blood in her veins turned to steel. Let him try and touch me again.
Resolved, Shuri quickly changed into the white dress and fixed her mess of curls. They had dried into an erratic frizz last night. She tried and failed, inwardly sulking at the messy reflection staring back at her in the Kimoyo bead's mirror function.
"If I knew how to work with hair in the air, I would offer to help." Fen fiddled with the headpiece keeping her bun secure. It was smaller than the ones the guards wore, made of delicately woven rope and a sea shell pinned on the right side.
"It's alright," Shuri dipped her hands in the lake and used them to rearrange her curls into some semblance of decency.
Namor greeted them in front of the cabin. He wore the white and gold cloak from when he'd first greeted her within his chambers, the first time he shared their history with a surface-dweller. It covered most of his chest but a slit exposed his right side. The jangle of his decorative shoulder panels echoed loudly in the catacombs when he stood up from where he'd been lounging in a shallow pool of water.
"So what's all this about, another trip down Talokanil memory lane and offer to burn down the surface world with you?" She joked. It must have contained less malice than usual because Namor didn't sulk. Maybe he was flattered that she remembered.
She wanted to burn down the world, once, but not for the reason he wanted to. Never for the reason he wanted to ("The world is not divided into conquerors and the conquered," she once heard Okoye tell W'Kabi). Her rage was at the world giving her gifts and the technology and ability to save her brother, only to be too late.
Namor had mentioned he would meet her today to finally explain what he was up to, but they normally didn't meet this early. She figured he spent his first hours with his people and performing his kingly duties. Her mother once said that being a good ruler often meant putting their subjects first and families second.
She frowned, remembering her conversation with Fen. Namor's own family. Did that mean he had siblings? Kids? But that would require a woman in his life — a wife?
She shook her head, breaking out of her reverie. The right corner of Namor's mouth quirked upwards.
"I sense a desire that you wish me to make that offer again."
"I'd kill you." The guards immediately crouched into an offensive stance, pointing their spears at her. Fen gasped from a few paces away.
Namor waved them back, dismayed. "That was a jest between the Princess and I."
"Are you certain, K'ulk'ulkan?" One of them sneered at her, the spear in her hand wavering. She looked too young to be a guard.
"If the Princess wanted me gone," Namor strode towards her, "she would not have spared me the last time. We are allies now. Jests are a liberty we can afford the Black Panther."
Assuaged, the guards retreated. He leaned in so that only she could hear, adding, "You know very well what would happen then. Do not be so casual with me in front of my people."
Her eyes flashed. "Do you think I'm joking?"
He lifted a hand to her black Kimoyo earring, stroking it softly, but his voice is testy. "I...am still deciding."
She heard Fen's curious eyes linger at her back. Namor swiveled around and jumped into the water.
"Pallee, help her into the suit."
Climbing into the exosuit with a white and jade outfit made for princesses was an idea so ridiculous that someone as shrewd as Namor should've noticed. The fabric bunched around her legs and the long sleeves hindered the already limited movement she had in the bulky suit. Whatever joy she'd felt at donning the garment again dissipated as she sourly yearned her tracksuit.
"Stay close." He ordered, and they were off. It was a short swim away, and less than half a minute later she was being pulled out of the suit by Namor himself, the guards having stayed back.
His grip was still tight on her right forearm when she shook her head to clear the view in front of her. They were in a large cavern, even larger than his. The shimmering lights above were blinding. Hues of gold and yellow reflected off metallic rock creating a warm glow that emanated throughout. If the vibranium palace of Talokan was the sun, then this room was its rays.
Murals similar to that of his office lined the walls, but on a larger scale. They were also interspersed with Mesoamerican carvings and glyphs—stories of some kind.
The floor in the middle of the room was depressed into a soil bed. Bunches of flowers sprouted from it, the golden light placing a warm tinge on the end of the petals.
Shuri inhaled. Next to her, Namor's chest rumbled with a pleased chuckle.
"This is the room of our ancestors. Would you like to see?" His hand was still around her arm. He was so big and her so lanky that his fingers overlapped on the other side of her limb.
"I would love to." She moved forward briskly, and thankfully he let go. It was like standing in the garden of the heart-shaped herb again. She felt the vibranium in her body, Bast's blessing enveloping her, as she uncurled her fingers to touch a delicate petal. "But why are you showing me all of this?"
He began to circle around the room at a languid pace, reverently looking up at the murals as he spoke.
"Chac gave my ancestors a vision. My mother gave birth to me knowing I would live to be king. Talokan flourished because they always had a protector. In return for protecting them, my subjects serve me. That is how we have lived for centuries."
"Are you…" she tried to think of a delicate way to word her question because her mother had instilled her with at least some reverence in the presence of ancestors. In the end, her blunt nature won out. "immortal?"
"I do not know." He confessed. He was standing across her now, meeting her eyes from the other end of the garden. "These are the flowers my gatherers have found over time, but we have never found the flower that saved us and sent us under water again. Chac and our ancestors have always taken care of us, though perhaps recently they have taken to testing us."
Shuri straightened, taking note of the variety of flora. Some were plants she recognized; others were as foreign as the concept of a water-nation had been a mere two months ago. "Good for them. Our ancestors were not so kind."
He raised an eyebrow.
"I once thought the Black Panther a relic of the past." The venomous sentences she'd spouted at her mother before her death clawed at her chest.
"And now?"
"I am the Black Panther, but the ancestors would not have chosen me unless they had to."
"You mentioned your brother to me before, adorned as you are now. Tell me, was he as entranced by the work of science and technology as you are?"
She stilled. She had opened up to this violent king about the man she loved most and failed saving. It felt so different now, like she was looking into an abyss. Namor was in control, pulling the strings of her puppet body taut and swinging her around as she wished.
But looking at his ancestors, the paintings on the walls and the remnants of the ocean he commanded, she plunged, hoping Bast would catch her.
"He was the perfect king," she started in a near-whisper. "He understood the unseen world and his duties better than I ever will."
"I will tell you a secret, Princess. I was born to lead, but the ancestors forced me to earn it. They may end me yet. But you are the Black Panther, first surface-dweller to have seen Talokan, and brokered an alliance with a god to avoid eternal war. Even your brother could not boast such a feat."
Only the most broken people can be great leaders.
He was moving towards her, having completed his circle around the room. "I am Talokan's god, but I still pray to Chac in thanks of our vibranium and our water."
"Does he listen?"
"Sometimes." He raised his hands in a grand gesture towards a series of carvings in the wall on her left. "Until she took the blue flower, my mother grew up having lost faith in the gods. Her own parents succumbed to disease and her life was full of hardship. When she told me these stories, I never understood what appealed to her about land. I had no family like the ones she left behind, but I had a family in my people. That was enough."
Her feet were welded to the floor. She could not move when his hand made his way under her chin for the first time that day, the second time in two.
When his eyes flickered to her lips, her breathing hitched. Her voice died in her throat. She tried, desperately, to summon rage from the pits of her soul, from the shimmering air around them, even him, but there was nothing. He was still, oh so still, and calm, and comforting—
"But now there is something of land that I covet. I am beginning to understand her."
More vibranium? She wanted to ask. When her mother told her how Namor had threatened her with her daughter's death, he'd very clearly said that there was nothing Wakanda could offer them except an alliance. And now he had it. What else would a water-king need after building an empire like this?
"I hope that means you've sworn off waging war on the surface world."
He smiled, amused, his fingers tapping across her cheeks. His eyes had the audacity to dazzle in the light, she didn't even know eyes could do that, let alone trap her so thoroughly that the thought of looking elsewhere was akin to choosing a pebble over vibranium-encrusted jewels.
"I told Namora that one day you would come to me. You called me, and I offered you and the Americans safety because I trust your sympathy. Will you trust me, now?"
"I—" Her head spun. She needed to get out of here. The walls were closing in on her, his hands were about to crush her face, and she was going to be the world's greatest fool for trusting this man. She had only agreed to tolerate him to protect Talokan. To do what was needed to help innocents but nothing more. Asking trust of her was too much.
Somewhere, a voice in her head told her she would've accepted two months ago. Not this time—she'd been played a fool once, and could not afford to do it again.
"Take me to the Americans."
If he was disappointed, he didn't show it.
"Wakanda is new to international politics and you're young. Not trusting your allies is normal. None of us can afford to trust anyone but ourselves." Val nibbled on a bit of kelp.
"A horrible way to live. If you want to make an ally out of me, you're not doing a very good job." Finally able to cross her arms, Shuri grimaced at the woman. "I'm not here on your offer of help—I'd sooner trust a nuclear bomb."
Val stopped chewing. The woman likely wasn't used to people not kowtowing to here, or trying to play dirty politics the clean way. Shuri was here to set her own rules and abandon every alarm bell telling her to not make an enemy of the CIA and every government they had their claws in.
Namor stood outside the closed door. His pointy ears made her suspicious, but none of her research into Talokanil physiology suggested an ability to hear through rock. When they had arrived to this cave, he made it a point to stay out of sight when one of the guard's unlocked the door. That confirmed her suspicion that Namor hadn't conducted any interrogations himself.
"Have any of...them, spoken to you?"
Val laughed. "Your highness. My, you're frightfully naive. I'll give you your first lesson in negotiation: to get information, you have to give some up yourself. Answer this: are they aliens? Are they the ones who brought vibranium to Earth?"
Fine, two could play at this game. "No to both your questions." She didn't ask for an explanation, so. "My turn: why did the Americans come here again, knowing what happened the last time?"
They continued like this for a couple minutes. Val picked apart her questions with the skill of an annoying exam proctor and Shuri dodged her like a panther. What emerged, however, was a curious picture of the past week's events.
Having assumed, like much of the world, that these waters were part of Wakanda, Val led an expedition masquerading as innocent scientists to see for her own eyes (betrayal was rampant in her division at the moment. She muttered something about her ex-husband). She wanted to provoke them. Wakanda wouldn't kill them a second time, if they were right, since their country was now open to the world. More importantly, Val herself was going to smuggle vibranium out or give America and its allies the signal to launch a full-scale war on Wakanda.
"And what do you think now, knowing there is a third player here?"
"I think," Val's eyes danced over the delicate beading of Shuri's dress, "that you might be in danger more than we are."
"What do you mean?"
"Your second lesson: pay attention to the gossip." Val plucked at her shirt. The grime was beginning to leave stains. "An alliance, you said, between Wakanda and these people? I remember being your age," a dramatic sigh, "I was very beautiful. Still am, but there's something else about that age, I'm sure you know. You're stuck here too, yet treated like one of theirs."
"I'm a Princess of their allied country, and I didn't lead a suicidal mission here." Shuri snapped. "Get to the point."
Val hummed. "I called you a bartering chip last time, but I don't think alliances with young, attractive princesses work so simply. What made Wakanda such a staunch protector of this place that you say isn't theirs? Wakanda's refused to live up to their promises and share, so I can't help but wonder...what they must have bargained. Such loyalty...almost familial, if you ask me."
When Shuri exited the cave, Namor was gone.
Her breakfast went untouched. She asked the young guard to convey her apologies to the girl she'd yelled at the night before and tried to distract herself with Atzi's chattering. Juana wouldn't be around until the next day but even the girl's cheer about Talokanil technology couldn't fully quash her internal turbulence.
"Princess? You look sick. Should I call for Fen?" Atzi raised her spear, prepared to dive into the water. They sat around the water and lounged against a clump of rocks. The young guard's name was Zuma, though she remained reticent. Shuri would be, too, if someone had threatened to kill their ruler even jokingly.
Shuri didn't like admitting weakness but she was doing their presence a dishonor by drawing into herself. "I'm sorry, ladies, but I didn't sleep well. I don't know if you guys have these things called naps, but I think I'll sl - do my private business." She'd explain to Atzi later the intimate idea of napping later.
"You didn't eat either," Atzi pointed to the bowls at her feet, "humans need to eat more, right? Are we not feeding you enough? I'll go to K'uk'ulkan's chef to get you more food."
At his name, Shuri wheezed. "No, no, it's fine. I'll eat this for lunch." She bid them a pleasant goodbye. Atzi's chatter faded away as she padded into Namor's office and sunk into the chair across his. He was not there right now but she could use this time to prepare herself.
Just a day ago, she would've ignited a storm, seeking him out to shred him into pieces verbally, possibly physically. She felt like a pendulum, swinging from left to right, always back to where she started no matter what direction she moved in. Pulled back just when she began to open up to him.
Her breathing steadily quickened.
In the office, now, she remembered Patli's comments, Fen's lingering gazes and sudden adoption of handmaid duties even though she and her healing weren't needed anymore.
She lifted her head to look at the mural immortalizing his defeat at her hands. It occurred to her for the first time, in actual words instead of fleeting, unformulated thoughts, that Namor was not only a god and King, but a ridiculously, impossibly beautiful man with silly feet wings.
Her mouth ran dry, her thoughts coming in rapid-fire bursts.
The first time they met, he was a strange intruder adorned in foreign materials, the only thing familiar to her the vibranium in the air around him. She'd taken in his features just enough to warn the others of a fishman threatening war.
In the Battle of Talokan, her evaluation of his body had been purely mechanical, anticipating strikes from his limbs because they were deadly weapons, clawing at his back so his muscles would snap to release her. He was no different than Killmonger or the aliens in Thanos' army. She'd grown up during war. Descriptors like man or woman, attractive and not, were replaced with high-level and low-level threat.
The only time she had viewed his physicality as anything else but that of a hardened nemesis that would take everything from her to defeat, was when they sat in this very cave, his hand caressing hers and soft, urgent words about protecting their nations. At the time, she had acknowledged the beauty of the Talokanil people and impressed by his passion, but nothing more. She'd been too busy to read sincerity on his face, the raw honesty with which he'd asked her to burn down the world with him, and the panic in getting the scientist out of here alive at all costs.
When all was said and done, though, she was a young woman, staying in the caverns of what was the world's most dangerous foe, with only her wits, skills, and promises to reign him in to balance him on the thin precipice of peace. She was the only one in the world who could claim to have reduced Namor to her feet.
What did she expect? What had anyone? Is that why her mother had made such an uncharacteristically rash decision, not just out of grief, but because she was a young woman kidnapped and alone with a god who was used to getting what he wants?
He'd given her his god-forsaken bed. Held her, woven an earring into her ear, told her in no uncertain terms that he trusted her (or her sympathy, was that the same thing?). Accepted each of her listed terms with little protest, had guards deliver her the best foods, the best clothes, and simply listened to her demand that he take her to the Americans despite spending the first day arguing about it relentlessly.
And his mother's bracelet, still around her wrist. Shuri was inexperienced, but not naïve.
She burst into laughter. It sounded—it sounded —
"..there is something of land that I covet."
"Ridiculous," she whispered.
An advanced empire like Talokan wouldn't stoop to such ridiculous, archaic notions, despite how frozen in and protective of their traditions they were.
But Bast only knew why the first thing she blurted out to Namor when he entered was, "In Wakanda, even royalty don't bother with political marriages."