The Sun Chamber was a masterpiece of soft power, and today, it felt like my personal theater of the absurd. The air, thick with the cloying sweetness of sandalwood incense, was a tangible weight. It was meant to signify sanctity and refinement, but to me, it was the smell of suffocation, of truths being carefully smoked and preserved until they resembled acceptable lies. Light streamed through the colossal alabaster windows, falling in great, honey-gold bars upon the mosaic floor—a sprawling, glittering map of Zaria crafted from a million tiny tiles. I knew every river and mountain pass on that floor, but today, I felt like a misplaced piece, a crude rock dropped onto its exquisite surface.
I sat on a dais, to the right of my mother's empty throne. My own chair, though carved from ebony and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, was deliberately, insultingly smaller. A constant, physical reminder that I was heir-in-waiting, a student of a role I seemed destined to fail. The gown they had laced me into was a weapon of social warfare. Heavy crimson silk, embroidered with threads of gold so dense they felt like scale armor. The high collar was a noose of embroidery, and the bell-shaped sleeves were a ridiculous, impractical flourish. I was a weapon sheathed in brocade, and every stitch chafed.
"Compose your features, Amina," my mother's voice was a low, seamless murmur beside me, a part of the chamber's ambient hum. She was a vision of serene control, her hands folded, a smile graced by generations of diplomats playing on her lips. "See this not as an interrogation, but as a… gallery of opportunities. Be receptive."
Receptive. The word was a trap. It meant to be a vessel, to be filled with the offers and ambitions of others. I fixed my gaze on the far end of the hall, my spine rigid against the carved back of the chair. This was the "Suitors' Parade," a tradition as stale as the air in the royal archives, and I was the prize stallion on display, expected to whinny appreciatively at the quality of the hay being offered.
The horns blared, a brassy, self-important fanfare that made the fine hairs on my arms stand up. The great double doors swung open.
"Presenting the esteemed emissaries of the Kano Kingdom, bearing gifts for the Princess Heir, Amina of Zaria!" the herald's voice boomed, echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
The delegation from Kano entered with a swagger that spoke of vast, sun-scorched plains and a wealth built on the subjugation of others. They were led by Prince Jabir, a man whose robes were a violent explosion of indigo and saffron yellow, so bright they hurt to look at. He was handsome, certainly, with features carved as if from polished teak, but his eyes were like still water—surface deep, revealing nothing of the currents beneath.
He swept into a bow so deep and practiced it was an insult in itself. "Princess Amina," he began, his voice a smooth, oily baritone designed to slip past defenses. "The stories of your beauty have traveled the sands, but they are liars. The reality utterly eclipses them."
I offered a smile that felt like it had been chiseled onto my face. The stories. I knew the stories he'd heard. Not just of beauty, but of the wild princess, the one who preferred the grit of the training yard to the gloss of the ballroom. This flattery was his first volley, an attempt to paint over the inconvenient truth of me with a pretty, placid veneer.
He snapped his fingers, a sharp, imperious sound. His attendants scurried forward like well-dressed mice, bearing the first of his gifts. It was a cascade of fabric, bolts of the famous Kano cloth, unfurled to shimmer in the honeyed light. The dyes were so vibrant they seemed to pulse—deep indigos, fiery ochres, vermillions that sang of rare cochineal.
"For your wardrobe,Princess," Jabir announced with a condescending sweep of his hand. "So that you may always be attired in a manner befitting your… future station, wherever it may be."
As if my future station requires me to be a mannequin for your national exports, I thought, the words a silent, sharp retort in my mind. The cloth was beautiful, undeniably. But it was also a cage. Each bolt was a silken thread meant to bind me to a role, to swaddle the spear-hand in layers of suffocating luxury.
Then came the second presentation. A line of people was marched into the centre of the chamber. Ten of them. Five men and five women, all young, strong-limbed, and clean. Their eyes were fixed on the mosaic floor, on the glittering tile-rivers of a kingdom not their own. Around each of their necks was a simple, polished bronze band. A collar, no matter how they might polish the word.
"And for your household," Jabir's voice swelled with pride, his chest puffing out. "Twenty of our finest. Trained in all domestic arts from childhood. A trifle, to ensure the Princess Heir's comfort is never wanting."
A cold, clean fury, sharper than any spearpoint, lanced through the incense-heavy air. My fingers curled into fists, the nails digging half-moons into my palms. Slaves. He was offering me human beings as if they were baskets of dates or jars of oil. My gaze locked onto a young woman at the end of the line, her hands clenched tight at her sides, her jaw set in a line of pure, unspoken defiance. I saw not a gift, but a person. A life with a history, with loves and losses I would never know. This was the "strength" of Kano? The power to own others? My grandfather's voice, not from the map-room but from the core of his being, whispered in my memory. "A ruler who builds their comfort on the backs of the enslaved builds their house on sand, little lioness. The true kingdom is its people, all its people."
My mother, beside me, gave a graceful, accepting nod. "The generosity of Kano is as boundless as its deserts," she said, her voice smooth and placid as a millpond. "We are deeply honored by your… substantial offer."
I said nothing. The words of outrage were a burning coal lodged in my throat. To speak them would be to unleash a storm. Prince Jabir mistook my silence for awe, for a maiden's speechless gratitude. He preened, clearly believing he had secured a decisive advantage. As his delegation withdrew, bowing with obsequious smiles, I let out a slow, controlled breath, the taste of bile sharp on my tongue.
Before the silence could even settle, the horns blared again, a jarring, repetitive farce.
"Presenting the noble emissaries of the Makama Confederacy, with gifts for the Princess Heir!"
The Makama delegation was a different beast entirely. Where Kano was arid swagger, Makama was forested cunning. Their leader, Lord Adewale, was older, his face a network of fine lines that spoke of calculation, not laughter. His bow was shallower, more a tilt of the head, and his eyes, dark and quick, scanned the room, assessing, weighing, pricing.
"Princess," he said, his voice like the rustle of dry leaves over stone. "We of the Makama believe in plain speaking. Flattery is a currency for the bankrupt. We deal in practicalities. In strength." His gaze was a physical weight, and I felt him not looking at a woman, but at a political puzzle, a key to a strategic lock. "We have heard you are a ruler of… singular and unexpected talents. We offer not trinkets, but an alliance forged in the fires of mutual interest."
His gifts were presented without ceremony. Chests were opened, releasing the sharp, exotic perfume of rare spices that cut through the sandalwood haze. Then came the ingots—a dark, almost black metal, lightweight yet dense, with a strange, oily sheen. Makaman iron. The finest in the known world, the stuff of legendary blades and impenetrable armor.
"With our iron," Adewale said, his eyes locking with mine, "the armies of Zaria would be unmatched. Your 'spear,'"—and here he paused, acknowledging the rumor with a hint of a smile that didn't reach his eyes—"should you ever have need of it, would strike with the weight of a mountain."
It was a clever, insidious offer. He had, perhaps, listened to the true stories. He was not trying to erase the warrior; he was trying to arm her, to make her and her kingdom permanently dependent on his forges. It was a more sophisticated cage, wrought from the finest iron, but a cage nonetheless. The alliance would come with chains of treaty and obligation, binding Zaria's destiny to Makama's for generations.
My mother leaned forward slightly, her diplomatic mask slipping for a fraction of a second to reveal genuine interest. This was the language she understood. Alliances. Resources. Leverage.
But as Adewale spoke of integrated border defenses and shared economic dominance, my mind drifted. I saw not a powerful husband, but a permanent, overbearing advisor at my council table. I saw not a partnership, but a slow, inexorable annexation. I would become a symbol, my spear—my Zalika—reduced to a ceremonial accessory, its provenance and power owned by another kingdom.
The "I Don't Need a Man" trope wasn't some rebellious chant in my head; it was a simple, geopolitical calculation. I did not need a man to complete me, to rule for me, or to grant me legitimacy through marriage. These suitors offered nothing I could not, in time, secure for myself—through trade, through innovation, through the strength of my own people and my own will. The only thing they truly offered, and the one thing they all demanded in return, was my sovereignty. Their flattery was the gilt on a contract of surrender. Their promises of protection were an admission that they believed I needed protecting, that I was not already strong enough on my own.
Strength was not in the weight of the chains you could put on others, nor in the sharpness of the swords you could buy. It was in the will. The will to protect your people without enslaving others. The will to forge your own iron, both literal and metaphorical. The will to sit on a throne and know, in your very bones, that you earned it not by birth or marriage, but by the unwavering resolve to be the shield your grandfather had spoken of.
As Lord Adewale finished his presentation and awaited my mother's response, I slowly rose to my feet. The heavy crimson gown, for a moment, felt not like a weight, but like a general's cape. I did not look at my mother. I let my gaze travel from Jabir's lingering, smug expression to Adewale's sharp, calculating stare.
"Your offers have been… profoundly educational," I said, my voice quiet but carrying, cutting through the diplomatic murmur like a blade. It was not the voice of a girl being courted; it was the voice of a queen assessing tribute. "You have each shown me the distinct ways in which men believe a kingdom can be built. With possessions. With metal."
I took a single step forward, my shadow falling across the mosaic map at my feet.
"But a kingdom is its people. Not property. And its strength," I said, the memory of an old king's lap and a dusty map room flooding me with a certainty that steadied my voice, "is in the will of its ruler to protect them. Not with gifts given, but with resolve forged in one's own spirit. Thank you for the… illuminating demonstrations."
I did not wait for a dismissal, for a rebuttal, for my mother's horrified gasp. I turned and walked from the dais, my steps steady and sure on the glittering rivers and mountains of my home. The silence I left in my wake was absolute, a stunned void broken only by the whisper of my silk and the fierce, triumphant pounding of my own heart. The parade was over. The lioness had declined to choose her keeper.