Chapter 7: Men Will Stain Your White
The memory arrived not as a comfort, but as a jagged blade, silver-bright and honed to a lethal edge.
Ramonda closed her eyes, and the suffocating stillness of her private chambers dissolved. The shadows of the present were replaced by the vibrant, unforgiving sun of the Wakandan Highlands. It was forty-six years agoâa lifetime lived in the sun before the long night of the crown. She had been a daughter of the River Tribe then, sent to the capital not as a bride, but as a warrior-scholar to train among the elite.
She remembered the heat of that day specificallyâthe smell of crushed grass and the sharp, metallic tang of practice spears hitting wooden shields. She was breathless and sweat-slicked, having just finished an assessment that proved her spirit was as formidable as her aim. She had been proud. She had been whole.
TâChaka, a Prince then, had been watching from the shadows of the acacia trees. He hadn't approached her as a future King, but as a man who had finally seen something he couldn't live without. He reached out, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw, wiping away a smear of red clay from the morningâs drills. His touch had been hesitant, almost reverent, as if he were touching a miracle he hadn't yet earned.
"You fight like the goddess herself is breathing through you," he had whispered, his voice low and thick with an emotion she was too young to fully categorize. He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers, and for a moment, the entire kingdomâthe politics, the border tribes, the weight of the vibraniumâseemed to go silent. "I have spent my life looking at the stars to find my way, Ramonda. But today I realized... you are the only star I will ever navigate by. I love you."
The Queen Mother let out a ragged, trembling breath, the memory shattering like glass. She sat on the edge of her bed, her hands folded in her lap, watching the movie of that moment play on a loop in the theater of her mind. She scrutinized his eyes in the memory, looking for the flicker of a lie. Was his heart always a house with locked, windowless rooms? Was the man who whispered those words to her already harboring the seeds of the man who would abandon a child in the concrete canyons of America?
Of course he was, a cold, dark voice whispered in the back of her mind. He abandoned his own brother's son. He left N'Jadaka to rot in a world of pavement and pain, to grow up without knowing his family, his people, or his culture firsthand. If he could kill his brother and leave his nephew behind like a discarded garment, why did she ever think she was the exception to his cruelty?
If he could look her in the eye while another womanâs child grew in the West, then every "I love you" for forty-six years was now under interrogation. Every private laugh, every shared prayer, every touch in the darkâit was all retroactively poisoned. She felt like a historian realizing the primary sources of her own life were forged. She was the widow of a ghost, the Queen of a lie.
She hadn't left her rooms in three days. The scent of stale stress and the floral notes of her perfumeânow souredâclung to her skin. Her hair was tucked haphazardly under a plain silk headscarf that had slipped during her fitful sleep. She was still wearing the same vibrant, sunset-orange silk wrap sheâd put on three days ago, thinking it was going to be a beautiful, normal morning. Now, the silk was wrinkled and dull, a mocking reminder of the woman she had been before the world broke.
Her eyes drifted to the far corner of the room, to the small shrine dedicated to her husband. She wanted to scream at the silent gold bust. She remembered how he used to walk with her in the palace gardens when TâChalla and Shuri were small, speaking of the future. He had told her he dreamed of the day he would walk those same paths with his grandchildren, telling them the histories of the kings who came before. But he had died in 2016, never having met Toussaint, never seeing the boy's eyes. And all that time, he had a child in Americaâone he never spoke of, one he never intended to walk with.
She wanted to demand to know what Tanya Jenkinsâ skin felt like compared to hers. Did he think of the River Tribe daughter when he was with the American woman? Or was Tanya his escape from the very stars he claimed she guided him by?
A soft chime at the door broke her spiral.
"Mother?" TâChallaâs voice was hesitant, muffled by the thick vibranium-reinforced wood.
He entered slowly, his heart sinking as the sensors adjusted the lights to a dim, amber glow. The room felt heavy, the air thick with the humidity of a woman's grief. He saw the untouched tray of food; the mound of ugali had gone cold and stiff, its surface beginning to crack like parched earth, while the sukuma wiki beside it had wilted into a dark, unappealing mass.
"Toussaint spent the morning in the gardens," TâChalla said softly, stepping over a discarded silk wrap. He didn't know how to reach her. He was a King, but in this room, he was just a son watching his world's foundation crumble. "He wanted you to have this. He said itâs for your 'sad eyes'."
He held out a childâs drawing of the Bast fountain, colored in erratic purples and golds. Ramonda looked at it, but her eyes were bloodshot and heavy. The simple, innocent lines of the drawing should have moved her, but all she saw was the fountainâthe place where TâChaka used to sit and tell stories to TâChalla and Shuri growing up. Even the childrenâs memories were contaminated now.
"He misses you at the table," TâChalla added softly, offering her a glass of water. "Please, Mother. Just a sip. You are becoming a shadow."
"I am not ready to be a Queen today, TâChalla," she said, her voice a hollow resonance. She ignored the water. "Does Shuri have an equation for how to breathe when your lungs are filled with thirty years of ash? Tell the Council the Queen Mother is indisposed. Tell them I am mourning a man who never existed."
TâChallaâs face fell. He nodded slowly, then turned and left, his footsteps heavy. In the hallway, he ran into Shuri. She was in her lab clothes, but her usual vibrance was muted. She looked tired, her movements mechanical.
"She wonât come out?" Shuri asked, her voice tight.
"She is... processing," TâChalla replied.
"Processing is for data, T'Challa. This is a funeral," Shuri snapped. Her eyes were bright with unshed frustration. "Time won't change the fact that Baba was a liar. He lectured us on honor while he did what he wanted when he wanted and didn't think about who he affected in the process."
TâChalla reached out, placing a hand on his sister's shoulder, anchoring her. "Shuri, wait. I know you are hurting. I am in pain too. Not only because we love our Mother, but because our Father lied to us as well."
Shuri looked at his hand, then up at his face, her expression hardening into a mask of pure, technological coldness. "Iâm going to the lab. At least the machines don't pretend to be something they aren't and won't break your heart forty-six years later."
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TâChalla walked back to his and Nakia's private chambers, the weight of his crown feeling like a leaden yoke. He found Nakia by the window, looking out over the capital as the sun began its slow descent. The plans for her coronation sat on a nearby tableâdigital scrolls of protocol, guest lists, and silverware designs that felt utterly trivial in the face of the family's collapse.
"She will not eat?" Nakia asked softly, not turning around.
"No," TâChalla sighed. "She won't even look at the sun."
Nakia finally turned to him, her eyes filled with an old, deep understanding. She walked over and began to rub T'Challa's shoulders, her soothing voice a contrast to the hard truth.
"It is not just the betrayal of the woman," Nakia said. To her, T'Chaka was a man, and like any man, he could be flawed. But she figured this must be the straw that broke the camel's back. For Ramonda, it was the accumulationâkilling his brother, leaving his nephew, his own death, losing her son twice, losing her daughter onceâto find out he had an outside baby on top of it all was simply too much. "It is the betrayal of the memory. To lose a husband once is a tragedy. To find out he lied once stings like a thousand lashes to the soul." She paused, her eyes softening. "How is Toussaint?"
"He asks if Grandma will be okay," TâChalla whispered, closing his eyes. "I told him she is tired. He asked if Grandpa made her tired. I didn't know how to answer."
"Our son is too observant for his own good," Nakia said with a sad, knowing smile.Â
TâChalla reached up, taking her hands off his shoulders. He sat on the edge of the chaise and pulled her onto his lap, holding her tightly. He buried his face in her neck for a moment before looking into her eyes.
"I am sorry that my father's indiscretions are taking away from our present-day celebrations," he whispered. "You are my wife; I finally got you to agree to be my queen as well. I wish all we had to talk about was our son and what type of silverware you chose for the guest."
She saw the sincerity in his gaze, and for a moment, the King disappeared, leaving only the man who loved her.
Nakia squeezed his hands back. "TâChalla, when I agreed to stay, I agreed to be here for you and for our family. Queen Mother is my family; she has been since I was a little girl. My only sadness is her current pain."
He saw the absolute truth in her eyes. He leaned down and kissed her tenderlyâa quiet promise of the honesty he intended to lead with. Then, he straightened his posture, took a breath, and went back out to continue his kingly work day.
In the bowels of the medical lab, Shuri sat in front of a flickering terminal. She was staring at a side-by-side biometric comparison: TâChakaâs DNA and the partial sequence from the New York energy breach.
A sob, sudden and violent, tore through her throat. Shuri curled into herself, her forehead resting on the edge of the cold, vibranium desk. She didn't just cry; she broke. She cried for the father who used to carry her on his shoulders. She cried for the mother who was rotting in a dark room. But mostly, she cried for the girl in New York.
"I hate you, Baba," she whispered into the empty lab, her tears splashing onto the glowing keyboard. "I hate you for making me feel like I have to apologize for existing."
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The stifling Manhattan heat of late August clung to the city like a wet wool blanket. Amira stood in the apartment she shared with Ronda, the space cluttered with suitcases and the ghosts of a life about to change.
"Why are you packing like you're moving for good?" Ronda asked, nursing an iced coffee.
"Because I know I'm gonna want to take that full-time job once the four weeks are done," Amira said. "If you forget to water the Monstera, I will literally fly back here just to haunt you," she added, taping a last box shut with clinical precision. Her room, once a sanctuary of tech journals and vintage Dorothy Dandridge posters, had been stripped bare.
Ronda leaned against the doorframe, looking at the empty space on the wall where Amiraâs calendar used to hang. "Girl, please. That plant survived your finals week; it can survive four weeks with me. Besides, Ade has already offered to come over 'to help with the plants'âwhich we both know is just an excuse to mope in your bedroom while you're in Oakland."
Amira let out a deep belly laugh, the first real one sheâd had all day. "Ade needs to find a hobby that isn't me. Tell him to go to the gym or something." She stepped forward, pulling Ronda into a fierce hug.
Ronda squeezed back tightly. "Go. Become a tech mogul. Just don't forget us when you're making six figures next spring. Good luck, Amira. You're going to kill it."
Their farewell was cut short by the low hum of a black car pulling up to the curb. The doorbell rang, signaling a visitor had cleared the doorman downstairs. Moments later, NâJadaka stepped into the hallway and gave a knock that held the weight of absolute authority.
Tanya opened the door. NâJadaka stepped in, moving with the effortless, predatory grace of a man who owned the pavement beneath his boots. Two Dora Milaje flanking him like living statues. Tanya and Aunt Nia were already there to say goodbye.
âMs. Jenkins, what an honor to finally see you in person. Amira speaks very highly of you.â He shook Tanyaâs hand, his smile disarming and practiced. He turned then to Aunt Nia. âIâm sorry, maâam, I donât believe weâve met. Iâm Erik Stevens-Udaku. Family and friends call me NâJadaka.â
Aunt Nia pulled him into a hug. âYouâre taking my niece across the country. Weâre friends now. Iâm Nia, and this is Amiraâs friend, Ronda.â
NâJadaka turned to Ronda, his gaze lighting up with a subtle, sharp intensityâa flicker of recognition or perhaps just intrigue that only an expert observer would catch. âWell, hello there, Ronda. Itâs nice to meet a friend of Amiraâs. Are you an engineer too?â
Ronda took his hand, and for a second, the world tilted. She felt a jolt travel up her arm and radiate through her chest, hot and intoxicating, like a shot of dark liquor on a winter night. âOh, no,â she said, her voice coy. âI leave the engineering to Amira and Ade. I prefer the artistic side of things.â
âWell, Iâm somewhat of an art patron myself,â NâJadaka countered, his voice dropping into a smooth, private register. âMaybe we can meet up and talk about it sometime.â
Ronda gave a small, knowing chuckle. âMaybe you should focus on the promising young mind youâre taking to Oakland first.â
âI can multitask,â NâJadaka replied, licking his lips and smiling.
âJust so you knowâI bite,â Ronda added.
NâJadakaâs smile didn't falter. He leaned in closer. âYou promise?â
Flustered, Ronda stepped aside to break the tension. NâJadakaâs smile widenedâjust a fractionâbefore he turned to Amira. âAre these all your bags?â At her nod, he gestured to the Dora Milaje, who moved past him to carry her luggage to the car with effortless strength.
Aunt Nia grabbed Amira first, the scent of cocoa butter and expensive perfume surrounding her. "You're gonna make some real waves out there, baby. Youâre a Jenkins woman; we always show up. So baby, show up and show out. Don't let those California tech-bros talk over you."
Then came Tanya. She had been quiet all morning, moving through the kitchen with a heavy, practiced grace. She placed her hands on Amiraâs shoulders, the resemblance between them haunting in the soft light of the entryway.
"I have to go, Ma," Amira whispered.
Tanya let out a slow, steady breath. For a moment, she looked like she wanted to scream, to pull her daughter back and lock the doors against the world. Instead, she leaned forward and pressed a lingering kiss to Amiraâs forehead.
"I know," Tanya whispered. "You go. Iâll be right here. Just... be careful who you trust with your brilliance, Amira. Not everyone deserves to see what's under the hood."
Tanya turned her gaze toward NâJadaka then, her eyes hard and searching. âMy world stopped when that purple thing snapped his fingers. Please... donât let it stop again. Take care of my girl.â
âLike she was my own,â NâJadaka replied.
Something in his tone told Tanya he would give his life before a hair on her baby's head was harmed. That was enough. Amira gave her mother one last squeeze before stepping onto the golden elevator, descending to the lobby, and walking past the doorman out into the scorching August air.
The transition from the Manhattan street to the interior of a Wakandan Quinjet was whiplash. As the jet cleared New York and cloaked, Amira leaned against the window. She looked toward the cockpit. The two women in red moved with a synchronized, lethal efficiency. One of them turned her head slightly to check a sensor. For a split second, their eyes met.
Amira felt a strange, cold jolt in her chest. It wasn't fear. It was a humming sense of recognition, like seeing a face in a dream and waking up with the taste of it on your tongue. The way the woman held her chin, the uncompromising set of her shouldersâit felt like looking at a mirror that had been polished by a thousand years of history.
"They aren't just pilots," NâJadaka said. "Ayo and Aneka are the best the world has to offer. They're here to help keep us both safe."
"Please, make yourself at home," Aneka added. "The flight won't be long."
Amira sat on the plush seat. "This jet... this isn't standard tech. The dampening field alone... how is the G-force not pinning us to these seats?"
NâJadaka let out a short, dry laugh. "We move with purpose, Amira. The math just catches up." He watched her for a moment, noticing the way she organized her bag and tablet on the table like she was solving a structural puzzle. "You get that focus from your pops?" he asked casually.
Amira paused, her fingers hovering over her bag's zipper. "Doubt it. Don't know him. Just a blank spot on a birth certificate." She shrugged, trying to sound indifferent, though the phantom weight of the "Pending" DNA test burned in the back of her mind. "But my Mom? Sheâs the blueprint. She was halfway through a psych degree when she pivoted to nursing. She said she needed something more 'hands-on'âa way to guarantee sheâd always be able to put food on the table, no matter where we ended up."
NâJadakaâs expression shiftedâa flicker of something raw and jagged. For a heartbeat, the "Executive" mask slipped, and she saw a boy who had been left alone in a different city, with a different kind of hunger.
"Survival is a hell of a motivator," he muttered, turning his gaze toward the clouds. "It makes you build things most people are too soft to even imagine."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward; it was heavy, vibrating with the secret they both shared without knowing it.
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When they landed, the air in Oakland was saltier, more honest than the humid trap of Manhattan. NâJadaka didn't take her to a hotel. He drove her to a sleek, modern apartment complex in Lake Merritt.
"The Foundation keeps a few units here for visiting consultants," he explained, swiping a keycard.
The apartment was niceâhigh ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the water, and a kitchen that looked like it had never seen a burnt piece of toast. It was "Tech Lead" nice, but it wasn't home. "It's... a lot," Amira admitted, dropping her bag on the hardwood.
"It's what you deserve," NâJadaka countered. He stood in the doorway, his frame silhouetted against the hall light. "Get some sleep, Amira. Tomorrow, we start building the future."
The apartment in Oakland was quiet, the air conditioned to a crisp, artificial cool that felt nothing like the humid summer nights of Brooklyn. But as Amira drifted off, the world shifted.
She found herself standing in an impossible landscape. The sky above wasn't blue or black; it was a deep, swirling violet, glowing with a faint, iridescent light that seemed to pulse in time with her own heartbeat. Below her feet, the grass was tinted a soft, luminous purple, swaying in a wind she couldn't feel on her skin.
Emerging from the violet haze was a panther. It was deep onyx, its fur so dark it seemed to absorb the light around it, making the creature look like a hole cut out of the universe. It didn't growl. It didn't stalk. It moved with a heavy, regal grace that made the ground beneath Amiraâs feet vibrate.
When the panther stopped, it was close enough for Amira to see the moisture on its nose. Its eyes weren't the yellow of a wild animal; they were a deep, intelligent amber, shimmering with a profound, weary sadness. It looked at her with a gaze so human, so filled with a heavy, unspoken grief, that Amira felt her own throat tighten.
The onyx panther took a single step closer, leaning its massive head toward her hand. Amiraâs fingers twitched, an instinctive urge to reach out and touch the velvet fur rising in her chest. For a fleeting second, the violet sky brightened, and the air smelled of sun-warmed stone and ancient earth.
Then, the pantherâs ears pinned back. Its head snapped to the right, peering into the deep violet horizon. From the distance, a roar eruptedâa sound so powerful it felt like it was made of thunder and history.
Amiraâs neck snapped to the right, following the panther's gaze into the purple mist, andâ
She sat bolt upright in her Oakland bed, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Her neck ached with a sharp, physical tension, a residual sting from the sudden movement in the dream. The room was dark, but the image of that violet sky was burned into her retinas.
She looked at the obsidian disc on the nightstand. In the shadows, the etched lines seemed to pulse with a faint, violet echo of the sky she had just left behind.
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Author's Note: Ohhhh things are picking up! I feel super crazy writing this chapter on a happy day like today however I did make you guys wait four weeks and wanted to deliver on the timeline I set in my head. Poor Ramonda, I can't imagine what she must be going throughâŠactually I can lmao I'm writing it as we speak. As always leave your comments and follow me on Tumblr @PrettyStringBean for updates. Until next time! -PrettyStringBean
