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Ever since they left for Vienna, they call her once a day. It’s not supposed to be a long trip – a week at most, just the time to attend the signing of the Sokovia Accords. But her Baba always insists on keeping in touch with his family every time he’s away.
Her Baba always calls her around 7 pm Wakandan time, just to hear her babble about her day. He doesn’t saddle her with politics and the UN, knowing that he will have time to do so once he will be home. T’Challa calls her an hour or two later, and they gossip about condescending white politicians and tease each other. He sends her pictures of Vienna's streets and monuments, and she stares at the foreign city longingly.
She wanted to come with them, sick of being stuck in Wakanda while her brother was out exploring the world, but no matter how much she pleaded, her Baba didn’t yield. “You are too young,” he said, his good eye tenderly looking at her disgruntled face. “I don’t want to put you in the spotlight just yet. Your brother didn’t leave Wakanda until he was 20, you know.”
She wanted to protest more, but chose instead to relent. She knows her Baba, and despite his gentle tone and calm attitude, he is unbelievably stubborn. So she hugged him and T’Challa goodbye, and placated her endless curiosity with their daily calls.
But at 9 pm on the fourth day of their trip, her Baba still hasn’t called. Shuri tells herself that he must be tired after all those meetings. That’s okay, she thinks, waiting for T’Challa’s call.
But at midnight, when she finally takes a break from her new lab project, she realizes that her brother hasn’t called either. She presses a kimoyo bead, trying to reach him, but he doesn’t pick up. Strange, she thinks, but she’s tired and decides to go to bed. He will regret ignoring her once he’s back and enduring one of her pranks.
The next day, she wakes up groggy and aching. Staying holed up in her lab several nights in a row has finally taken a toll on her. By the time she is chewing on her fruit salad and drinking her bissap juice, she has noticed that something is off: she hasn’t seen her mom yet.
It’s not unusual for her mother to skip breakfast when her husband and son are away, as she has to perform their royal duties on top of hers. But she never went to work without kissing Shuri good morning first. Not to mention that the two Dora Milaje standing guard at the door are acting weird, fingers restlessly tapping against their spears, and cryptic glances occasionally thrown her way.
"What's wrong?" she asks Ngoné.
"Nothing, my Princess," she answers. But her brown eyes are shifting left and right, looking everywhere but at Shuri's face.
Shuri narrows her eyes.
"Where is my mother?"
"In a meeting with the Elders. They are not to be disturbed." Agonzi's tone is soft and placating, but her body is taut like a bow. Ta-tap, ta-tap, make her tattooed fingers as they drum against her weapon.
Shuri is young, but she isn't stupid.
"Why are you lying to me?" she says, annoyed. Ngoné and Agonzi have been her bodyguards since she was a toddler, and they never lied to her before. A Dora stays silent when she wants to hide something. But a Dora doesn’t lie.
Ngoné opens her mouth to say something, then closes it when Agonzi glares at her. Her eyes that couldn’t look at Shuri finally settle on the princess's face, and Shuri is taken aback by how sad they are. She looks like she's been crying.
Shuri's stomach drops as her breathing becomes laborious. Her body knows what her mind hasn’t realized yet.
Her fork clatters on the table when she drops it, and she frantically presses on her kimoyo beads. Her father doesn’t pick up. Her brother doesn’t pick up. Her mother doesn’t pick up. Her mother always picks up when Shuri calls, even when she's in the middle of important meetings.
Shuri looks up at the Dora with horrified eyes. They look back with anguish. Shuri dashes toward the door, but Agonzi grabs her arm.
"Princess, please. Your mother can't see you now."
"Then tell me what's going on!" she yells, voice shrilling with panic.
"I am forbidden to do so. Wait, I beg of you. Your mother will talk to you when she is ready."
Shuri pretends to calm down so that Agonzi releases her arm, only to slip between the two guards and run with the ease of someone used to escape her caretakers. Ngoné and Agonzi are taken aback despite their quick reflexes, and by the time they reach the end of the corridor where Shuri ran off, she is nowhere to be seen.
Shuri runs, her heart beating like a wild animal ramming against the bars of its cage. She runs while climbing the six sets of stairs leading to her parent’s quarters, the elevator too slow to her taste, and she runs in the hallway leading to their room, slipping on the marble tiles.
She skids to a stop in front of the bedroom’s door, suddenly hesitant to enter. A terrible revelation lies behind the wooden panel, and she doesn’t think she’s ready to hear it. Not now. Not ever.
She bends slightly and presses her ear against the door, palms leaning flat against the carved patterns. The wood is thick, but not thick enough to conceal her mother’s sobs. They echo faintly in the hallway, each cry breaking Shuri’s heart bit by bit.
She has never seen or heard her Mama cry.
Dread twisting her guts, she pushes the door open with a shaking hand. Please, Bast, please, she prays fervently. She doesn’t articulate what exactly she fears, despite it weighing on her chest like a boulder, but she knows that Bast can read her heart.
Please.
Her mom is laying on the carpeted floor, half buried under a heap of clothes. She’s sobbing into a kente tunic, white-knuckled hands clutching the fabric, and Shuri realizes that these are her father’s clothes.
“Mama.”
It’s so quiet that it’s barely a whisper, but her mother looks up, eyes red and cheeks stained with tears. At the sight of her daughter, her crushed expression turns into one of devastation and guilt.
“Mama, what’s going on?”
She asks but she already knows. Still, she refuses to believe it.
“Shuri,” her mother croaks, voice broken by hiccups. She lowers her head, unable to look her daughter in the eye. “Your father… he’s gone.”
She inhales shakily, and the next words painfully tear themselves out of her throat.
“He’s dead.”
A strange numbness coats Shuri as she registers the words. She doesn’t feel dread anymore, doesn’t feel anything but a dull, detached calm.
Wordlessly, she activates one of the beads at her wrist, and tunes in to an international news channel. The holographic screen displays a building gutted out and in flames, while the words of a reporter resonate in the room. Through the numbness, she only hears fragments of it.
A bombing attack struck the Vienna International Centre–
A dozen deaths confirmed so far–
Among the casualties, King T’Chaka, sovereign ruler of Wakanda–
She switches off the bead. Through the fog numbing her senses, she hears herself speak, her voice alien to her own ears.
“What about T’Challa?”
“He’s fine, by the grace of Bast,” her mother gasps, relieved and grieving tears both streaming down her face.
“It happened yesterday. Why didn’t you tell me anything?”
“Oh, Shuri.”
Her mother gently tugs her arm, making her sit on the floor next to her. She cups Shuri’s face in her hands, and their warmth reach her through the numbness.
“I am so sorry,” she whispers, stroking her daughter’s cheek with a calloused thumb. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know how I could look you in the eye and tell you that your father will never return. I just—” Her voice breaks but she goes on, barely audible. “I just couldn’t bear the idea of breaking your heart.”
The words of her mother cut through the numbness, shedding the fog and leaving Shuri raw and exposed. Feelings come back to her, one by one, each more devastating than the others.
First the denial, cold and moist. This can’t be happening, she talked to her father less than two days ago. He was joking and laughing, he sounded so alive. He was supposed to teach her how to ride a rhino upon his return. It doesn’t make any sense.
Then the anger, ugly beast igniting her soul. It’s not fair. It’s so not fucking fair. Her father was a good man, and he deserved better than dying because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Her Baba doesn’t deserve this. Her family doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve this. She wants her Baba back.
And finally the sadness, crushing and overwhelming at once, tearing her heart apart and leaving her sobbing and gasping for breath in her mother’s arms. She will never see her Baba again. He won’t be there for her eighteenth birthday. He won’t be there for her next scientific breakthrough, smiling proudly with a twinkle in his eye. She will never hear his laugh again. She will never listen to his boring philosophical lessons again. She will never see him hold her mother’s hand or hug her brother ever again. He’s gone.
Shuri wails in her mother’s arms, now a fatherless child.