And restless she is.
In fact, for the bulk of at least two hours after retiring to her quarters, Shuri lies in bed on her back, staring up at her canopy. The sheer navy fabric is embroidered with phosphorescent thread so that when the lights are turned off, the princess can sleep beneath a cloth night sky, glowing constellations and all.
In truth, she rarely notices the thing; it’s been there for years, hung during the astrophysics-obsessed phase she went through in early primary school. It was exciting at first, but now that she’s older and has much more going on, most nights she tends to flop into bed on her stomach and drop right into slumber.
On this night, though, she can’t stop staring at the thing. Because now, in addition to the question of how the symbiote got in, Shuri has a myriad of other thoughts and queries swirling.
It was decided that she would keep the contained specimen in her dressing chamber until morning. She told the others it was for lack of a better place to hide the thing from the queen mother without storing it off-site somewhere—her dressing chamber does have a rarely used sliding door that seals the space shut, and there are no vents or cracks or passageways out of there. Even if the symbiote were to somehow get free from the host hexahedron, it would be trapped inside the smallish space.
In truth, however, she didn’t want the thing out of her reach.
Once the adrenaline wore off—and maybe the energizing tincture Umela used on her wounds as well—it occurred to Shuri that she had an actual extraterrestrial being sitting within a container that she created.
From there, the questions began to spill over the edges of her mind like the contents of a beaker on a too-hot Bunsen burner. What is the creature made of? What is its texture and/or consistency? How long can it survive without a host? Does it have a consciousness even when detached from a human? Could it bond with any carbon-based organism? Can it separate into smaller pieces? Would they be sentient?
Shuri’s eyes are drawn—yet again—toward her dressing chamber. As she’d placed the cube up on the high shelf, the amorphous symbiote inside it had pushed itself up against the front transparent wall as if beckoning Shuri closer. The princess had placed her hand against the outside of the container, and the symbiote responded by morphing its form into the shape of her palm and spread fingers.
She was sorely tempted to open the cube right then and there.
What she wouldn’t give to have just a few weeks with the writhing gelatinous mass. Learn more about it. See what it can do.
As strange as she feels about it, the princess is experiencing no small measure of guilt over not being able to give the symbiote what it was looking for. It was so convinced that Shuri had the little celestial rock; if only it had been right.
She sighs and her gaze is drawn back to the faux star–scattered canopy above her. So close to what’s out there (because now it’s literally in here). And yet so far away.
Shuri shuts her eyes and allows the fight to leech from her limbs. Perhaps some viable reason she should keep the being in Wakanda will occur to her by morning.
It would seem that triple-teaming, sonic-blasting, and capturing an alien in a box has a similar affect on the princess’s brain as the Kocha’s phobia immersion therapy: She has another lucid dream.
At the start, she’s inside her dressing chamber, looking for something, but not being entirely sure what—
Then it clicks: the nebular gem.
She checks every item of clothing with pockets, looks inside every bejeweled pair of shoes, pulls out the experimentation station and shakes the contents of each jar and vial (except for the two she knows not to shake), and goes through every cabinet and drawer.
It’s not in there.
Her eyes are drawn to a transparent and vaguely shimmery cube on a shelf above her head. The lid is open, and the cube is empty.
This gives Shuri pause. While she can’t seem to remember what belongs inside the cube (though the words host hexahedron floats through her mind … bizarre), a sinking feeling in her stomach tells her something’s … off.
No time to think much about it: The word gem pops into her mind unbidden, and in an odd, gravelly voice.
I don’t have it, she thinks but doesn’t say.
The voice answers back, You have. Must remember.
She exits the dressing chamber.
After a quick look through the drawers in her bedside table and a peek into the cabinets within her personal bathroom (nothing), Shuri reaches for her Kimoyo card, and almost without her brain’s permission, shuts off all the alarm sensors along a path through the palace, though she can’t seem to puzzle out the destination …
Then things get very strange: She creeps out of her bedroom window and scales down the outer palace wall, using only her fingertips and toes. When she’d put on shoes, she doesn’t know, but a quick glance down reveals her to be crawling, arachnid-style down the side of the palace, very much in her pajamas.
When she reaches the side entrance to the west wing on the ground floor, she puts her Kimoyo bracelet up to the digital lock-pad, and hears the bolt slide free.
She slips inside.
The next few moments are a blur. Literally. One moment she’s hearing the heavy door click shut behind her, and the next, she’s facing a blank wall in a hallway with no doors at all. And she’s more than a little dizzy.
Princess body still metabolizing poison, the gravel voice says. Heal tincture work, but Henbane poison strong. Give princess vertigo after high-speed motion.
Huh? Shuri thinks.
New words, the voice continues. Tincture: remedy made by dissolving medicine in alcohol. Metabolize: break down by natural chemical process within body of living thing. Vertigo: sensation of whirling and loss of balance. Princess head filled with many words. Too much for one head. Impractical.
Then Shuri’s hand lifts and reaches for the wall. Which is when she realizes she’s standing outside the entrance to the vault of relics.
Panic rises in her throat just as it occurs to her that she didn’t shut off the security cameras when she deaded the alarm system. She looks over her shoulder at the blinking red light near the ceiling—
No show face!
And her head whips back around of its own accord.
“You need to wake up now, Shuri!” she shouts into the air.
Not dream. Princess no yell.
“But I want to wake up now!”
Just want gem. Check vault, get gem.
“It’s NOT in there!” Shuri attempts to lower her arm. Keep it from making contact with the smooth expanse of eggshell brown. Who chose these paint colors? she thinks as she struggles against her own limb. Go DOWN, arm!
It’s to no avail. No. Use Princess. Get gem. Henbane no help. Princess help. Princess have gem.
Her hand surges forward, and the moment her palm makes contact, a hidden panel slides open to her right, revealing a touchscreen keypad.
“No, no, NO!” Shuri whispers aloud.
Princess no talk! the voice says. Then Shuri’s fingers are swiftly ghosting over the numbers in the right order. There are fifteen—double the number of digits the average human can memorize, plus one more. When T’Challa taught her the sequence shortly after Baba’s burial—at least three members of the royal family were required to know it, and there were only three left—Shuri had utilized an elaborate mnemonic to lock it into her head.
The pad turns green, and a retinal scanner slides out.
She squeezes her eyelids shut.
Princess OPEN eye, the voice says, and her right one pops wide.
After the successful scan, the panel of wall directly in front of the princess—and the visitor she appears to be hosting—slides free, revealing a hallway beyond that curves to the left.
I am NOT taking you in there! Shuri says to the voice, resisting forward motion. Her feet creep toward the threshold, very much without her permission, but she’s able to keep them from crossing over. “No!” she says out loud again.
And then it hits her: There is a fail-safe! she thinks as loudly as she can. A secondary security mechanism!
Princess lie! the voice replies.
No! I mean it! The moment we step into this hallway, the door will seal shut behind us, and the queen mother will be alerted! The only way back out will involve her opening the door from the outside!
For a moment, the princess’s mind is eerily quiet (all things considered). The she hears: Princess no lie. Princess tell truth. No want see shiny lady. Now plan B …
Shuri’s hand lifts again to shut the hidden door, then as soon as she blinks, she’s on the move.
She’s through the palace and at the exit to the staff quarters in what couldn’t be more than a few seconds. Another blink, and she’s leaving the palace grounds. Then she’s at the edge of the Golden City. Then racing across the plain.
So fast, she fades in and out of consciousness. Is that possible in a dream?
The voice responds: No Dream. Henbane poison bad. Princess sleep while blood fight poison.
Wait … What do you mean, slee—
And then she’s flying.
It’s the forward momentum—and the drop of her stomach into her ankles—that coax her eyelids open … (Though she doesn’t remember closing them?)
What Shuri sees, though, takes her breath away: She’s soaring through the mountains—plunging down, then up, then forward, and again, down, up, forward. A perfect parabola with each swing. There’s the Jabari fertile plateau with all its varieties of ice-dusted produce. And then the city, dark and silent as a tomb (and she would know from her time in the Necropolis). Thick, sticky black ropes—no, strings of web! she realizes—shoot from her wrist and attach themselves to high cliffs and mountain peaks that she swoops by.
It’s nothing short of exhilarating.
Ah! Princess see now! Feel good! Not monster!
How did you learn to do this? Shuri asks what is now clearly the symbiote. This might be the best dream I’ve ever had! “Feel free to stay asleep now, self!” she says aloud into the wind.
Not dream. Learn spider tricks from friend Venom.
Wait, you KNOW Venom? She swoops into the next arc.
Sent to Venom good teacher. Good friend. Venom Klyntar, too.
Ah, Shuri thinks. Then, Wheeeee! I never want this to end …
But a few swings later, her feet are landing on a tiny ledge in the face of a cliff wall. And then she’s crawling up, up, up on her fingertips and toes. (I’m a SPIDER! she thinks.)
When Shuri reaches the top and looks around, she almost can’t believe what she’s seeing: her beloved nation stretched out before her. There’s Birnin S’Yan, Wakanda’s southernmost city, founded by Shuri and T’Challa’s uncle. There’s Birnin Zana, the Golden City and Wakandan capital, where Shuri’s home lies, and there’s the Necropolis just outside it. There’s the Sacred Mound, source of all Vibranium. The baobab plain. Birnin Azzaria, Birnin Bashenga, Birnin Djata, Birnin T’Chaka.
And there are the mountains she’s standing in. The Jabari village and M’Baku’s Ice Fortress.
This is her kingdom full of her people. And looking out over all of it, Shuri knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is her job to both protect what is here and figure out a way to do good in the wider world with it—
No gem. Now time.
The princess has no idea what the symbiote means by that, but there’s a faint buzz overhead. And though Shuri wouldn’t say she can “hear” it, the sound causes a distinct tingle in her legs. So she looks up.
There above her is an egg-shaped hole in the sky.
Before she can think much about it, however, an ear-shattering screech fills the air. And though the princess can feel it coming from her own mouth, she can’t seem to stop it.
Then everything goes black.