The streets of the capital were eerily silent as Jasmina led the procession behind her father’s casket. Behind her veil she knew she could cry unseen, but she refused to allow herself to. The weight of El Jayiah rested on her shoulders, and she marched in stoic silence as sniffles from either side of her met her ears.

The ceremony was a blur, ending with her father being laid to rest in the family plot at the top of the hill overlooking the capital, Tyra. Jasmina stared down at the masses of people dressed in black, mourning her father. She had known since his death that she was the ruling monarch of her nation, but until she gazed down upon them, every face turned up in her direction, it really hadn’t hit home.

Now she felt completely, utterly alone.

“Your Highness, you will want to take some time to grieve before managing affairs of the state I imagine,” Javir was at her side, his hand gently guiding her toward a car.

Feeling numb, Jasmina nodded, not willing to take on her father’s role so soon after laying him to rest. She allowed herself to be led to the back of a car. The door closed her in, the silence resonating across her entire world.

She was convinced that she would never know joy again. And the last conversation she had had with her father was one filled with disdain and sorrow. She would never forgive herself for leaving El Jayiah as long as she lived.

The car drove stealthily along the empty roads, the city of Tyra unusually silent for a Sunday evening. When the car pulled up to the palace, Jasmina waited for her door to be opened. When it was, she stepped out, thanking the driver absently before stepping up gold-laced stairs. The doors opened for her as she walked through, unable to think of anything but her own bed.

Asha entered the hallway as she strode onward, absently removing her black veil for her, releasing a cascade of brown tresses. Her head ached. Her heart ached. Her whole world was filled with the black of night.

“Come, my dear. You need to eat.”

Jasmina shook her head.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You will need your strength for the obstacles that lie ahead.”

She froze, then, mulling over Asha’s words. She turned and looked down into the old woman’s kind eyes.

“I will find my own strength. You can trust in that. Good night, Asha.”

When Jasmina closed the door behind her, she finally allowed her tears to flow freely as she crumpled into a ball on the ground. For the rest of the night she cried the last tears she would allow. After that, her country would need her to stand up and take her father’s place as their ruler.

Strength was one thing she hardly believed she had.

* * *

“Presenting upon you this day, the royal crown of El Jayiah. May our Sheikha live a long and glorious life, and may she rule with the justice of her ancestors. I now present to you, Jasmina Bel Hasnawi, Sheikha of El Jayiah!”

Cheers roared in her ears as Jasmina faced her people, her smile tempered by the fact that she would not be in that position had her father not died so unexpectedly, so suddenly. Her people didn’t seem to share her grief as they continued to cheer and chant her name. Feeling a small boost of confidence from their support, she raised a hand and was rewarded with more cheering.

“Your Highness, might we adjourn to the cabinet chambers to discuss the state of our nation?”

An older, balding man bowed slightly to Jasmina, and she realized that she had completely forgotten his name. She hoped there would be name plates on the table when they met, so she wouldn’t be caught paying zero attention to her country while she was away. She hadn’t planned on being the ruler of El Jayiah for many more years, and she hadn’t devoted much time to learning about her father’s latest slew of advisors.

That was clearly her first mistake. Likely one of many.

She wondered in that moment how her friends at school were faring with finals approaching. To think that her biggest problem only a few weeks before had been how to get the best grade on a test. Life had been so much simpler then.

Nodding to the thin-haired man, Jasmina followed after him down the palace hallway, passing door after door until they reached the one Jasmina had rarely bothered to enter.

Opening the portal, the balding man stepped inside, walking toward a round, wooden table. When he reached a seat, Jasmina took a look and felt a rush of relief when she saw name plates. His name was Kalim Al-Adir. She would have to remember that, along with the others. There was so much she would have to remember.

I wish you were here, Papa, she thought desperately.

Squaring her shoulders, she stepped forward in her coronation gown and took a seat at the table. She was met with a grouping of gloomy gazes. Attempting charm, she parted her lips in a gracious smile.

“Gentlemen. I’ve never seen a more melancholy group. Surely the state of affairs must not be that terrible? My father was exceptional at economics, and he was quite the statesman.”

She was met with a wall of silence as eyes darted around the room, and Jasmina realized in that moment that there was more to the situation than met the eye.

“All right, who is brave enough to deliver the bad news?” she asked, feigning confidence.

The truth was, she was shaking in her ceremonial boots, but to let them know that was to lose their faith that she could be a strong leader. It was the last thing she wanted to do so soon into her reign. Kalim cleared his throat.

“I’m afraid things are not as well as they may appear, Your Highness,” he said.

“Please, if we are to work together, I would like it if all of you called me Jasmina.”

He nodded, and the rest of the men did the same.

“Very well, Jasmina. Before your father died, it was discovered that a small group of his advisors were pilfering from the national coffers. In fact, he learned shortly before his death that they had taken almost everything we have and left the country with it. El Jayiah is destitute, Jasmina.”

Jasmina blinked as she absorbed that information. Her eyes darted to Adir, another council member, whose expression was beyond morose. When he met her gaze, he nodded.

“It is true, I’m afraid. We were all of us deceived by those…those…” he struggled to find a word that wouldn’t be offensive, and Jasmina cut him off to save him the trouble.

“All right, so my father was betrayed. How do I know I can trust any of you?”

Her accusation was met with stunned silence as the men gawked at her. Finally, Adir spoke.

“We were the ones leading the investigation, Jasmina. Something didn’t seem right about expenditures, and your father couldn’t wrap his head around it. You know that’s saying something, because he was quite skilled with finances. Once they knew they had been discovered, their exit was hasty and well covered. While we have a team searching for them, it could be years before we are able to track them down, and we simply do not have that much time.”

Jasmina’s heart sank as she took in this piece of information. Her country was bankrupt? Her father betrayed to the point that it might have caused a fatal heart attack? She found herself grateful to be sitting down, for she wanted to crawl into a ball on the floor again and hide from the world forever. Instead, she cleared her throat.

“And do we have any options left to us that we can tolerate?”

Kalim nodded.

“About a month ago we received word that there is a yet untapped supply of lithium just outside the city. That mineral could be our salvation. If we could get a buyer in to mine it, we could produce enough jobs to give the economy a good boost and get back to where we were before, perhaps even better.”

Jasmina nodded.

“That’s good news. Now how exactly are we going to go about it?”

Pulling a few papers from a file on the table, Kalim slid them across the table for Jasmina to look at.

“An American company has offered to purchase the lithium mines for an exceptional price—and that’s before hiring our local workers to get the job done. They have already agreed to use only local workers, and they have offered us the highest price for the land. We will not likely get a better offer than this.”

“What is this company, that they can invest so much money into such a project and be fine not benefitting their own workforce?”

She gazed down at the papers before her, seeing the company title in bold.

Jenson Black Technologies

“Smartphones, I’m guessing?”

Adir nodded.

“The CEO is deeply interested in this deal due to lithium being essential to the manufacturing process. From what we can tell, his terms are beyond generous, and no one else has come close to offering what they have.”

Jasmina continued to read, but something made her pause and look up with a question in her eye.

“There is information missing from these terms; are they not fully laid out?”

Another man—Hami, going by his name plate—cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“That’s the tricky part… The CEO says that he will not close a deal until he has discussed the terms in full with you…privately.”

“Privately? Who is this man?”

“His name is Jenson Black,” Hami said dully.

“Is he difficult to work with?” Jasmina asked.

Another loaded silence filled the room. Jasmina wondered just how long it would take for her to earn the trust of her cabinet, that they may be open and honest with her when discussing matters of state. She let out a frustrated sigh.

“It doesn’t matter. If this is the deal that will save our country, I will meet with him as soon as possible so that we can strike a bargain. The lives of our people depend on this discussion, and I won’t postpone it, no matter what the man is like. Adir, can you work to set up this meeting?”

Adir nodded.

“I’d be happy to, Jasmina. I think that should be enough for today. We can delve into other matters tomorrow, say eight in the morning?”

There was a general rumble of agreement before the meeting was adjourned, and Jasmina was complimented on her decisive action so soon after taking over the crown. She nodded gracefully at the compliments, waiting until the last man exited before closing the door and staring around her at the chamber.

She wasn’t ready for this. Jasmina felt completely at the will of her council, and if what they said was true, that kind of trust had destroyed her father.

“I can’t do this, Papa,” she whispered into the empty room.

Tears threatened to take over once again, and she fought them back, gazing back down at the paperwork on the lithium deal.

Who was this Jenson Black, and what kind of deal was he going to make that required her personal attention? He had to have some idea of the straights they were in, but how could he know?

With a sigh, Jasmina realized there would only be one way to find that out. She would have to wait until her meeting with Black, and see what was so important to him that only she could discuss it.

Her country’s welfare depended on it.