Dedication

For all the people who dream too big.

Chapter 1

Welcome to the world of One True Prince, where the prince of your dreams might be just around the corner. Are you ready to find true love with a handsome royal? If so, enter your name here, and then the keys to the kingdom are yours! Remember to choose wisely—the royal life isn’t all fun and games, and not every prince is who he seems to be!

Nya Jerami returned her obscenely comfortable seat to the upright position, then pushed aside her braids to remove the wireless earplugs from her ears—no amount of relaxing meditation music was going to make her feel better about returning home to Thesolo.

Before leaving to participate in an early childhood development masters program at a university in Manhattan, she’d imagined days spent surrounded by a throng of intrigued peers, and nights being courted by handsome men. She’d had a plan for how things would go: after years of being kept like a caged bird by her father, she would arrive in Manhattan, spread her wings, and soar straight toward her happiness. That was how things happened in the films she had grown up watching, where every timid girl secretly had the heart—and talons—of an eagle.

But in real life, the jostling crowds and tall buildings had made her uneasy, the subway trains had given her motion sickness, and traffic had moved in a wild and frightening way that left her in constant fear of being crushed. She’d sat silently in class, biting back her thoughts, and her peers had barely known she’d existed. Dating had gone no better, a series of uncomfortable and disheartening encounters with creepy men.

The plane bounced over some light turbulence and Nya closed her eyes against an unwelcome thought. Perhaps her father had been right with his constant reminders she should dream smaller, want less—the simple fact was that for Nya, New York had simply been too big.

She’d had plenty of exciting adventures—fighting space pirates, taming a vampire king, being sought after by every senpai in her high school—but those things had taken place in the virtual dating games she played on her phone. In those worlds, she was fearless, always knew the right thing to say, and if one of her dates annoyed her, she could delete him without much guilt.

Now she peered through the window of the private jet of the royal family, the African landscape unrolling beneath her like a familiar but suffocating quilt heralding that her adventure in New York was truly finished. There were no expansion packs available.

Game over.

“We’ll be landing in Thesolo in approximately two hours, Miss Jerami,” Mariha, the flight attendant, said as she peeked her head into the cabin for the approximately one thousandth time. “You’ll be home soon.”

“Thank you,” Nya said politely, nausea roiling her stomach.

Two hours.

Home.

“Are you all right?” Mariha’s face creased with concern, and though Nya should’ve appreciated it, she hated that expression. People always looked at her like she was a vase perpetually in danger of falling off a shelf. In Thesolo, she had been the finance minister’s frail, sickly daughter, too weak to know her own mind. That image had stuck with her well past childhood, and despite having single-handedly rejuvenated the Lek Hemane Orphanage School during her tenure as a teacher, people still patted her on the head and spoke to her like her dance of womanhood hadn’t been half a lifetime ago.

They’d taken their cues from her father, who’d spent a lifetime explaining to people that Nya needed his guidance. Even his imprisonment hadn’t erased the script that he’d written for her.

“Nya has her little job, yes, but she cannot handle too much work. The stress is dangerous for her, and she prefers being at home.”

She’d been guilted and wheedled and talked down to until she was a nonplayer character in the role-playing game of her own life.

Home. Two hours.

Her hands went to her stomach, which was busy twisting itself into anxious balloon animals.

“The flight is a bit bumpy,” she said, finally gazing up at Mariha. “Do you have something soothing for the stomach?”

“We have the goddess blend tea, of course. That has many uses,” Mariha said, and then her smile fell as she seemed to remember that Nya’s father had used the same tea as a poison, corrupting nature and tradition for his own ends. Mariha blinked rapidly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t— Forgive me, Miss Jerami, I wasn’t insinuating! I—”

“It’s all right,” Nya said. Her father had ruined even the pleasure of tea for her. “I prefer ginger ale.”

“Ginger ale. Right away,” Mariha replied, her blinks still transmitting apologies in Morse code. “Wi-Fi service has resumed, by the way.”

With that, she hurried down the aisle, her low heels thumping on the plane’s carpeted floor.

Nya snatched up her phone from the seat beside her, opening her friend messaging app as anxiety feathered over her neck, scrolling back to the conversation just before her flight had taken off.

INTERNATIONAL FRIEND EMPORIUM CHAT

Ledi: If coming back is too overwhelming, just let me know. I want you here, but I also know that this isn’t going to be easy for you.

Nya: Of course, I’m coming to your wedding! Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll just ignore the people whispering about how I tricked you into being my friend after my father hurt you. Or debating whether I’m a disgraceful daughter who will visit my father in prison or a disgraceful one who won’t.