HEARTOFA PANTHER

SHEREERENEE THOMAS
 THE HERBS were dying.
An elder, Adisa, held a wilted, bruise-stained blossom i n
shaking hands. Black soil, thick and fragrant, rested in her palms.
Dirt lined her nails, dark half-moons. The sorrow in her eyes
matched the shock in T'Challa's own.
He had not visited the ancient groves hidden in the great
mountain since the shamans brought him there years ago. I t
was the weeping time when his father, T'Chaka, had joined the
ancestors, the time when T'Challa had to prove that he was worthy
to wear the sacred mantle, worthy to follow in the steps of the great
Panther King.
The path of a panther was arduous and long. The prospect
of the throne twisted the mind of his half-brother, Hunter, and
tempted his best friend, B'Tumba, to betray him. Only T ' C h a l l a —
the Black Panther—and his younger sister Shuri remained, but
Bast's favor created a distance between them. T'Challa had long
been prepared for the burdens of ruling, but loneliness gnawed at
him and now strange dreams haunted his sleep.
He stood in a barren field that faced the rising sun, then
darkness fell down all around him. Huge stalks burst from the earth,
imprisoned him in a wall of thorns. Covered in a thousand wings,
38 h e was no longer a king, a panther, or a man. He could not leap,
climb, or crush. He could not see, hear, or breathe. When he opened
his mouth to scream, he found the field was on fire, but the land was
no longer beneath his feet.
T'Challa was ashamed to wake with the fears of a child.
Though the dreams made no sense, he woke with something else,
something close to clarity. Even before his father was killed, still
arrogant with youth, T'Challa wasn't sure if he could be king. And
now, when there was no longer any doubt, T'Challa wasn't sure he
still wanted to be.
00
A DAMP, earthy scent filled the cavern's still air. Faint green
lights flickered across the darkness, with bioluminescent beetles
and glowworms scuttling across the ground, leaving trails o f
breathtaking blue. T'Challa brushed his palm against the craggy
wall, maintaining balance as he leapt down the treacherous rocks,
each step as graceful as the next. His enhanced vision adjusted easily
to the cave's darkness. The sweet musk of cave moss intensified
as the murmurs of the underground river echoed off high, jagged
ceilings. Halfway there, he wound his way to the center of Mount
Kanda, home of the Heart-Shaped Herb.
As one of Wakanda's most sacred symbols, the rare plant was
nearly as mysterious as Vibranium, the element that provided the
herb with its strength and power. Together, the two secret resources HEART OF A PANTHER
had made Wakanda invincible to its enemies over the millennia. But
while Vibranium fueled his kingdom's economic and technological
success, it was the Heart-Shaped Herb and its connection to the
Goddess Bast that was the origin of the Black Panther's most
impressive powers—and in this moment, his deepest fear.
Shadows danced along the damp, earthen walls carved in the
signs and symbols of the earliest Wakandan script.
"The language of the ancestors," his father once said.
T'Chaka, a fiercely loved leader whose reign was still sung by
griots, had told a very young T'Challa the story of the mysterious
meteor that crashed into the mountain. The Vibranium had set off 3 9
 a chain of reactions buried deep within the earth. The arrival of
the extraterrestrial element heralded a new age for their people, one
that would see them prosper and emerge far more advanced than
their neighbors over many long years.
00
"HOW LONG?" T'Challa asked.
Guilt flashed across shifting eyes. An elder and yet a child of
Nganga, Adisa's line had tended the sacred herb for generations.
No crop before had ever failed. The shame was as palpable as the
cloying wet heat in the air.
"The answer would not please, Your Majesty," Adisa said.
Her purple robes billowed around her as giant fans spun slowly
up above. She had the noble stature and melodious, calming voice
of her family. Shamans spoke and sang to the flowering herbs, with
spells and ancient magics that guarded them well.
"We have been monitoring these developments for some time,"
she said carefully. "Our family uses the best practices, perfected by
tests and culled over a thousand years. We have tested and we have
prayed. We sang the old songs and we danced. The soil health is
strong, the water is pure, but the seeds, the roots and the flowers...
they deteriorate."
"But how can this be?" T'Challa asked.
He reached for the wilted herb, held its leafy heart-shaped
blossom in his hand. Light as a butterfly's wing, as soft as a feather,
the herb smelled overly sweet, almost putrid. Its beautiful color,
once vibrant and lush, was faded in some spots, darkened in others.
It looked as if poison had seeped through its taproot and filled
every vein.
"Soil samples are Vibranium-rich, the minerals and nutrient
levels normal. No weeds or intruder species apparent. Your Highness,
there are no known parasites—at least none that we can perceive."
The elder's fear was understandable but the question in her
voice troubled T'Challa more.
40 " W h a t do you mean, 'none that we can perceive'?" He held the
Heart-Shaped Herb up, allowed the artificial sunlight to pierce the
thin petal.
Adisa chose her words carefully. "Without a new harvest..."
she began.
"Wakanda risks being unable to pass the Black Panther's
powers on to the next king."
"Without a king... the Black Panther..." Adisa whispered.
"Wakanda is lost." T'Challa stared at rows upon rows of
shriveled-up herbs, sacred plants stunted on the vine.
Worry darkened his face. His jaw set, his eyes narrowed as he
remembered the bittersweet taste of the herbal tea the shamans
urged him to drink. The Rite of the Panther was one of Wakanda's
oldest traditions, but there were few traditions without sacrifice.
Phantom pain rippled through the muscles in his neck and
chest. Memories rained down on him, a sharpness that ran up
along his throat to gather at his temples.
Adisa watched him. Fear etched itself across her whole presence.
Even the Kimoyo beads on her wrist, the shaman's necklace around
her neck, vibrated with the hope for their nation. She motioned at
the groves that filled the cavern. Rough and calloused, she had a
gardener's hands, but she spoke with the concern and softness of
a healer.
"My King, perhaps we are looking in the wrong place."
"What do you mean?" T'Challa asked. HEART OF A PANTHER
She bowed her head.
"Don't be afraid, Adisa. You may always speak plainly to me."
She hesitated. "Perhaps the problem is spiritual. The herbs are
connected to you, my King. You are joined in ways that neither you
nor any of us, your shamans, fully understand."
When she finished, Adisa looked as if she wanted to disappear,
hide beneath the many folds of her priestess robes. She clasped her
hands the way Queen Mother Ramonda did. The small motion
reminded him of the comfort he felt with the quiet force that was
his stepmother at his side. T'Challa stood silent, his questions
resting in his throat. 41