The King’s Shadow – Paperback

He was chosen to die in a prince’s place. Living as him will demand a different kind of sacrifice.

Jaka Wira earns his living at the indigo vats of Canggu. At twenty-two, he knows good cloth from bad and can hear a lie in the order of a merchant’s words. Then Arya Sanggrama offers him a fortune to become the double of Bhre Jayanata, the ruler Arya has sworn to protect. His face makes the deception possible. His eye for other people’s lies makes him worth the risk.

Inside the guarded courtyards of Wanagiri, Jaka is taught to become another man. The walk. The gestures. The silences that make other people wait. As the blue fades from his hands, his old life becomes something he must learn to conceal.

Arya oversees every correction. He knows where the resemblance fails, what the court will notice and how quickly a borrowed identity can become a death sentence. But the closer he draws to Jaka, the harder it becomes to separate obedience from tenderness-and the man he is shaping from the man he is beginning to love.

When the prince dies, a temporary deception becomes a future neither of them prepared for. Succession, marriage and the scrutiny of the great court draw them deeper into a life that depends on keeping Jaka’s name unspoken. Protecting him means preserving the lie. Loving him means remembering what the lie is taking away.

Set in an imagined Java shaped by Majapahit, TAKU SKY’s The King’s Shadow is a lyrical, intimate historical novel of concealed identity, political intrigue and a love lived beyond the official record. From the dye yards of Canggu to the courtyards of power, it asks what remains of a man when everyone needs him to be someone else-and whether the person who taught him to disappear can still see him.