Page 1 of Prima
ChapterOne
The present (ten years later)
At the edge of western Pacific Ocean, about twenty-one degrees north of the equator
The October sky is guava pink. Where the edge of the sun dips into the horizon, the sea glows like honey.
The golden hour, the term pops into Ren’s head.
He stops scrubbing blood from his hands and stares into the distance. Some sunsets have this power over him. When the sky is that rare shade above a radiant sea…it’s as if his mind latches onto a three-note refrain from a song the rest of which he can no longer recall, knowing only that it’s beautiful and that he’d once, long ago, heard it in its entirety.
But there’s no time to sift through his fragmented memories. He finishes washing his hands, tacks his boat to windward and trims the sails. Fatigue saps him—he’s barely slept since he passed Dragon Gate, two enormous concrete pylons that somehow remain standing, even though the oil platforms they once supported rusted to nothing centuries ago.
No vessel longer than ten meters, the Sea Witch’s edict decreed, and no weapons of war. It is perilous, cutting through the Disputed Waters in such a small, undefended craft. He exhausted most of his supply of tranquilizer darts the night before on tiger sharks dead set on rammingThe Blue Sampan. And now he’s dulled the blades on his vambraces against a crazed gaggle of sea serpents that threw themselves over the railing.
Nobody—or at least nobody south of Dragon Gate—knows why the creatures of the Disputed Waters are so territorial. In Dawan it is simply considered part of the Sea Witch’s powers, that her domain is defended by the ocean itself. He suspects something more biochemical, but he’s not a trained biochemist.
He cleans and sharpens the blades of each vambrace in turn. With a snap of his wrist, the still-extended blades of the right vambrace retract into the metal plates that cover the back of his hand. With another snap, the plates themselves slide down to his forearm to allow his hand free motion.
Wearily, he rinses sea serpent blood from the deck. Does he have time to take a nap? He can sit down and close his eyes for a few minutes. He almost does that, but something catches at the periphery of his vision. He turns his head. Is that a…. He squints. It is, a primitive-looking log raft, with a small, broken mast.
The Sea Witch’s emissary.
Nobody—or, again, nobody south of Dragon Gate—is entirely sure what games New Ryukyu is playing with Dawan, but two out of three factions have interpreted the news in a similar manner: The Sea Witch is not holding auditions to select a husband from among the sons of the Potentate, but to choose a side to back in the Dawani struggle for succession.
Ren used to have a very different assessment of the situation. But now…
Now he’s less sure.
Two of the three factions have already sent their candidates north. And those candidates subsequently returned—or were returned—to Dragon Gate. Were they rejected? Or will the Sea Witch refrain from making a decision until she has looked over the whole lot?
With no visible means of locomotion, the raft glides across the open sea. As it approaches, silhouetted against the line where the sea meets the painted sky, he feels a strange distress, an asphyxiating weight upon his chest.
He grips the railing, breathing hard.
The next moment he is jolted out of his irrational emotions: There’s someone on the raft and she’s very nearly naked.
His reaction is not marvel, glee, or even surprise, but a biting suspicion. Is this how one fails to secure the Sea Witch’s aid? By succumbing to the charms of her envoy?
But why is there this envoy in the first place?
He sails near the raft without slowing down and throws a bowline on a bight around the mast. The mast is broken at waist-height but the boom is still rigged to the mast and the tackle holds the loop of the bight securely enough for him to tow the raft behindThe Blue Sampan.
This close, he can’t help but see the woman, her face buried in a folded arm, her long hair spread over her shoulders and spilling overboard. She is naked except for a bunched-up sarong draped with extreme precision—and artistry—over her bottom. The flame-colored fabric scorches in the setting sun.
The expanse of bare, lovely skin, the deep indentation of her waist, those long, smooth legs, and the sarong that reveals more than it conceals…
A tableau that could serve as the cover of a pornographic novel.
He, with his monk-like existence and a wealth of experience fending off female advances, should have viewed any number of beautiful, uninhibited nymphs with equanimity. He should have experienced even a twinge of aloof compassion: It can’t be all that comfortable holding that seductive pose, her weight pressed into rough logs.
Polite detachment eludes him. His body clenches with a desperate hunger, the kind that sometimes awakens him at night, a need that no solo release can ever fully banish.
A moment passes before he can speak. “Madam, are you in need of aid?”
She extends a hand and pulls the sarong higher. He averts his gaze as she sits up and ties the sarong around her torso.
“I’m quite all right,” she answers.
