Page 24 of Prima
Which he might know because he was spying in Risshvai waters. “Are they after you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ididn’t cause any trouble in Risshvai waters—passed through at full speed, never stopped for any patrols.”
He smiles very slightly. Is this the first time he’s ever smiled at her? Alas, there is no time to rejoice in the brightness of his expression. Risshva is allied with the warlord faction off the Southern Continent. If the warlords wanted Risshva to send a sub after her, they just might have.
“How fast can your sub go?” he asks.
“It tops out at eighteen knots.”
He swears. “You won’t outrun them. And you may not win in a shooting match. Jettison the raft, set your sub on autopilot, and send it off at an angle so it can lead your pursuers astray. I’ll take you to Dragon Gate on a more easterly course. If the wind holds, we can be there by sunset.”
He swims the short distance to his boat. With a mere tap at a stabilizing float, he leaps upfrom the waterto the deck, a distance of more than ten meters, leaving an arc of droplets in the air that shimmer iridescent for a fraction of a second before falling back into the waves. He gives a shake to his hair and resumes hoisting his sails, rivulets still streaming down his sinewy, sun-kissed back.
Two seconds pass before he turns around and frowns at her, bobbing in the same spot. “What’s the matter? Hurry up.”
What was the word he used earlier?Transfixed.Is that what she’s feeling, unable to do anything but stare?
“I feel bad that you won’t have a prize to take back to the Potentate’s Palace.”
He blinks. “That was always a castle in the sky.”
“It doesn’t need to be.”
She smiles—or is she grimacing, in truth? He was looking for excuses to keep following her. She might be rolling along similar tracks, grabbing onto any acceptable pretext to delay their inevitable farewell.
She gazes into his beautiful, melancholy, fierce eyes. “How would you like to capture a Risshvai submarine for the powers that be?”
ChapterSeven
Four years ago
“Do you remember when I came to see you at the hospital, and you asked me about our past dealings?” asks Five.
Ren shivers despite the early evening residual heat. He recalls that day exactly. Their father’s eunuchs had been in the room, too, and he had pretended that he remembered none of the occasions Five listed, instead of just the few lost to memory.
Not long afterward he was sent away for two years of “volunteering”.
Ahead, the capital is coming into view on the horizon, a great stretch of stone edifices along the waterfront, the sprawling palace halfway up the hills, its windows and glazed roof tiles sparkling in the setting sun.
He’s been back a week—at one point he thought he would spend the rest of his life on the outlying islands. During his exile, he received regular care packages from Five and his mother, the Noble Consort, delivered by senior servants in person to signal their support. Upon his return, Ren called on the Noble Consort as soon as he thanked the Potentate in person for the latter’s “leniency”. Five had been there at his mother’s side, waiting to receive Ren. But this outing to Five’s domain is the first chance they’ve had to speak to each other alone.
From time to time, the Potentate rewards one of his sons with an islet as the prince’s own domain. It is a dreaded gift, as the recipient must then expend his own resources for reclamation. Five’s luck wasn’t too bad. His domain did not bankrupt him during the Plant Cover-removal phase and has turned out to be somewhat usable.
They ambled about on the flat-enough island, visiting small orchards that have been laid out and planted.
“I was told these jackfruit trees will start bearing fruits in another two years,” said Five, as they stopped to rest at the edge of yet another array of young trees.
“I’ll come prune them, so they don’t grow too tall,” offered Ren. “Apparently I’m extremely fond of jackfruit mooncakes.”
“For sure you were always eating them at one point. Before that I hadn’t even known you liked sweet things.”
For hours upon hours, Ren was content to weed between rows of saplings as Five, pacing up and down, brought him up to date on what was going on in the palace, the capital, and elsewhere in the realm.
But now, with the Potentate’s Palace in view, this question out of nowhere.
The breeze is stiff. Ren steers closer to the wind to generate less forward force—Five is uncomfortable at excessive speeds.
