Page 30 of Prima
She isn’t sure what to tell him. During his absence, she simply needed to do something. To keep herself busy so that she wouldn’t be buried under an avalanche of unfamiliar feelings—bursts of longing, sudden crushes of pressure on her chest, not to mention bouts of unruly optimism that run amok like a litter of puppies. Either she went back into the captured sub and worked on a questionable pump, or she did something else with her hands. She chose to make dough: bits of flour would be easier to remove from her dress than streaks of machine lubricant.
She shakes water from her hands. “I’ve been eating rice rations for weeks. Thought I’d try something different. Do you like scallion flatbread?”
“Never had it.”
“It’s really tasty when my auntie makes it.”
He, checking on the soup, looks up at this. “Soyoudon’t really know how to make it?”
“I’ve seen her make it. Many times.”
But he’s right that she doesn’t have any hands-on experience. She’s plenty satisfied to serve the few dishes in her repertoire over rice and has been content to leave the making of flatbreads, steamed breads, and anything else that might involve dough to more adventurous cooks.
This is, in fact, the first time she’s opened the bag of flour that came as part of the raft’s supplies.
She sets the flakes of dehydrated scallion that she found in the understructure to soak. “When it’s reconstituted, you won’t be able to taste the difference.”
He is peeling a pear squash. “Trust me, I will.”
She laughs. “I can’t believe no one else finds you funny. Are you much meaner with other people?”
He stills for a moment, before another strand of green peel falls off the edge of his knife. “I don’t speak to many other people. Or maybe I should say, I’m full of lies and platitudes on most occasions when I do speak.”
But he has been truthful with her. Or at least, not full of lies and platitudes.
“Who wants you dead?” she asks.
They did not have time to discuss it in the urgency of the moment, but the torpedoes from the midget sub had been launched not for her, but for him. And they came only hours after he made an appearance at Work Camp 66. Somebody there must have submitted a report, either deliberately or inadvertently, in their official capacity, and someone else had been watching.
“Probably the eleventh prince. He and Prince Four are full brothers. They’ve been trying to undermine the Noble Consort’s brothers because her son, Five, has a lot of popular acclaim for the throne and Four considers him a threat. The Noble Consort has been my mother’s protector these many years—in the Potentate’s Palace, like on any battlefield, you must form alliances. And anything that threatens the Noble Consort’s position also threatens my mother’s well-being.”
He cleaves the peeled squash in half, scoops out the inedible parts, and then cuts each half into paper-thin slices. “I was in Risshva because I caught sight of Eleven crossing into Risshvai waters. The Potentate does not like his sons getting chummy with foreign powers on their own. If I could obtain evidence that’s what Eleven was doing, I’d weaken those two brothers enough that they’d leave the Noble Consort’s family alone, at least for a while.”
“Did you obtain that evidence?”
“Nothing definitive, but Eleven doesn’t know what I have or don’t have.” He slides the pear squash slices into the soup. “I’m sorry that my troubles put you in danger. Thanks for turning away the torpedoes, by the way. Wish I could have ‘seen’ it.”
“Prince Eleven doesn’t know about your Sea Sense?”
Or he wouldn’t have sent a piddly little sub equipped with only two torpedoes.
He shakes his head. “My mother was very careful that I not catch anyone’s attention.”
Hers was discovered to much fanfare and honor. Of course, this also means that for the rest of her life, she will be called up anytime New Ryukyu’s security apparatus needs civilian help to defend the borders.
“Do you have a concurrent ability?”
Sea Sense occurs in about 0.1% of the population, one in one thousand. But it is said that one in ten of those with Sea Sense—the precise percentage has been difficult to come by—are gifted with an additional ability.
He is now slicing calamari, his motion swift and elegant. He stops for a moment, nods, then resumes his work without looking at her.
She hasn’t expected this admission—back home, her Sea Sense is public knowledge, but her ability to detect ill will remains a secret known only to her mother and herself. For him to acknowledge that, when even his Sea Sense is kept strictly confidential…
They fall silent.
When he finishes cutting the calamari, he puts the pices to marinate and cleans his chopping board. “I have a spare chopping board. Do you want to use that to roll out your flatbread?”
“Yes, thank you.”
