The Seventh Princess

by Matt Larkin

  At last, she could stand the silence no longer. “You’re not angry about your crew?”

  “I am angry. But not with you.”

  He didn’t have anyone else to be angry with, as far as she could tell. The man was hard to understand. Maybe that was to be expected if he were sent by the gods. But he was clearly thinking of something other than just his lost crew. Before she could figure out what that was, he spoke again, though still without enthusiasm or life in his voice.

  “So what is this surfing, exactly?”

  Maybe he didn’t owe her any answers.

  “It’s an art, where we wave slide. Like a means to become one with the ocean, not to conquer it, but to touch its power and be awed. That’s how Father first explained it to me. Each board is unique. Normally, you’d make your own as part of a ceremony, with aid from the kahuna. Since that takes a long time, you can use my father’s. It’s made from koa wood and is the best one we have, except for maybe the kahuna’s own.”

  Uncle Kamalo had helped her carve her own alaia board and she was damn proud of it. Sleek, thin, graceful, and just heavy enough. When she had picked the ideal tree for it, she and Kamalo had dug out the tree and left a fish buried there, as an offering to Kalai-Pahoa the tree god. The alaia were probably the hardest boards to master, which was why she had wanted one in the first place. A challenge, something she could be proud of, something she had mastered on her own.

  “This beach,” she said when they were far from the village, indicating the stretch secluded by the rocks. “It’s reserved for the upper caste of society, the ali’i. My family, a select few others.”

  Pasikole chuckled. “The wealthy always get the best of everything. Even the best of nature.” He spoke in her language, but seemed to be talking to himself as much as her.

  She shrugged. She had never actually thought about it before.

  She unwound her skirt and tossed it aside, then she turned to the sea and climbed one of the rocks.

  “You … uh … you surf naked?”

  “What? You didn’t know that when you were talking about thrilling activities without clothes?” She laced her tone with as much mocking as she thought she might get away with. Then she glanced over her shoulder. “To be seen in wet clothes is a tabu. If you go in the ocean, you have to strip.”

  Pasikole unlaced his shirt and dropped it, revealing a chest covered in more of that yellow hair. His skin there was even fairer than on his face and arms. At his waist he bore some kind of curved club that sparkled with bits of metal. His eyes looked to her body, then down at himself, and he shifted uncomfortably, as if uncertain he wanted to remove his lower garment.

  Namaka looked away, trying not to giggle. Had seeing her nude been enough to arouse him? So maybe she was enjoying this a little. If he wasn’t going to kill her, she might as well live. She jumped into the sea, then climbed onto her board and began to paddle it out to catch a wave.

  Still he stood on the shore, watching intently. He had removed the clothing on his feet, but not the rest. Unable to hold it in anymore, Namaka laughed. She stood on her board as a wave approached, turned with it, and let herself glide, whooping with delight.

  Out here, she was a goddess. She truly was the Princess of Sea. Arms wide, she rode the ocean itself, becoming one with it, reveling in the spray as it tickled her legs, drinking in the power as she all but flew. As the wave broke, she turned, sliding over it. By the time she faced him, Pasikole was in the water with his board.

  Namaka beckoned him closer. The foreigner paddled toward her, barely able to get the board to move. She shook her head. Her father said she was a natural, but most often, teaching children the art took a long time. She had to be patient. She shouted a bit of advice here and there, trying to let him figure some of it out for himself.

  When he had paddled closer, he spit seawater from his mouth and stared at her. By this time, she had sat down on her board, tucking her chin against her knees.

  “You’re not embarrassed?”

  “About what?” she asked.

  Pasikole looked around like someone was trying to spy on him. “You’re naked.”

  Namaka glanced down at her body, then back at him. “Should I be embarrassed about my own body?”

  “Well … no. You have nothing to be embarrassed about, Princess.”

  “Do you?” She grinned.

  Pasikole grunted in response to her challenge, then tried to climb onto his board. It flipped over underneath him, flinging him underwater, but confirming for a brief instant he had indeed removed all those restrictive clothes. He came up sputtering and tried again, twice more, before managing to come to a sitting position.

  Namaka locked her eyes on his groin, just to see what reaction it would draw. Pasikole immediately tried to shift his position, covering himself with his legs, until he fell from the board again. She couldn’t help but burst out laughing once more.

  On land, one covered the genitals out of respect to them. Pasikole’s people seemed to take it beyond that, as though ashamed of his manhood. Would a white woman feel the same way? Namaka shook her head. These people were so hard to make sense of. So grand, so vibrant, and yet afraid of their own bodies, unknowing of basic tabus. Like a people out of balance with themselves and with nature.

  “I thought you were supposed to be making up for yesterday?” he said when he finally caught his breath and got back on the board.

  “I think it’ll take more than one lesson.” Maybe he was right. Maybe she had teased him enough. She had come down to the beach resolved to behave herself, to make life better for her people. “Do you feel, um, placated?”

  Now it was his turn to laugh. “Placated? By making a fool of myself or by seeing you naked? Not that any of you Sawaiki people wear many clothes to begin with.”

  “Why would we need them? We have kihei cloaks if it’s raining, but unless you climb up the mountains, it doesn’t get too cold.”

  Pasikole snorted. “Doesn’t get cold? It’s bloody hot. Except out here on the ocean, and now I’m freezing.”

  Namaka smiled then, and led him back to shore, paddling slowly.

  “We can try again tomorrow,” she said when they lay on the beach. “I mean, if you … if you want to.”

  Pasikole grunted, then smiled like the sun itself. What did that golden hair feel like? She wanted to run it through her fingers.

  He crawled over and yanked on his lower garments. “Tell me about your ancestor, this Golden Cloud.”

  Namaka frowned. He’d be warmer faster if he let the sun draw the water off his skin before wearing his clothes. But maybe it wasn’t her place to tell him that. She had warned him about the tabu, after all.

  “It was a long time ago, after the Worldsea covered the Earth, but still a lot of generations back. Golden Cloud was one of the original settlers from Kahiki who came to Sawaiki. There are eight islands, but only seven Princesses. Some say that’s why people can only live on seven of the eight islands. The Lost Isle has no Princess and almost no one goes there. They say ghosts roam its desolate beaches. You can actually see it, from certain parts of this isle.”

  “Why only seven Princesses?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess Kāne bound Kū in the underworld before he could sire any more daughters or any sons.”

  “And Kāne is your chief god?”

  Wasn’t he everyone’s chief god? Shouldn’t an emissary of Lono know these things? Namaka frowned, once again left wondering if he intended to test her. Or had her earlier suspicion been right, and he was just a man? But she couldn’t afford to risk it. She’d made enough mess already. “Kāne created Sawaiki. After he flooded the Earth, he split a giant calabash in the sky and its seeds fell down to Earth and became the islands.”

  Pasikole sat beside her in the sand, finally drinking in the sun for a time. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, so Namaka let him be, only sneaking the occasional glance at him.

  “I’ve spent my whole life traveling a
round the Worldsea, you know. Charting every archipelago, mapping our world as best as anyone can.”

  Namaka didn’t even know what to say to that. Her ancestors had come from Kahiki, of course, so she knew there were other lands. But never, in all the centuries since, had anyone else come to Sawaiki, nor had any of her people ever left.

  “Have you been to Kahiki?”

  Pasikole nodded. “They’re a lot like your people.”

  Uncle Kamalo would be fascinated to hear about this. For an hour she asked Pasikole an unending stream of questions about the place where her people had so long ago come from. He told of other great islands, so many islands, so very far from Sawaiki. He spoke of his home in the Westlands. Of a dozen cultures besides her own—other ways of living. And he told her there, they called the gods by other names.

  At last he rose and began gathering his other clothes, casting the occasional glance her way. “You get your powers from a … god.”

  She shrugged. That was the story.

  “You know you’re beautiful enough to have divine blood.” He cleared his throat before she could even react to that. “Sorry. I should get back to my crew.” He scrambled away from the rocks sheltering them, and back toward the village and his ship.

  Namaka lay there for a time, letting the sun warm her. He didn’t seem angry. Had she averted his wrath? Maybe she wasn’t a total failure as a Princess after all. And he thought she was beautiful. Though she’d never admit it to anyone else, part of her had almost hoped he’d demand her body as payment for her crimes. By the aumakuas, that was a foolish thought. But he was so … exotic, like some flower plucked right off the slopes of Haleakala just for her. And she did have to choose someone within the next … damn, was it only four more days now?

  A chill ravaged her, making her shake despite the warm sun on her skin. The aumakuas, her ancestor’s ghosts, might think her a foolish child for being so reluctant to take a lover. Perhaps they watched her from the Ghost World, laughing at her hesitance. She wanted to be a good Princess, she truly did. But was it so much to ask that whatever lover she might take actually love her? Or, at the very least, lust after her. Did all the Princesses go through this? She had never met any other. Indeed, because each Princess remained on her own island, few ever met.

  Maybe her life wasn’t fair, but it was the only one she’d been given. If no one was going to kill her today—thank Kāne and the aumakuas both for that—then she did still have to choose a mate. And maybe Pasikole was her best choice.

  After a while, her stomach grumbled. She’d barely had breakfast and hadn’t eaten since. There had to still be food down in the village. Her skin was long dry, so she quickly wrapped herself in her skirt and trotted toward her family’s house.

  Halfway back Hau-Pu intercepted her, holding up a hand. The man had a sizable bruise on his ribs, though his darker skin concealed it much better than the one Pasikole bore. “You took the foreign man to the Royal Beach.”

  She shrugged. She’d been there with Hau-Pu in the past. It was her right to take whoever she wanted. “Is that a problem?”

  The hunter frowned, then shook his head. “You’re too quick to trust the foreigners. We don’t know what they want here, why they came to this isle in the first place.”

  Maybe she’d had those same thoughts. Whether or not they were true, it was shameful to speak them aloud. She waved a dismissive hand, then trod past him. “You are too suspicious, Hau-Pu.”

  “Princess!”

  His shout froze her in her tracks. Not because it was loud, but because it was laced with pleading, with an almost genuine fear. For her? Was it mere jealousy that prompted Hau-Pu to act like this, or did he actually think her in danger? If so, he was a fool. Pasikole was charming and kind and shy. He would never hurt her. She knew that now.

  “What if he is not sent by Lono?”

  Uncle Kamalo had declared the man was, had said he sensed great mana in Pasikole. He must be kupua, though she hadn’t seen evidence of any divine power. It was possible Pasikole wasn’t sent by Lono. And Hau-Pu could think anything he wanted. It didn’t mean he could say whatever came into his head. “It would be tabu for you to question the kahuna’s decree.” She didn’t look back at him as she spoke. “Have a little faith, Hau-Pu.”

  “Maybe you have too much for the both of us.”

  Namaka shook her head. She wasn’t going to engage in this debate. She trod back to the village without giving the hunter another glance.

  7

  From what Pasikole had gathered, Hiyoya had sent an emissary in the night, but not to demand a sacrifice. Hiyoya, too, was interested in Namaka, and understandably so. Her power was extraordinary enough to be a threat to any government. Not far from here, the great mer empire of Mu threatened to swallow Hiyoya as it had swallowed a dozen such kingdoms before. Still, Pasikole could not be certain of Hiyoya’s intent here, and that uncertainty remained a nagging warning in the back of his mind.

  He stood near the jungle, watching his crew carving a new mast. Already they had brought down one of the local trees—strong wood, these koas—and begun shaping it. They sang a shanty as they worked, blissfully unaware of the doubt gnawing at their captain’s gut. He supposed he was lucky so few of them had bothered to learn the local language before coming here.

  Inemes looked up from where she was directing the work, then stalked toward him. Like the voice of doom. He shook his head slightly. He ought not think of her so, of course. She was the best first mate he’d ever had, always looking out for the crew, always keeping things in order so he was free to pursue his studies in cartography, trigonometry, astronomy—or whatever else caught his fancy. And beyond all that, he had thought he loved her once, when she was a little older than Namaka. That hadn’t lasted. A few months together and, despite passionate nights, they both realized they’d rather be friends than lovers. At least he liked to tell himself it was a mutual decision.

  “I hear you had a fine morning. Learning the local arts, huh? Was that more fun than carrying out the contract?” She spoke the Westlands tongue, so he had no worry of the Sawaikians eavesdropping on him, but still he didn’t like her tone.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I bloody well do. You’ve let yourself get attached to the locals, or at least to one of them. And now you’re having second thoughts. You could have grabbed her while you two were alone. She didn’t have the dog, wereboar, or dragon then, did she? No. And instead of knocking her unconscious and escaping—”

  “Knocking her unconscious? What do you think the Sawaikians would do if we attacked their Princess? Our mast isn’t even repaired yet. We won’t be ready to leave until tomorrow morning at the soonest. So what? You think I should have bloody kidnapped her and kept her in the hold between now and then? I rather suspect someone would have missed her!”

  Inemes quirked her annoying, mocking smile. “So you’re not having second thoughts?”

  “I …” Damn her. “Fine. All right. We made a mistake. We never should have taken the contract.”

  “I seem to recall mentioning that, at the time. A little late for regrets now, though.”

  “No. No, when the mast is repaired, we’ll sail around the island, finish mapping it, and then chart the rest of Sawaiki. That’s it. Make sure the crew knows the plan is off.”

  She threw up her hands. “They will come after us. You know that, right?”

  “The Worldsea is a big place.” He patted the pistol strapped to his hip. “And I will defend our crew if need be.”

  “Please tell me you are not falling for that girl.”

  Inemes left unspoken how that had worked out for him last time, with her. Pasikole waved the comment off. He wasn’t falling for anyone. These people were human beings and deserved his support, his help against the undersea powers oppressing them. And failing that, the least he could do was not sell one of them out to such a power. Doing so had seemed easier before meeting them. And now he could only try to clean up
his mess and be far from here when his employers realized he’d failed them.

  8

  The rains came in the late afternoon, a refreshing reprieve everyone took as a signal to cease work on the ship. This time of year, it was a light, continuous drizzle that fell all through the afternoon and on toward evening. Many of the villagers returned to their huts to rest, but Namaka lay on the beach—though wrapped in her kihei—letting the rain wash over and cool her. It smelled so clean, so fresh. After spending her whole morning with Pasikole, she could almost believe there was still hope. That despite losing access to her Gift, despite all the destruction she had wrought, her life was not over, not wasted. The rain was always so cleansing like that.

  Kamapua’a lounged beside her. Rather than don a kihei, he had stripped off all his clothes, claiming that laying naked in the rain was as good as bathing. “Did you know there are foreign women on Pasikole’s crew?” the wereboar asked out of nowhere. “One of them is his second-in-command.”

  Namaka grunted noncommittally without opening her eyes. She had seen, but not spoken to, a small number of women. As far as she could tell, only Pasikole and a handful of his crew even spoke the language of the isles. Honestly though, she was pretty certain Kamapua’a wasn’t actually interested in speaking to the women.

  “Why don’t you go introduce yourself?” Namaka said, smiling at the mental image. If they were half as shy about nudity as Pasikole, seeing the naked wereboar tromp over and introduce himself would be a show she would not want to miss.

  “Good idea.”

  She heard him rise and opened her eyes to watch him go, but he paused to grab his grass skirt. Shame. It might still be entertaining to watch his display, but not as much as she’d hoped before. For a moment she considered following the wereboar, then she spotted Pasikole heading her way.