The Seventh Princess Read online

  The Seventh Princess

  The Worldsea Era: Book One

  Matt Larkin

  Contents

  Get the Sequel Free

  Day 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Day 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Day 3

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Day 4

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Day 5

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Day 6

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Day 7

  Chapter 21

  Keep Reading

  Get the Sequel Free

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  MATT LARKIN

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, businesses, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  THE SEVENTH PRINCESS

  Copyright © 2016 Matt Larkin

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by Brenda Pierson

  Cover by Juhi Larkin

  Published by Incandescent Phoenix Books

  incandescentphoenix.com

  For Kiran, my darling princess.

  Get The Burning Princess FREE

  If you liked The Seventh Princess, you’ll love the sequel. Namaka is back and face to face with the mighty Princess of Flame.

  Click the link to claim your free copy and continue the adventure:

  http://www.incandescentphoenix.com/join-the-worldsea-era/

  Thanks for reading,

  Matt Larkin

  Day I

  1

  According to the kahuna, long ago the land was so vast one could walk for weeks and never catch sight of the sea. In those days, gods walked the Earth. And Namaka—like all the Princesses of Sawaiki—was descended from one. She was kupua, a half-god.

  And that was less entrancing than it sounded.

  With a huff of frustration, she collapsed in front of the old earth dragon. “I should at least watch the damn races,” she said, running her fingers through her dog Moela’s fur where he lay curled up by the dragon. The animal nuzzled closer to her, but didn’t rise. He was used to long afternoons where the dragon droned on about history and old myths and times that may not have ever existed.

  Mo-O-Inanea, her dragon nursemaid, looked like an overgrown monitor lizard, about five paces long from nose to tail. Earth dragons were much smaller than the great sea dragons of legend, the taniwha, but also much kinder toward humans. She ought to be grateful for that, at least.

  Namaka and her dragon—and her adopted brother Kamapua’a—lived alone in a cave behind a waterfall, about an hour’s walk from the rest of her clan. Since Kam spent half his time exploring the jungle, Mo-O was often her only real company.

  The dragon flicked a forked tongue at her, no doubt knowing how much that annoyed Namaka. When she spoke, it was with the voice of a grandmother, one who had spent far too many years breathing in the smoke of sacred fires and now seemed in need of a good nap. “Why did the seas rise?”

  Namaka folded her arms and stuck her own tongue out at the dragon. They both knew Mo-O was just being stubborn by refusing to let her go. It wasn’t like she thought the races would be fun. But she felt an obligation to at least be there. To try to smile at the men’s efforts. Those races were being held to impress her, to get her to choose one of the men as her own. As a Princess, she had a duty to share her mana with the clan, which meant kapu required her to take her first lover within the week. Most people experienced, enjoyed sex by the time they were ten or eleven. But somehow, being required to take a lover had made it intimidating. Like everything else, her freedom in this was taken from her by unbreakable kapu. Yesterday she had turned seventeen. By the end of the week, she must spread her legs and do her duty.

  Other people got to choose when they were ready to take lovers. If they wanted to wed, their parents would arrange things, but only with the express permission of the participants. But a Princess—oh, she had to help elevate a few lucky men to kahuna status. The wise men drew their powers—if unusual insights could be called such—from the Princesses, from the mana absorbed by sleeping with them. Mana, life force, pulsed the most strongly in the chiefs and kahunas, and, of course, in the Princesses.

  Maybe Mo-O’s refusal to let Namaka go was somehow meant to protect her. But gods damn it, if she was going to be courted by every man in Hamoa Village—perhaps in every village on the Valley Isle—she was at least going to try to enjoy it. Which meant she’d made a new pa’u skirt, woven flowers into her hair, and was going to be there to watch a canoe race held in her honor. Because if she didn’t, if she allowed herself to be trapped by this duty, then what was she? A slave? Or worse … a walking, talking font of mana with no purpose save to share that mana with her devoted supplicants.

  The dragon’s only response to her childishness was to shut one eye and watch Namaka with the other.

  Given Mo-O had lived for at least two hundred years, Namaka probably wasn’t going to out-stubborn the old beast. Not that she hadn’t tried. But in the end, Namaka always ended up playing the good little Princess and doing what the giant lizard told her. Which was whatever kapu commanded. Don’t play like the other children—train for when you get your powers. Don’t fall in love at your own pace—choose a mate within a week of your seventeenth birthday. Don’t live for yourself—exist for the island, for the clan.

  The dragon had insisted on hearing the story of the Princesses at least once a month, as if rote memorization somehow prepared Namaka better for her duties. Duties to share her mana, to serve as arbiter between the clans, and to defend those clans against the other islands. She might, if the Valley Isle were attacked, be forced to use her powers to kill. To protect her people. She had never killed anyone and didn’t look forward to having to. Raids had become less common in the past year, since word she had attained her powers had begun to spread.

  “The seas?” Mo-O prompted again.

  Namaka sighed. “Some of the gods were wicked.” She intoned her voice in the most singsong, annoying manner she could. Mo-O was just too easy to tease. “And so Kāne flooded the Earth, leaving only a few archipelagos like Sawaiki. But the god Kū escaped the floods and came here and planted his banana in a Golden Cloud. Repeatedly.”

  Mo-O’s deep growl filled the cave. When Namaka pushed the dragon too far, it was like the creature’s anger rumbled through the Earth itself, bubbling through the stones and trembling like a volcano ready to burst. The dragon didn’t move, except perhaps for a narrowing of her one open eye, but Namaka swore the cave closed in on her.

  “Fine!” she blurted. “Sorry. Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “Kū and Keaomelemele—who was called Golden Cloud—fell in love and she bore him seven daughters, and one was my ancestor.” Namaka frowned. Her past life might be more accurate. As a Princess and heir of Kū, her authority exceeded all others. Were she so inclined, she could order anyone save a chief or kahuna sacrificed to Kū. She could sanctify marriages. She could do anything she wanted. She ruled the Valley Isle, and yet, she never felt quite free. She never would be free. S
he could change anyone’s fate, save her own. “I’m going to the races. Now.”

  “You need to practice controlling your Gift.”

  “Mahalo. I will,” she said, scrambling out of the cave before the dragon could even react. Moela jumped up and barked at her as she fled, then chased after.

  It was always like this. She had nothing for herself unless she took it. Her life, from the moment the kahuna had identified her, had belonged to the clan. Or maybe it was more complicated than that. A chief was a custodian of the land, but he did not own it—the land was divine and so could only be owned by the divine. In a sense, then, she was a custodian of mana. To violate kapu was to offend the Ghost World and risk disrupting the flow of mana throughout her island. But. But she was a person, wasn’t she? Did she not have a right to get something out of her life?

  Sure, Mo-O would be mad as a shark on a mountain. But the dragon wasn’t going to hurt her, and Namaka had learned a long time ago—if she wanted anything out of life, she had to seize it when she could. One day soon her duty would be to travel from village to village, offering her protection, blessings, and body to the people.

  Rather than walk the path down to the valley, she jumped into the waterfall. Its chill embraced her, suffused her very soul until she had to shriek with pleasure. Waters surged up beneath her, heaving her forward like a woman on a surfboard, skidding down the outside of the waterfall and onto the river. All around her spread an endless blanket of green, of vibrant life sustained by the waters. And those waters carried her on their surface, the wind whipping back her hair as she whooped. For five or six paces she skated the river before her control faltered and she crashed beneath its surface. The river sucked her under and spun her around, everything blurring around her.

  An instant of fear seized her chest and the river immediately spit her onto the bank, scraping her elbows on the rocks.

  “Ow.”

  An enormous snort of derision echoed through the valley. A moment later, a broad-shouldered youth tromped over to her and hefted her to her feet.

  “You’re getting better at that,” Kamapua’a said, his grin wide enough the boy could have swallowed a banana whole.

  “Oh, shut up, Pigman.”

  “Wereboar to you, Princess. I eat pigs for breakfast. Or at least for dinner. And midday meal. Well, yes, and sometimes breakfast.”

  Namaka shook her head, turning away so he couldn’t see her smirk. The boy was a mess. Though he was only her age, he already sported a short beard, which he claimed made him more manly. Maybe it did, though with his hulking frame and unruly wavy hair down his back, he didn’t really need it. “So you eat your own kind. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “Shit no. I’d take some bacon right now if you had it. Does it bother you your people are going to eat you?”

  Namaka frowned. “No.” Yes. In case it wasn’t enough that she was compelled to sleep with as many lovers as possible, when she died, the clan would eat her. Anyone else would be cremated and have their ashes scattered across the Worldsea. Not her. That was kapu.

  Sex was the only way to share her mana, at least until the clan was ready to consume her flesh. When they did eat her, all the worthy in the clan absorbed her power and had more chance of siring a Princess in the next generation. Mo-O-Inanea had said that, when she died, the people would eat her as well, drawing in the mana that coursed through dragons. That was touching—or disturbing—but either way, Namaka refused to let that be all her life was, a source of mana to her people. She refused to be a royal slave. She would be more than that.

  Moela’s barking drew her eyes, as the dog raced down the rocks to meet her. Namaka smiled and scratched the animal behind the ears, then climbed up the rocks and to an old rope bridge strung across the valley, Kam in tow. “Anyway, hurry it up, Pigman. I want to get down to the races.”

  The wereboar chuckled and chased after her, making the whole bridge sway as he bounded across it. Namaka cast an irate glance over her shoulder and he shrugged.

  “Come on, Princess. You know the boys are just looking for a little horizontal hula.” Kam thrust his hips forward and grunted suggestively, continuing the motion far longer than was necessary to make his point.

  The bridge shook at his movement and Namaka scrambled off it. Of course she knew it. Everyone knew it. He could at least let her pretend they had some interest in her for her own sake and not for the power her body could bring them. She was beautiful enough, or so she’d been told, with rich skin and long dark hair. Her mother had been famed for her beauty when she was a girl—her father had even dueled another chief for her hand.

  No one would duel for Namaka. Not when she already belonged to everyone.

  Namaka offered him a mock-scowl. “Disgusting pig.”

  “What can I say? I’ve got a boar in my soul and a … a different big animal under this here grass skirt.”

  “Your way with words never ceases to astound me. But keep it up. Maybe there will be bacon served this afternoon.” Not that she, or any woman, was allowed to eat pork. Even for a Princess, breaking that tabu was death.

  Kamapua’a laughed again, the sound echoing through the valley. “I’m surprised the shitting lizard let you out of the cave.”

  Namaka flashed a grin back at him. He probably knew damn well that wasn’t what happened. Kamapua’a had come into Mo-O’s care maybe a year after Namaka had. As a wereboar, he was a kind of kupua himself, and a dangerous one. Supposedly the dragon was meant to teach them to control their divine gifts. Sometimes, though, she figured Uncle Kamalo had given the wereboar over to the dragon just to get the boy out of his own graying hair. And she was grateful, since the wereboar was about a thousand times more fun than the crusty dragon, even if she wasn’t about to tell him that.

  The Valley Isle, at its longest point, stretched sixteen leagues across. Its coastline was dotted by countless small villages, and a few lay even farther inland. Namaka had seen many of them by Mo-O’s side, and she was grateful for that.

  On the hike to the beaches, Namaka paused just long enough to grab a fresh hibiscus for her hair. Kamapua’a offered her another suggestive thrust and a snort, and she turned away with a huff. Stupid wereboar. He was determined to remind her none of this was about any of those boys actually loving or even liking her. It wasn’t even really about them lusting after her, though deep down she hoped they did. No. This was about power—her whole life was about power, about mana. For kupua like her and Kamapua’a, mana allowed them supernatural powers. And kahuna, well, they could send off ghosts and such, ensure the dead passed on to Lua-O-Milu rather than lingering near the Earth. But for most people, it was just the essence of life—and the more you had, the greater your life would be.

  Or that was the thinking.

  Most of the village huts sat on the water rather than the beach, stilts lifting them up twice the height of a man. Each of the twenty or so families had their own small hut covered by a palm-thatched roof. Every house stood a single arm span away from its neighbor, and they were all connected by a wooden walkway. Every time Namaka came down to Hamoa Village she was mesmerized, swept away by the music of pahu drums and ukeke bows, the smells of fresh food roasting in the village imu oven—tomorrow was the Festival of Lono. And most of all, she was taken by the sea. She couldn’t remember a time when it didn’t call to her, speak to her soul with whispers that sent a tingle through every muscle in her body. The sea was where she belonged—the one place she would be home.

  It was part of why Mo-O forced them to live away from the ocean. Whatever power, whatever pull she felt from the waterfall and the river was nothing compared to the all-consuming song of the sea. And it was growing stronger. Over the past year she had felt it rising in her, her Gift beginning to awaken. Since the kahuna had confirmed her as the seventh and final Princess of this generation, she had known. Everyone had known her Gift would be the only one left. The power to control the sea—the most feared and most worshipped Gift in Sawaiki. This gener
ation the Valley Isle had received that power. If she could use it wisely, if she could control it, she could bring prosperity to her people. She could bestow the bounty of the sea upon them, keep away raiders from the other islands, and protect her clan from harm. And if not … kahuna spoke in whispers of the desolation left behind by Princesses who failed in their duties.

  Despite the gorgeous view of the valley from her cave, Namaka would have preferred to stay with her parents, but it was too dangerous. The village kahuna had told her so when she was a child of seven and he sensed the mana so strong in her, he knew she must be a Princess, born again into the new generation. Her parents had sent her away, to live with the old earth dragon and be trained. And every day for the past ten years, Mo-O had spoken of her tedious heritage as kupua and a Princess. Had forced her to learn the history of the isle, of her own status as a spiritual successor to Kū. She pounded her lessons into Namaka like a girl trying to smash open a clam with a rock. It was a constant reminder Namaka was not quite human, that she would never have the life others took for granted.

  Well, Namaka was a tough little clam, and she was going to enjoy her life in spite of whatever kapu demanded of her.

  Hard as it was, she tried to shut out the sea’s call while she rushed to her family’s house. Her father was the village chief, and thus his house sat farther up the shore, on a raised stone foundation. Had she not become a Princess, she would have been the high caste as well, ali’i, given a life of privilege. She’d have had any boy she wanted as a lover, not for duty, but for the fun of it. And, eventually, would probably have married some other ali’i. But a Princess had no caste and marriage was pointless.

  Her mother sat on the porch, legs hanging off the side. She was weaving a lei when Namaka hurried over, Moela yipping at her heels.