Page 22 of Prima (After the End #8)

“If I’m going to be unconscious again in a few hours for goodness knows how long,” he says as they near The Arrow of Time, “I’ll have to turn on the emergency beacon in my boat and let rescue come to me. I don’t think I have a choice.”

“How will you explain Prince Eleven and his body servant?”

He sighs. “Don’t worry. I grew up in the Potentate’s Palace, I’ll know what to say to paint the situation in the kindest possible light yet leave no doubt that Eleven was conducting an unwise dalliance with the Risshvai and possibly plotting treason with their help.”

He leaps from her raft to his boat—the experimental drug is working as advertised. After five minutes, dressed in the same pair of low-slung trousers in which she first saw him an eternity ago, he returns to her side.

“The beacon is on. You need to leave, right now.”

“When will the rescue boat be here?”

“Not for two hours, at the earliest. But don’t you have a certain time by which you must finish your Grand Tour? You already went to the war zone, which wasn’t on your itinerary, and now you’ve lost at least two whole days in Dawan.”

But she’s not ready for goodbyes.

As if he heard her, he adds, “I’ll come with you. And then I’ll swim back here.”

The reprieve feels both wonderful and terrible. “What if you start to lose consciousness in the water?”

“Old Friend will carry me.”

So that’s the orca’s name, Old Friend.

They throw his things onto his vessel, except the camping stove and the pot of porridge—those he carries carefully. Over her objections—she’s convinced exertions right now will exacerbate his memory loss later—he took the autocannon apart and put the components back.

“Even though you’re not in active agony, you’ll still suffer the effects of the nerve gun for a while and you won’t be able to move the autocannon on your own.

This way, with it back in storage, maybe people at home won’t ask you questions you don’t want.

And if they do, just say you used it in the war zone. ”

She set the raft to advance at six knots.

He does not admonish her to go faster, but does ask if she wouldn’t mind putting on the dress from the night before—he would like to see her in it one more time.

In her extraordinarily costly dress, they sit side-by-side, shoulders touching, and eat some rations.

She hands him her vambraces. “I’ve already taken out the sculptable cords from these. Give them to your mother to use as tokens when she and your sister make their way to New Ryukyu. Tell them to ask for Sun Yi. Lanzhou is my courtesy name, used among friends, and not on any official documents.

The technology for the vambraces originated in Lion City, so they do not scream New Ryukyu. But will he remember what they are for and not look upon them someday as merely trinkets he doesn’t remember acquiring? “Am I correct in thinking that you don’t forget everything right away?”

He caresses the blue 舟on the inside of her left vambrace. “So far that seems to be the case, gradual memory loss over weeks.”

His jaw clenches. “Unfortunately I don’t dare write down anything about you.

My boat, my person, everything will be searched in the coming days, probably when I’m unconscious.

This close to Dragon Gate, any breath of New Ryukyu and Four will argue that Eleven died because he caught me meeting one of the Sea Witch’s representatives.

And there’s no telling when I’ll see my mother next—I’ll be sequestered for a while and questioned. ”

If he’s deliberately trying to kill her hopes, he cannot do better.

But he does put on the vambraces. She shows him where he can extract a tiny carabiner from the right vambrace and hooks her silver cup onto it as an additional parting gift. That makes him smile briefly.

She almost cries again.

He looks up. “It’ll be a beautiful sunset.”

The clouds have fled. The sun has already dipped its toes back in the water. The sky is a soft blush hue that she has never seen before.

She stares at the sunset, wishing she were looking at him. And talking to him, even though words are of no use anymore.

“You’ve never told me your name,” she says in the end.

She never asked again, beyond the first instance of their meeting.

“Ren,” he says. “My name is Ren.”

The catch in his voice makes her turn her head. His face is wet. How long has he been crying? And is it another one of those indispensable skills one learns growing up in the Potentate’s Palace, how to weep soundlessly?

“Ren,” she murmurs.

He manages a smile. “Yes?”

“Why are you crying, Ren?”

She’s afraid to know.

He pulls her to him and kisses her with infinite gentleness, as if she were made of spun glass, and not steel and granite. Then he places her hand atop his and traces the lines on her palm, the way a pilgrim might study a map to a holy site.

“My mother is adamant that I not use my concurrent ability more than once every five years—she’s convinced there will be worse effects than memory loss if I do.

“The thing is, if I manage to convince the Potentate that I was the one defending his interests against Eleven’s nefarious intentions, I might just win a reprieve for my sister.

But if my mother and my sister don’t set out for close to five years, then there’s no telling when I’ll finally make it to New Ryukyu, if ever. ”

A dull knife scores her heart. This isn’t goodbye—this is farewell.

He looks into her eyes. “You said last night that you were going to forget me. I hope you will do that. You’ve a wonderful life ahead, greatness even. I’m honored to have met you.”

No, don’t go!

But he kisses her on the cheek, stands up, and slips into the sea.

She scrambles to the edge of the raft. It glides smoothly and inexorably in the direction of Dragon Gate, already leaving him behind.

“Promise me you’ll forget me,” he calls out.

Sunset has made the sea into a swath of molten gold.

Bright-tipped wavelets lap at his shoulders and the ends of his hair.

She suddenly remembers him seated on her raft, beneath her makeshift canopy, his hair wind-tousled.

What wouldn’t she give to have that lunch to look forward to again, to have him very correctly label her a merely adequate cook?

“Do you still remember me?” She stretches out her hands, her voice breaking.

“For now,” he answers.

“For how much longer?”

“I don’t know.”

She rises to her feet. He could have said forever and always, this boy who grew up in the Potentate’s Palace and claims to be as good a liar as any ever produced by that pit of vipers.

“I am going to forget you.”

It should be doable, right? She’d already forgotten half of the things she learned in school and the name of the second boy she ever kissed.

“You should,” he says, even as he reaches out his hand toward her.

The sky grows darker. The sea grows darker. Her tears blur her vision.

I’ll remember you. I’ll try everything else, but I’ll remember you.

Don’t think only of other people; look after yourself.

And look after my heart—I’ve left it here. With you.