treasure rewrite - chapter one

[maderr]

Part One

Storms are dangerous, uncontrollable things.
~Taiseiyou I

Chapter One

Takara contemplated murder.

The smug bastard whose death he was deliberating laughed as he accepted his prize from the auctioneer. Takara fumed as the necklace of Kundouin black pearls and Piedren esmeralda was handed over. Three rows of the fine jewels, forming a tight choker. It would have made a splendid addition to his collection – he possessed the finest collection of esmeralda in the country, and probably one of the finest in the world.

Except now it was minus the piece he’d been waiting to go up for bid for months. Years. Ever since that stupid woman from Typhoon had snapped it up like a starving shark. He’d been so close and now that stupid, flashy merchant was laughing like a madman and clutching what should have been Takara’s necklace.

Murder was too good for the storming bastard. Dragons’ teeth, he was going to strangle the man with the storming necklace.

Nor did the man look as though he were the type to give the necklace up. Certainly if Takara had won it, the necklace would only leave his possession upon death. He contemplated the man, wondering at his chances.

He was tall – not the tallest in the room but certainly close – and broad-shouldered. His build was more suited to that of a laborer than a merchant of almost obscene wealth. In dress he was every bit the flamboyant, flashy, merchant anxious to assure everyone of his wealth. Shoulder-length hair, a rich midnight-blue in color, was kept out of his face by way of a brightly colored kerchief tied over the top of his head, stopping just at his ears so as not to hide the triple studs in each, every jewel a different color. The kerchief was a combination of dark and pale violet, forming an abstract, swirling pattern.

It matched the sash wrapped around his waist, holding closed a robe dyed a deep jewel red. Rings flashed on his fingers, gold set with a rainbow of jewels, others plain, at least five on each hand. The bright colors and flashing jewels positively shone against the man’s sun-bronzed skin, his dark hair, and as much as Takara hated to admit it, the flamboyance did not hurt his features at all. The man was handsome, refined and elegant despite his laborer build. Under ordinary circumstances, murder would have been no where in Takara’s thoughts concerning the man.

Suddenly the merchant turned his head, caught Takara’s gaze – and grinned.

Takara jerked his eyes away, cursing beneath his breath. He’d had enough. There were things to do; duties he’d put off just so he could attend the auction this afternoon. Bested by a storming merchant!

Murder was the only feasible option. No way could he let that storming bastard walk away with his necklace.

Except he would have to for now. Dragons drown the man, anyway. Biting back a snarl, Takara threw himself into the crowd, barely noticing as it parted for him, stalking toward the exit.

A strong hand caught his wrist, and Taka spun around as he yanked his arm free. He glowered. “I’m afraid I’ve nothing else for you to take from me.”

“You’re Lord Noumi, yes? Secretary to his Highness Prince Nankyokukai. You very nearly had me, at the end.”

Takara’s glare didn’t ease. “Nearly, of course, being the important part of that sentence. Congratulations, Lord Merchant,” he said stiffly. “It is a fine piece. I’ve had my eye on it for a long time.”

“As did I,” the merchant replied. He swept into a graceful bow. “Shimano Raiden, Lord Secretary, at your service. Raiden, please.”

Storms take it! Of course this man would be the one he’d sent a missive to meet with tomorrow morning. Storming bastard. “You deal in the strange and exotic, if I recall correctly, Lord Merchant. I hardly think a silly necklace falls under either category.”

“You have heard of me. I’m flattered.” Raiden grinned. “I also collect treasures beautiful and rare, and under those categories this necklace most certainly falls. The esmeralda with the black pearls…stunning, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Quite stunning,” Takara said, contemplating the merits of strangulation versus throwing the aggravating man beneath a carriage. Perhaps he could simply have the man arrested. Just for the night. Until he could contrive an effective means of murder. “The pearls are perfectly matched, the esmeralda flawless. They never suited their past owner’s fair coloring.” She’d been the color of paste, with hair and eyes to match. The necklace had looked like a dark, dead thing around her throat.

“Mmm…” Raiden murmured thoughtfully. “She made them hideous. You, however, would make the jewels glitter, the pearls glow.” He gave Takara a look that could not be mistaken. “Your skin is just the right color, and the esmeralda would draw out the green in your eyes and hair. I’ve heard you’re fond of esmeralda, Lord Noumi. It’s a pity you don’t wear any, you look as though you’re made for them.”

The audacity. He was going to shove the bastard into Taiheiyou’s pool of sharks. After starving them for a few days. “You overstep your bounds, Lord Merchant,” he said icily.

“My apologies,” Raiden said, not looking even remotely sorry. “As I said earlier, I admire beautiful and rare things.”

Takara glared, and drew himself up, his lack of height beside Raiden only adding to his fury. “I am not a piece of jewelry to be collected. Good day to you, Lord Merchant.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and all but ran from the room, anxious to get back to the safety of his office.

Just wait until tomorrow morning, when the bastard was in Takara’s domain. Then they’d see who was smug and triumphant and who was the presumptuous, arrogant, infuriating merchant.



Back in the palace, Takara flew through the bright, sunlit halls, bypassing dozens of people who tried to stop them – more than a few with a tone of voice that said Kyo had probably caused trouble in his absence.

Disappointment replaced his fury as Takara finally reached the office where he attended to correspondence, visitors, reports, and dozen of other duties for Prince Nankyokukai. Currently his desk was littered with reports and records, most of them pertaining to their ship. He currently possessed every scrap of information available on every Kundouin ship currently in port, their owners, captains, sailing records, cargo records, and things even he hadn’t known were occasionally kept on record.

They’d gone through what felt like thousands of ship owners and so far had yet to find a single one to meet their needs that would agree to their request. This one not skilled enough, that one too greedy, this one not trustworthy…on and on the reasons went, each one bringing on yet another headache. Nearly two years of work and they’d accomplished what amounted to nothing so far as actually leaving Kundou was concerned.

He’d been rather hopeful about his meeting tomorrow. How depressing that Shimano Raiden was nothing but an arrogant, presumptuous bastard – who’d stolen his necklace on top of everything else.

Storms take it.

Taka smoothed his pale green robes, adjusted his white and silver sash, then pulled a pair of delicate, silver-rimmed spectacles from a hidden pocket of the sash and slid them on his face before sitting down behind his cluttered desk. Muttering to himself, irritably swiping back loose strands of sea-green hair, he resumed the work he’d left to attend the auction, putting away reports he no longer needed, setting aside the ones he would need, and finally cleared enough space he could begin to go through the Prince’s afternoon correspondence.

“Whatever is the matter, Taka?”

Taka looked up from the papers he was glaring at.

Nankyokukai strolled into the office and stopped in front of a large, colorful world map pinned to the wall opposite a massive window that looked out over the ocean. His blue robes – near-blinding in brilliance, especially combined with the sun-yellow sash – could have rivaled the ones worn by Raiden for sheer attention-grabbing ability. His hair sparkled where sunlight caught the sapphir and amber beads threaded through it, and Taka wondered idly for what must be the millionth time how he stood the weight of not only his own hair but what must be at least fifty beads, if not closer to a hundred. “Someone stole my necklace,” he said sourly.

Kyo threw his head back and laughed. “Someone outbid you? How amusing.”

“Stole,” Taka insisted. “Stupid, greedy merchants. As if he’d ever wear it.”

“You don’t wear anything you collect either,” Kyo pointed out, “though I shouldn’t doubt there are people who wish you would.”

Taka ignored him. “I was nearly halted by a dozen people, Kyo. What did you do this time?”

Kyo sniffed. “Taiheiyou should learn to watch his mouth. Honestly, that my father expects him to be King someday…” He smirked. “Of course, that will be rather difficult won’t it? Which brings us back to my original statement – that storming idiot should learn to watch his mouth.”

“By the Dragons…” Takara winced. “What did you do to him?”

For answer, Kyo merely shrugged, then strolled across a green, blue and gray rug to recline on a dark green settee in front of the window spilling light into the room. He stared out across the sea which surrounded three sides of the palace.

Taka sighed. “You really need to stop throwing him in the shark pool, Kyo.”

“He should learn to watch his mouth when he argues with me in front of it,” Kyo said contemptuously. “As if they’d eat him, even if he couldn’t spell them. I don’t think a mermaid would eat him if he was the last living thing in the world and he’d just made her mad.”

Taka tried and failed to smother a laugh, managing nothing more than to turn it into a choking cough. “Kyo!”

“How is the hunt going?” Kyo asked, ending the discussion on his brother.

“Not so well,” Taka said, glaring at the papers in front of him. A full report on Shimano Raiden, a registered merchant of Kundou, with permits to import several of the more exotic spices and foods, odd trinkets and specialty items from foreign nations, and even magic-tainted items, ancient artifacts – assuming he obtained them legally, he had the permits to import and sell them. Permits which took years and a practically perfect record to obtain. Which Lord Raiden had. Not once in all his years of business – and his business had been in operation for decades, or so the report said – had there been a mark against him. Not a single one against his crew, no marks for attempting to import illegal goods, not even a ship lost at sea. Even his captains had impeccable records, and his sailors were nearly perfect – and Taka could hardly begrudge a few bar fights here and there. Not when he saw the sort of behavior exhibited by the supposed upper class. A bar fight was, in his opinion, far more civilized. “Given that the storming bastard who stole my necklace is our morning interview, I’d say we’re sunk.”

“My, this man does have you in a rage. Honestly, Taka, if the necklace means that much to you just have one commissioned.”

Taka glared. “That’s not the point.”

“Of course not,” Kyo soothed mockingly.

“Shut up.”

“So tell me about him,” Kyo said, stifling a yawn and stretching out on his settee.

Taka rolled his eyes. “You already know everything. I know very well you read all these reports, so stop trying to be sly and clever and just tell me what you really want to know.”

“Discounting your vendetta, he’s more than qualified. His ships are some of the finest on record, especially the Fuujin currently in port. He’s reliable, especially for a merchant, and all the rumors I’ve been able to gather around the docks say his men know what they’re doing. He sounds like the best so far.”

“Minus the fact he’s a presumptuous, arrogant peacock who thinks he can treat me like a common whore. I wouldn’t doubt all his permits and reports are forged.”

Kyo burst out laughing. “Oh, I see what the problem is. He’s attractive. Poor Taka, attracted to a man you’ve decided is your mortal enemy. You should have demanded the necklace as a gift, Taka, then you’d have both prizes and we’d have a ship to carry me far, far away.”

“Shut up,” Taka snarled. “Not a single bit of that blather was amusing, especially the last.”

Sighing softly, Kyo sat up, blue robes swishing, hair clacking as he stood, slippered feet soundless on the tiles and rug. He moved to the desk, standing beside Taka. He tilted Taka’s face up. “Enough temper, Taka. Other than this Shimano Raiden,” the name fell easily from his tongue, enforcing Taka’s earlier comment that Kyo had thoroughly read the reports, “do we have any other possibilities?”

“Not really,” Taka said when Kyo had let him go and resumed his seat on the settee. “A few with some promise, but no one even half so promising as Lord Raiden.”

“So he is probably the one we most want to convince.”

Taka made a face at Kyo. “Yes, your Highness.”

Kyo snickered. “Manners will get you nowhere, Taka.”

“Then it’s a good thing I seldom use them.”

“Perhaps you should go for a swim, Taka,” Kyo said, turning in his seat to smirk at him. “Work out all that tension.”

“Kyo,” Taka said sweetly. “Your brother is not the only one who can be shoved into his shark pool.”

“Yes, I know,” Kyo said. “Right after I gave Tai a shove, Indo got so loud and obnoxious about it I shoved him in as well. Honestly, you would think he’d have at least thought not to stand so close.”

Taka buried his face in one hand, struggling not to laugh at the image of Kyo’s brothers floundering as they struggled to get out of the massive pool behind the palace that housed six royal white sharks. “Kyo…” Taka shook his head. “Your father…”

Kyo laughed bitterly. “What can he possibly do to me, Taka? Not a single thing, especially when relations with Verde are going so well. He doesn’t dare risk Umiko to anything, does he?”

There really wasn’t much more to be said. If he were in Kyo’s position, he’d be doing the exact same thing.

“So you want to make certain we get Lord Raiden to agree to take us?”

“I don’t see that we have much choice, Taka,” Kyo said, turning on the settee so that he could prop his arms and head on the curving back. With the light from the sun spilling in behind him, making his robes and hair nearly glow, making the jewels glitter, enhancing the delicate beauty that explained, in part, why Kyo got away with so many of his pranks and blatant disregard for his family and position in the palace.

Kyo, of course, was fully aware of that.

Taka heaved a sigh. “Fine. Only if he behaves, however. I’m not going to spend an entire year fighting off the attentions of an obnoxious peacock who seems to think he’s a gift of the Dragons.”

“I simply cannot wait to meet this man,” Kyo said, throwing his head back and laughing. “You weren’t in this much of a snit when Duke Krasny tried for you affections.”

“Do not bring up the subject of that storming cretin,” Taka said, grimacing. “I hope you’re prepared to do some clever negotiating, Kyo. I don’t think this merchant will come as cheaply as the others – and few of them were cheap.”

Kyo snickered. “Perhaps I should offer him you.”

“If you even suggest such a thing again, Kyo, I promise your fate will be far, far worse than the shark pool.”

“My fate already is worse than the shark pool, so that’s an empty threat. You’re not usually so sloppy,” Kyo said, and the smirk on his face was nothing less than evil. Usually Taka wasn’t the victim of that expression. He much preferred being part of the scheme. “What have we been offering so far?”

Taka rolled his eyes. “Why are you asking me what you already know? Never mind. I know exactly what you’re doing and I can’t believe you’re even considering it. Do I look like money to be spent? Jewelry to be traded? I will beat you, Kyo, and quite cheerfully.”

“500,000 paaru, thank you,” Kyo said as if Taka had answered his question. “You’re worth at least half that Taka.”

“Slavery is illegal.”

“Do go tell that to all the whorehouses – and your peers working under my brothers. They might like to know that law exists.”

Taka hefted a paperweight made of bright blue glass thoughtfully.

“If you throw that at me, Taka, your worth is dropping to 125,000 paaru.”

“Kyo!” Taka lobbed the paperweight, glaring as the prince ducked and barely caught the paperweight before it sailed out the window.

“Temper, temper, Taka. As angry as you are, I think you like the idea of being sold to your merchant. I cannot wait to meet this man.”

Taka searched around for another paperweight.

“Temper, Temper,” Kyo repeated, snickering. He started to make another taunt, but a gentle rap on the door interrupted their skirmish.

Kyo immediately set down the blue paperweight he still held and went to answer the door, catching the swirl of silk and hair that barreled into his arms. “Umiko.”

“Kyo!” Umiko said sharply, brushing thick curls from her face, hands moving automatically to set them back in place at the back of her head so they’d spill artfully over her shoulders, matching perfectly her long, elegant robes, pale blue silk embroidered with large white flowers, secured with a wide pink sash with ends that trailed to the floor behind her. “Why are you trying to get yourself killed?” She looked pleadingly at her little brother. In beauty they were equally matched, save that the delicateness in Umiko was soft where Kyo’s had taken on a bit of sharpness, a touch of masculinity that kept him from the full prettiness of his sister.

“I’m not trying to get myself killed, Umi,” Kyo said soothingly, voice gentle, calming, completely at odds with the taunting tones he’d been using earlier. “Why are you so upset,
seashell?”

Umiko attempted to glare sternly at him, but the worry in her eyes ruined it. “Father vows he’s going to see you thrashed for trying to kill Tai and Indo.”

Kyo rolled his eyes. “Tai can’t do much, seashell, but he can train sharks and other equally hideous beasts. I wouldn’t have shoved them in there – and honestly you’d think by now Tai would see it coming – if I’d thought those stupid sharks would actually hurt them. Do they have Storm blood or not?” He looked over Umiko’s shoulder as she buried her face against his chest, rolling his eyes.

Taka rolled his eyes in agreement. Tai or Sei had only to use their magic and the sharks would be as dangerous as pool of golfish. If they were whining, it was only because they were guppies about everything. Especially when Kyo was the one responsible for making them look like idiots. Which Kyo did as often as possible.

Normally Kyo would have let the matter drop, satisfied with throwing Tai – and Indo this time – into the pool. Until the next argument, anyway. A childish but effective way to end the matter. Given how the elder brothers tended to treat Kyo, childish was really the only option.

But they’d somehow dragged Umiko into it.

That Kyo wasn’t going to forgive. Taka could already see the glint in Kyo’s eye, and stifled a sigh.

Kyo kissed his sister’s cheek. “Father won’t do anything more than yell at me, seashell, I promise. I’ll be fine. You should run along and get ready for dinner – if you wear that, mother will lay eggs.”

Umiko giggled at the image of their mother laying eggs. “I hate formal wear. I feel like I’m drowning in all the layers.”

“But you will look more beautiful than any other person in the room.”

“Until you arrive,’ Umiko said, swatting him on the arm. “Will you be at dinner, Kyo?”

Kyo kissed the back of her hand and shooed her out the door. “No one is more beautiful than you, seashell. I’ll be at dinner if father doesn’t confine me to my rooms.” He waited until she’d vanished down the hallway, then closed the door and resumed his place on the settee. Idly he picked up the blue paperweight and began to toss it in the air, sunlight flashing as it rose and fell. “Where were we?”

“I was about to give you a concussion.”

“Proceed,” Kyo said. “It will make it much easier to ignore the pending lecture from my father.”

Taka made a face and set down the paperweight he still held, a small piece of crystal with a pale pink seashell trapped in the center. “So if we’re done discussing the meeting tomorrow, we still have to deal with the rumors spreading of mermaid attacks. There’s also a problem with smugglers…” he continued rattling off the various matters and problems Kyo was expected to handle, stopping as Kyo demanded information here or there, making notes and writing letters, the two working seamlessly together as afternoon faded into evening, until a guard finally arrived to announce that Kyo was ordered to his father’s presence.