When the Sea Goddess Reached for the Moon

It was the night when the god Lika-libutan shone full and bright. The night that the moon rode low, drawn to the sea by fate itself. The sea goddess, Luyong Babay, had raised the tides and reached for his lips.

A New Prologue

1795

Southeast Asia

The sea goddess was angry.

A ship dared sail in her path on the night she would steal a kiss from the moon god.

It was the night when the god Lika-libutan shone full and bright. The night that the moon rode low, drawn to the sea by fate itself. The sea goddess, Luyong Babay, had raised the tides and reached for his lips.

So close were they that she could feel the warmth of his breath, the thrum of her heart.

And then… whoosh!

The De Gouden Specerij, with a hiss of its vast sails billowing from three masts laden with spices of cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon, dared sail between them.

Sure, the ship was sleek and fast, but it was no match for the goddess’s wrath, for she had missed the moment to claim the moon god for her own.

Spurned and grieving, she called on her brothers to exact her revenge. Hangin Bai, god of the wind, called up a typhoon. Tung-kong Langit, god of skies, hurled thunderbolts and lightning rods till the rains came down hard and heavy. Then the goddess raised her hands to churn violent waves against the ship till its sails tore and masts broke. It rocked and listed, and when it had taken in too much water, it tipped, and slowly, with her precious cargo of spices, she sank to the bottom of the channel where the Sulu and South China seas often fought battles for dominance.

All aboard perished—except one.

A young sailor from the land of misty moors and wailing bagpipes. Spared because of an ancient promise that Kaptan, grandfather to all the gods and deities, the supreme one who lorded all of creation, had made to three fae of the Scottish highlands.

Gifted with a vest from a future generation of the twenty-first century, it would save his life as he floated unconsciously on a raft toward the shores of Panay Island in the Philippines, where a mortal marked by the goddess of a thousand eyes would heal him.

From their love would come a line of descendants destined to save a people facing extinction.