Eight years ago, Lisan the fisherman, who has always believed he was descended from royalty, left his wife and the Water Village. Now he’s back, and he says he can prove it. Six hundred years ago, a forbidden relationship between the royal children of Brunei set into motion a chain of events that will end with the death of a king...or the death of a god. As the story of Lisan’s true intentions – and what he was really doing in those years away – unravels, the story of those doomed royal children also spins to its inevitable conclusion.
Safiyya loves her charlatan parents, but after years of watching the heartbroken and grieving come to them for fake and futile spiritual aid, she has had enough. So she leaves the Water Village to stay with her mother's people at the longhouse in the jungle, where she learns traditional medicine, meets an enigmatic linguist and finds herself caring for an orphaned newborn. Along the way, Safiyya must discover what she truly wants from life.