Myth and Memory in the Kingdoms of the Sea

I’ve always been intrigued by the grandeur of the ancient Southeast Asian empires. And so, the setting of my second book begins a thousand years ago, when the maritime empires of this region stood at their peak, blazing with Hindu-Buddhist glory.

It was a time when kings were seen as gods, when oceans carried both prayers and armies, and entire civilizations rose and fell with the turning of monsoons. The ones that lived and died by the tides ruled not just with armies, but with poetry, cosmology, and salt.

A tale buried by time, but not forgotten.

They built temple mountains, navigated by stars, and carved myths as real as stone. But what haunts me most are the silences, the legends that never made it into textbooks, the love stories that didn’t survive the fire.

My second novel in the Tale of Twin Flames series was born from that ache.

The prologue below is fiction, yes— but it is also a remembering. A myth reimagined from the ruins, the rivers, and the echo of ancient tongues.

In this prologue, I try to capture a fragment of that splendor—not as a historian, but as a dreamer. I imagined what kind of myth might have been born in the shadows of temple towers, or across the decks of ships guided by starlight.

This is my way of honoring what might have been.

A tale from long ago, imagined anew.

PROLOGUE

Once… A thousand years ago, I was a man.

A warrior. A Laksamana. The blade of my King.

Bound by oath, by blood, by steel, by right.

"Sail east," my King decreed,

"Beyond the Strait. Beyond the Gulf.

Beyond the river’s flow,

Bring me the bloom from the moonlit height,

Not for its beauty, nor its glow,

The flower that bends both time and tide,

The Bakawali, in darkness, hides."

Twenty-four blood-oath brothers, my kin,

Bound by honor, bound to me in war's din,

Beyond death, our souls entwined within.

Through the tides we pressed, the tempest howled,

Through rivers that ran with the ghosts of kings,

We came to a land where the mountains sing,

Ancient stones stood, watching with silent eyes,

Through the wild, we climbed the heights.

At the summit, beneath the moon’s sharp gaze,

The Khmer monks rose from the shadow’s haze,

Protectors of the flower, fierce as the storm.

With swords drawn, they struck without form.

The clash was fierce, the night alive with steel,

Their blades were ghosts—we bled before we’d feel.

Twenty-four warriors fought, hearts forged in fire;

Steel met flesh; each death drew us dire.

Fingers slipped from mine one by one.

Each fall, a wound—my soul undone.

Each brother fallen, a piece torn away.

I fought till my muscles screamed to stay,

Till breath ran ragged, till sight grew dim,

Till the earth was slick with the blood of my kin,

As the last blade fell, the battle was through,

I stood where my warriors' final breath withdrew,

Only we—Sang Wira Setia and I,

Our swords held low beneath the blackened sky.

We journeyed forth, though my soul was hollow,

My heart is a graveyard of unburied sorrow.

Before us, stretched the grove in white,

Bathed in streams of silver light.

At its heart, the Bakawali lay,

A bloom where stars and echoes stay.

It blooms for those who dream too long,

Who carry love in silence strong.

A ghost-flower of the moon’s own breath,

It blossoms once—then falls to death.

The first part of my Prologue appears in my second novel, White Tiger and the Full Moon—part of the mythic romance series, A Tale of Twin Flames.

Now available in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardcover.

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