Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(22) Taiki: Reparations

I don't intend to fall asleep, but the waiting and the quiet and the still water of the inner stone forest are enough to outweigh my anxieties. It doesn't really matter anyway. It's mid-afternoon when I wake again, and nobody's come to find me. Or if they have, they didn't wake me. I check my dagger, but it's still at my side.

A quick jet down the rocks reveals that Makeba and Luli have left the alcove we were speaking in before. A check of the Sandsinger camp reveals they're not there, either, so I wander about the local pillars long enough to find food for myself, then return to my post. Evening has begun to fall when I see motion at the mouth of the Sandsinger camp. I squint against the dimming light of breakeye. The person entering the camp is Luli. She's alone.

I tense. The water around me remains empty, though, until the surface far above warps and ripples with the brilliance of sunset. That's when Makeba appears. My hand drops to my dagger, but she's not armed. There's nothing aggressive in the way she approaches, either. I wait for her to pull up in front of me.

"Can we go somewhere more private?" she asks.

I don't know what else to do, so I nod. Makeba turns without another word. I glance over my shoulder for any sign of someone following us, but no flicker of motion betrays them if they are.

Makeba takes us back to the alcove we were in before. "I didn't want to drag Luli into this," she signs then. "Can I ask you a question?"

I don't think she's ever asked me if she can ask something. Normally she just does it.

"Yes," I reply.

"Why did Ruka leave?"

My hand twitches back towards my dagger. Makeba doesn't tense, though. She leans against the opposite wall, just watching me. She looks tired.

"You didn't ask her?" I venture.

"I did. She didn't say."

I bite my lip. I'd give almost anything to have Ande here with me right now. But I'm on my own.

"I have my guesses," continues Makeba. "I want to know how close I was."

"I... don't know if I can say."

She just watches me again, for a long time.

"You're on her side," she signs at last.

There's not much point in lying about that, so I nod.

"Ande, too?"

I nod again. If anything, Ande is even more on Ruka's side than I am, given how close she's gotten with Sar.

"Do you trust her?"

She's referring to Ruka. I clench both fists. I didn't, for a long time. The Glauclin clans have always been close with the Ashianti and other surface Kels. In past conflicts, they've equipped the Ashianti with spies and even assassins. Some of those spies were Glauclins themselves. I was scared of their clans, once upon a time. I still am, really. But thinking about Ruka again makes me realize I've started to see the Ashianti as allies. Which means their allies are my allies. Which means I do trust Ruka to some degree, whether I like it or not.

"Enough to work together," I sign. But even that's not quite true. "More than I trust most Kels."

"Does Ande?"

"More than me."

Makeba goes silent again. It's hard to tell how she feels about Ande, and therefore about what I'm saying. At last, though, she signs, "Is there anything you can tell me? I just want to understand."