[FULL KELS SERIES] When Ande wakes up on the bottom of the ocean with a fish's tail, she's not sure what she did wrong. Getting sacrificed by her island is a likely bet, but why---and why her---is a mystery.
Out of her depth in an unfamiliar world...
Sar hid well. It takes us half the morning to circle the island to the up-current side where I told them to hide, then to actually find them. I don't dare use the seeking song. Sar can hear it but not respond, and there are too many hostile Kels in this area. If even a Sandsinger followed us here covertly, the seeking song would tell them we came with someone else.
We don't actually find Sar in the end. They spot us and break from hiding, then go stone-still when they see we're alone.
"I found out which way she went," signs Ande. I'm sorry, is written all over her expression, so clearly, even I can see it.
Sar takes a breath that shakes their body. I've spent enough time around them now to know they're masking their true feelings, and I know those can't be good. My commitment to finding Ruka rises another notch.
"Where did she go?" Sar signs.
Ande repeats the sign she showed me. It's not Shalda, because it uses too much nuance in her fingers, and it's too blocky to be island sign. I wonder if Ruka knows any Sami hand-languages.
Sar's eyes widen in recognition. "That's a Glauclin stopover."
"How far from here?"
"Two days?"
"Karu territory?"
"They're Karu that the Glauclins are friendly with. Last time I checked, anyway." Sar pushes themself off the rocks, suddenly desperate to be in the open water. "We need to—"
"No." Ande settles back on the rocks and waits until they stop trying to go places. "We sleep first. Then eat something. Then we head for the stopover."
"I'm not hungry."
"Try saying that about being tired."
It's a lost battle already. Sar stays poised for a moment, but Ande just crosses her arms. Sar sits back down, hugs their tail, and puts their head down.
"First watch or second?" signs Ande to me.
"First."
It's going to take a while for my nerves to calm down from the Sandsinger visit, and I want some time to think about things. Ande beds down. Sar eventually does the same. I settle back and beat my fins to ignore the fact that there's stone on three sides of me. My thoughts just whirl. Then Sar's breathing starts to catch, and I hum the calming variant of the healing song before the catch develops into choking. Sar settles, but the moment I stop, the nightmare starts again. This is going to be a bad one.
I've worn myself out by the time it's time to wake Ande, and I doubt Sar's slept for longer than a finger's width of the sun's passage uninterrupted. Ande grimaces when I tell her. She doesn't have the song, so her only alternative is waking them. Which means Sar won't sleep much more today at all.
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We leave the island of the yellow fish and circle the stone forest over the course of the next day. Sar pauses before we leave the final rocks of the islands' roots. Their hands flicker through a Sami prayer. I swallow hard. They've mentioned this before. It's Ashianti tradition to start any journey over the three-moon deep with a prayer for protection, and the thing they're protecting against is most often Andalua. But Sar doesn't just sign towards the deep. I track their indicators towards the islands, the deep, the stone forest beside us, and finally the open water, running through several gradations of Kel habitat like all of them are dangerous.
