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

(28) Ande: Betrayal

I'm done. I'm so sick of this. I'm sick of running, hiding, questioning every place we find. Of landing in sequential hideouts I can convince myself are safe, until they reveal themselves to want the same thing as everyone else, just in different forms. If not for my recent success with the new inhabitants of Roshaska, I would probably scream right now. Or leave and swim all the way back to the eel-Kel city, just to make a point. Of all the ironies in this ocean, the greatest has got to be how the people sheltering in a city Andalua has razed at least three times are somehow the most dedicated to their own self-preservation.

We were told this place is safe.

Ruka lifts both hands as I round on her. "I can explain," she signs.

"Then start talking."

It's harsh, but I'm done being nice about it. I want to trust Ruka. I know Sar does. But if it all comes down to a fight on this, I'm willing to suffer a change of loyalty.

"Yaz isn't lying," signs Ruka. "You're still safer here than anywhere else, except perhaps Roshaska—and that's a different kind of danger. But we are here for a reason. You've seen my own views. You've seen what I've done to try and stop this war. We wouldn't be here if we didn't trust Underfarrow enough to work with them, and to leverage their resources for our own ends."

"What are those ends?"

"What I've said before. We've partnered with this place to sneak important Kels out of Rapal. El was among the first we intercepted, and Sar was a key goal for as long as signs persisted that they were still alive. Casin joined us voluntarily, and we've now found Winona. We have at least one remaining target, or two now, given what Sar just told me about the writing in Roshaska."

Xivay. Sar told us we needed a scholar who specialized in eel-Kel writing, and that xe was almost certainly still in Rapal.

"Who's 'we'?" I sign. "Who's on what side here?"

Ruka hesitates, looking around. I'm too late to see the responses she gets from the others, and I don't particularly care. I want to see her answer my questions herself. I'm tired of scrounging for information that hasn't been delivered to us when it concerns something as critical as our own bodily safety.

"Everyone you see here is together," signs Ruka at last. "Plus Innis, who's out on a scouting mission right now. Everyone else... is part of the core of Underfarrow."

I turn a pointed look on Finika. She winces.

"It's complicated," signs Yaz.

"And I can sympathize with the Sandsingers. What isn't complicated?"

Yaz and Finika exchange a glance of their own. Yaz murmurs something out loud, and I look automatically to Taiki to see what his response to it is. I don't think he can hear either. He's watching the pair, too, but even as I watch him, he shoots a look back at me like I'm a shark poised to lash out. He shifts an increment closer to Yaz. I see how it is.

"What aren't you telling us?" signs Sar again. I am suddenly, fiercely glad to have them on my side.

At last, Finika turns back to me. "I'm the bridge here," she signs. It jars me again that she's got a red signal squid-Kel accent, even without lights. "Yaz and I were the first of this group to arrive here—other than Ruka, who knew this place as a Glauclin stopover. She and Yaz connected the next time Ruka came. And because Yaz was connected to me... well, we all ended up talking. We've been working together ever since."

"Innis?"

"He came with Casin."

I take a deep breath to keep from dragging two handfuls of hair from my head. Everyone's connected.