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

(28) Sar: Blackmail

I can't stop my heart from pounding as I hover at the edge of a reef outcropping on Alaga, waiting for Vibi to finish her conversation so I can intercept her. Her eyes flick to me on more than one occasion; she knows I'm here. She doesn't make any attempt to hasten the exchange. I'm struggling to keep from swimming in circles just to stay my restless tail when Vibi finally sends off the other Karu-Kel with a murmur too low for me to hear. He leaves, looking pleased.

Vibi waves to another Kel across the island's lagoon before turning to me, as if to drive home the fact that she couldn't care less about my urgency. I steel myself and my expression, which I'm trying to keep stern.

"It's been seven days," I sign, drawing out the letters in the water so Vibi can read them.

"I'm aware."

"We agreed to leave after five."

"Is that all you came here to ask about?"

My hands tremble as her eyes stray again. I could handle a conversation like this just fine—even with more dismissive opponents—before my cousin tried to murder me. Now I'm struggling to keep those memories out of my mind. The news of our diversion should have reached Rapal around the five-day mark, giving us time to escape before the Alliance arrived. They'll have left already. They could be as little as three days away.

"My answer hasn't changed from last time," says Vibi.

"All your Kels are healed."

"And the ones who live here are still equipping themselves to defend against the Alliance when it comes for their islands. I don't abandon Karu-Kels, my own or otherwise. We are helping them prepare. We've got time."

If she still thinks we've got time, she has no idea just how fast the Alliance's front-line Kels can travel. The plan before we arrived was to disperse our local helpers back to their islands after taking over Alaga, then abandoning the island and making tracks back down the Gods' Teeth, into Karu territory. Back the way we came. The local Kels are supposed to surrender to interrogation and point the Alliance in a different direction. The ones I've spoken to have all seemed happy with that plan.

"If that's all you're here to ask about, I have other things to do," says Vibi, dismissing me. She then turns away so I can no longer talk to her. I could dart around in front of her again, but with seven days of this breathing down my neck, I no longer want to try. I return to Innis and El.

"Is she serious?" demands Innis when I relay the update. "She's going to get her people killed. I vote we leave."

I lift my hands on reflex, but the signs I want to form don't come. I've been the one pushing for us to stay these last two days. Vibi's people have been helping their local Karu-kin, and I don't want to be the one to counter that. Not when everyone in this area has been suffering under the Alliance's hand.

"We could still escape with less time than this," are the words that leave my hands instead. It's a feeble protest, and it takes all my energy even then. My heart is crying to take Innis up on his proposition. I want to be halfway back to Underfarrow already.

Innis looks disgusted. "Oh, believe me, I know. She'll take it as a proper betrayal then, I'm sure. Blame us all for abandoning her people to a bloody fate. A great way to keep peace in Underfarrow."

His sardonic tone tells me how little he actually cares. Well, I know he cares a little. Everyone among the Underfarrow Network Kels likes Finika too much to want to bring that kind of fracture to the fort.

"And that's if she makes it out alive at all," continues Innis, more darkly this time. "We can justifiably say it came down to a close escape at this point, and that we couldn't make it back alive while also bringing Vibi's people with us. If none of them make it home, there's no one to say otherwise."