CHAPTER ONE: UNKNOWN WATERS 

Seawater burned Jacuti’s throat. He clenched his lips, choking on brine. The swirling blue sky seemed to shrink as the ocean swallowed him whole. His eyes flared, wide and full of terror. His legs kicked. His arms flailed. But the crushing weight of the sea pulled him deeper, lungs screaming for air. His fingers stretched toward the vanishing light as he sank beneath the waves. He wasn’t ready to die. Not like this.

Jacuti had been born and raised on the vast fishing rafts of his enslavers, the Koru-Kah. And those cruel masters never taught him to swim. 

But before the sea could claim him, an arm-thick tentacle surged through the churning water, curling its suckered length around his chest. From the depths, a bulbous form loomed—jet black with glowing violet streaks. Its mantle expanded and contracted, propelling it upward as seven more tentacles pushed Jacuti toward the fading light. The enormous octopus tightened its grip around Jacuti’s waist, suckers raising red welts on his sun-darkened skin. The light above brightened, drawing him up from death.

Jacuti’s head jerked violently from side to side, vision swimming as he stared into two protruding eyes, each as large as his fist. Purple knobs, shifting in color and texture, rose and fell around those yellow orbs as the enormous Kopri—a cunning octopus from the abyss—pushed the dying human toward the world of air. Jacuti longed to breathe, to open his mouth and fill his lungs. Even seawater would be a relief, just to feed oxygen-starved cells and lungs desperate to draw a breath.

The tentacle tightened around his waist, pulling upward. The creature’s mantle spread wide, then snapped shut, shooting a jet of water downward and propelling both the kopri and the human upward. A tangy sea breeze kissed Jacuti’s face as he broke the surface. His mouth gaped. His starving lungs gasped greedily, as if he were tasting life for the first time. His eyes burned, raw and red above salt-crusted lips, but he was breathing—and alive.

The sky tilted. The world spun as the tentacle slid Jacuti onto the smooth deck of a sea kayak, woven from bundled reeds. A young woman’s strong arms grabbed him, holding him close as he sputtered on the kayak’s deck, inches above the abyss.

“You are safe,” said Kei, panic stalking the young woman’s clipped words. 

A tentacle reached from the water, gripped the kayak’s bow, and began pulling it over the waves. Kei released Jacuti, who sprawled across the reeds. The young woman raised a paddle, bracing against her stiff, unyielding legs. She thrust the paddle down and back, pushing with all her strength as the kayak raced away from their captors' sinking whaling boat, while men screamed and struggled to escape the churning waves.

“Sit up, Jacuti!” Kei barked, fear bright in her eyes. 

“Hurry! Before more Koru-Kah come!”

* * *

Ocean waves crashed over the prow of Commander Té-Anka’s war galley, drenching the straining arms of thirty rowers. For an hour since leaving their Apum-Ka, their man-made floating island, the warriors had pulled their oars in time to a throbbing drumbeat.

“BOOM—BOOM—BOOM,” came the rowing cadence, matching blood pounding in Commander Té-Anka’s ears.

“There!” came a cry from the crow’s nest, as a lookout jabbed a finger eastward.

“Triple-time!” Té-Anka thundered, ignoring the salt spray lashing his bald head. His eyes raced over endless water, but from the deck he could see barely four miles ahead, and the wreck of his lost whaling boat was still out of sight. But for the lookout—perched high above in the crow’s nest—the horizon was twelve miles distant, allowing him to spot the whaling boat long before Té-Anka could.

The drumbeat quickened, driving the war galley forward as it plunged over a swelling wave. A thunderous smack echoed through the wooden hull, but Té-Anka leaned over the prow, eagle-eyed in the hunt for his prey.

Another whitecap slapped his face, and he wiped brine from his tattooed scalp—where intricate swirls and symbols marked his rise to power among the Sea Lords of Koru-Kah. His frown deepened, creasing the inked patterns as his gaze swept the horizon. If the whaler had overturned, how many of his valuable slaves had drowned? How many of his own men survived? And how much profit would this disaster cost him?

An image of the whaling boat’s young captain, Ki-Kuna, filled the Commander’s mind. Compassion crept into his heart for a moment, but he clamped his mouth shut, turning away concern. One hand dropped to the hilt of a scabbarded blade, tied to hip and thigh.

Weakness was not the Koru-Kah way.

And now was not the time for sentiment: recovery of lost equipment and captive na-manu workers came first. The whaling captain would answer for his failure, but punishment must wait.

Commander Té-Anka’s grip on the bone handle of his blade tightened, knuckles whitening as the wreck came into view. 

“Survivors!” the lookout called, pointing toward floating figures clutching broken oars and barrels near the lost ship’s overturned hull.

The war galley closed the distance, and now Té-Anka counted the reduced number of his surviving Koru-Kah guards, sprawled across the rocking planks of the overturned whaler. Their pale cheers drove into the wind, reaching Té-Anka’s ears like the whining of children who failed the most basic of tasks.

The commander’s nostrils flared, stinging with the salty smell of ocean air and anger. Té-Anka forced his fingers to release their grip on his sheathed blade. Three calm, measured steps took him to the ship's figurehead—carved into the form of an attacking shark jutting from the prow. There, the war galley’s captain, Nai-Yutte, stood. Té-Anka’s eyes narrowed at the ship’s captain, looking for any sign of disobedience. But Nai-Yutte had been a model junior officer, obeying every order from Té-Anka, the Apum-Ka Commander, when Té-Anka left his giant floating raft to assume command of Nai-Yutte’s war galley. Té-Anka had no experience commanding a war galley, but as the Apum-Ka Commander, his will was law. 

Still, Té-Anka didn’t trust the galley captain, who seemed too willing to give up his command to a man who owed his position to wealth, not experience at sea. But the Commander swallowed his distrust and joined Nai-Yutte at the railing, ignoring the angry slap of whitecaps breaking over the railing and smacking into his chest. Seawater ran in streams over his eel leather vest, which covered muscles still corded and powerful despite his advancing age.

His eyes, black as a moonless night, pierced across the closing distance as the galley approached the wreck. Té-Anka’s hands, covered with black lines tattooed with the story of his marriage to a cousin of the Queen, clenched the salt-soaked railing. Beside him, Nai-Yutte stood like a statue, his gaze unflinching as salt spray poured over the bow.

The overturned whaling boat’s captain was nowhere in sight. Black waves fell over Té-Anka’s heart, suffocating his breath. His eyes raced over the sea, scanning desperately, but the captain was gone.

Ki-Kuna—his son! Té-Anka’s chest tightened, as if his own soul was lost beneath the churning waves.

From somewhere far above, the high-pitched moan of a soaring albatross drifted through the wind, as if sensing the distress pumping through Té-Anka’s veins.

Then the sound of screaming na-manu echoed out of the sea, mixing with calls of joy from floundering Koru-Kah guards, who clutched the broken timbers of the sinking whaling boat.

“Drop skiffs!” Nai-Yutte called. The oblivion of the ocean’s bottom anchored his voice. Calm. Assured. Like a stone skipping over water. His warrior-crew leapt to obey.

Two skiffs—small rowboats—crashed into the waves, followed by warriors leaping down and taking up the oars.

“The na-manu first!” Commander Té-Anka bellowed after them, ordering the recovery of his property. Penniless guards seeking their fortune cost nothing to replace. But na-manu! Enslaved workers had value, both the labor he wrung from them, and on the auction block as well. 

Down in the rocking skiff, the rowers didn’t look to the Commander, but to their captain, Nai-Yutte, whose face remained impassive. But he nodded, hand flicking toward the sinking whale boat. Only then did the skiff rowers drop oars into water and begin rowing toward the doomed whaling boat.

“What of our men?” Nai-Yutte asked, his voice steady as a windless sea, measured and subservient to Té-Anka—the wealthy Apum-Ka owner who had boarded Nai-Yutte’s war galley and taken over command.

“Failure will not be rewarded.” Té-Anka’s words cut the air, sharp as a drawn blade. 

Nai-Yutte dipped his head in acknowledgment, keeping his true thoughts buried beneath a sailor’s discipline. He knew each stranded guard by name. He had fought beside them, shared meals on salt-stained decks, laughed at their jests, and listened to their worries in the dead of night. He knew which ones had wives waiting on distant shores, which had children too young to remember them. And he knew, with cold certainty, that Té-Anka did not care.

But he was a commoner who had clawed his way up through the ranks, while Lord Té-Anka had been born to rule. His will was law.

The skiffs battled over rolling swells, their oars cutting through foam-streaked water. The Koru-Kah sailors strained against currents as waves threatened to shove them off course.  But then they reached the doomed whaling boat, returning minutes later with their first load of sodden human cargo. 

Trip after trip, the two skiffs ferried the enslaved workers to the war galley. A swift tally assured the commander that only two of his property were missing. As Té-Anka’s gaze swept over the last skiff, still rocking on the waves, he recognized an older na-manu—one who spoke the Koru-Kah language well.

“Bring him,” Té-Anka ordered. Two sailors reached down, hauling the gasping man up and over the galley’s railing, throwing him onto his knees at the commander’s feet. Behind them, other half-drowned na-manu struggled over the railing, sputtering and gasping, but alive.

Captain Nai-Yutte signaled the skiff rowers, urging them to return to the wreck—bring back their shipwrecked comrades.

But Commander Té-Anka paid no heed to the rescue of his men. 

“Where is the captain?” he demanded, eyes burning as he addressed the na-manu groveling on deck.

The enslaved worker bowed his head, prostrating himself before the Atut-Ma, the Great One. Té-Anka’s eyes narrowed, his breath coming in sharp, angry huffs. He yanked a wooden cudgel from his belt, striking the man who cowered before him.

“Ki-Kuna! Where is he?” The cudgel’s impact echoed with a sharp thwack, leaving a red welt across the na-manu’s back.

“Where is your captain?”

Fear bubbled from the worker’s lips, his breath coming in ragged gasps from the force of the blow.

“Gone,” the terrified worker gasped, drool spilling onto the deck. “Taken by the monster!” 

“Monster!” Té-Anka’s voice seethed with fury. His arm came down again and again, raining wooden blows on the helpless na-manu’s back.

“Speak sense! Where is my son?”

“Aiii!” the stricken worker wailed, “Aiii! Atut-Ma! It was a beast. A monster from the deep. It ripped the hull apart. The captain drove a blade into its body, but the beast pulled him overboard.”

The na-manu pressed his face into age-smoothed wooden planks, groveling, his breath quick and frantic. “I saw no more. The beast—it wrapped around him. Pulled him under. Then they both were gone. Into the sea.”

As he spoke, the aging na-manu groveled deeper, pressing himself against the deck. 

Commander Té-Anka raised his wooden cudgel high, his arm ready to strike—to kill the lying worker. A beast? A monster from the abyss? Madness! Té-Anka’s lips twitched, his arm aching with the urge to strike, to exact revenge. But then Nai-Yutte stepped forward, sensing his commander’s murderous intent. 

“Put the na-manu in the hold,” Nai-Yutte’s calm voice directed, “with the other property.”

For a moment, Nai-Yutte’s warriors stood still, eyes shifting from their Captain to their Commander. High Lord Té-Anka held the cudgel above his head, poised to strike, his fury boiling. The sobbing na-manu cowered before him. But Nai-Yutte was right—the cowering wretch before him was valuable property. 

Té-Anka’s arm fell, and his warriors dragged the na-manu away. He turned sharply, striding toward the bow, wiping moisture from the corners of his eyes. Refusing to cry as he scanned the whitecaps, hopelessly looking for his son. But all that he could see was his son’s First Mate, and the last surviving sailors clambered aboard a skiff, their frantic movements barely visible against the churning sea.

Té-Anka slid the club back into its carry strap at his waist, his gaze never leaving the First Mate—the one who had survived Ki-Kuna’s death. His eyes dried, tears replaced by anger.

Té-Anka would have his answers. And his revenge.

* * *

Kei’s legs lay stiff and useless along the bottom of her one-person kayak, which wallowed beneath the combined load of herself and Jacuti, its deck nearly swamped. On land, her withered legs were nearly useless—but at sea, their dead weight served a purpose: anchoring her to the kayak’s deck. She gave them little thought.

Muscles in her arms and shoulders strained as she drove the kayak across the endless sea. Her chest rose and fell, lungs dragging in air. With each stroke, a chill crept into her thoughts—an aching sense of isolation, as if the ocean itself were a vast, hungry creature ready to swallow her whole. 

“Not fast enough—” Her voice faded, swallowed by the sea. 

Jacuti leaned against the prow, legs folded on the kayak’s nearly submerged deck. He gazed past Kei’s shoulders, scanning the distance behind them. 

“I see no ships,” he said, eyes probing the horizon.

“How far can their lookouts see?” Kei asked. “From up in their crow’s nests?”

“Not sure. They’re a lot higher up than we are. Maybe three or four as far as us? It depends on how clear the sky is.”

“So, an empty sea—” Kei paused, arms thrusting the paddle through the water, driving the kayak forward. “They could see us, long before we could see them. Can you row? We’re barely moving.”

Sweat dripped from her eyebrows, dampening her flushed red cheeks after hours of rowing, desperate to escape the Koru-Kah. Jacuti nodded silently and leaned forward to take her place. 

“No.” Kei said, arms trembling, “You’ll swamp the kayak. Tug the line. We’ll need help to switch places.”

Jacuti reached backward around the prow, fingers wrapping around a taut towline angling into the ocean. He jerked the line once, hard, and it fell limp in his hand. A bulge of water loomed from below. Luminescent blues and greens and turquoise glowed on the shape-shifting mantle of the giant octopus towing them. 

OldFish: Kei’s kopri friend.

A bead of chill ocean water ran along Jacuti’s spine and he held himself still as the creature pushed a hand-sized eye out of the water. A kopri! Jacuti still couldn’t believe he traveled with such a creature. A legend come to life.

As he watched, a rainbow of shifting textures pulsed across the skin surrounding the creature’s eye.

“That’s a Kopri sign,” Kei said from behind him.

Jacuti nodded, edging away from the Kopri as a chill rippled up his spine.

“It means amusement,” Kei added, doing nothing to ease Jacuti’s fear.

The Kopri’s eye glowed yellow in the sunlight, locked on Jacuti, while its second eye surfaced beside it and swiveled toward Kei.

“Stop staring at him!” Kei’s voice rang out, bright and sharp over the water.

Behind OldFish’s eye, the gel-filled ear knob quivered, vibrating in time with her piercing melody. “It’s not funny, OldFish.”

Her words soared: the bulging ear knobs of a kopri only heard the highest tones a human could produce, and only a skilled Singer, like Kei, could reach that piercing pitch. 

“Sorry,” a ring of blue and black dots flashed around OldFish’s mantle, but the amused rainbow still lingered around each eye. 

The Kopri continued to focus on Kei’s nervous human friend, signing, “It’s like a hermit crab—huddled up, fearful. Why do you want it?”

Kei’s lips twisted in annoyance before she sang her reply.

“Him, OldFish! Not it. He is my friend. And you know that. This isn’t funny. We need your help to switch seats so he can paddle.” 

In response, the amusement faded from OldFish’s eyes, replaced by a rippling green agreement. 

Kei reached out and pushed her legs over the side of the kayak, slipping into the water while keeping hold of its side. 

Jacuti’s eyes widened as the kayak rocked beneath the shifting weight, but OldFish laid a tentacle across the reeds, steadying the craft as it bobbed in the water.

“Don’t be afraid,” OldFish signed to Jacuti. 

But the ripples of textured color rising and falling on the kopri’s clever mantle meant nothing to Jacuti. His hands tightened on the kayak reeds, blood draining from his face. He turned from the undulating creature, staring at the bottomless water surrounding the kayak. 

The muscles in his chest tightened, his mouth clamping shut to hold his breath, as though he were once again submerged beneath the waves, suffocating. The memory of stinging salt still lingered, leaving red tracks and pinpricks in the whites of his eyes. 

“It’s okay,” Kei called from the water, her voice slow, gentle. “OldFish will keep you safe if you slip off.”

“Steady the kayak.” Kei’s voice rose in pitch for the Kopri, then dropped lower for Jacuti’s ears alone. “It’s okay, Jacuti. OldFish is my truest friend. You can trust her.”

But Kei’s words meant nothing to Jacuti, who stared at the shape-shifting flesh of the giant octopus, glistening in sunlight. His heart throbbed, eyes widening. And as the creature wrapped its tentacles around the kayak, its slick, wet flesh slithered against the sun-kissed muscles of his thighs, sending shivers racing over his skin and up his spine. He couldn’t breathe. A pounding in his ears drowned out his wiped thoughts. He had never seen such a monster, except for the Kopri that had attacked and sunk the whaling boat they had been forced to row, dragging its captain to his death in the sea. 

But Captain Ki-Kuna had deserved that fate, and Jacuti trusted Kei.

Friend of Kei,” OldFish signed. Thousands of tiny muscles contracted over the Kopri’s flesh, squeezing pigments through cells, altering OldFish’s color to a soft, calming brown. Other minuscule muscles stroked and prodded, pushing azure dots, bumps, and ridges upward on her skin. “You are safe with me. The Deep will not take you.”

Jacuti stared at the shifting colors and patterns, his gaze fixed on the massive eye, unblinking and watching him. The patterns meant nothing to him, but the flowing colors held a strange beauty, breaking through the terror that had gripped his chest and stolen his breath.

Air sucked into Jacuti's lungs again, driving out fear, as Kei translated the kopri sign: “She is promising to hold you above the water. Hurry Jacuti—we aren’t safe yet.”

Jacuti reached forward with one trembling hand, then the other, gripping the kayak's deck. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his heart raced as the small craft rocked wildly, threatening to capsize. But OldFish wrapped four tentacles around the reeds, holding them steady, while her remaining four flexed, rippling through the water to stabilize the kayak.

One hand at a time, Jacuti slid over the hull, then twisted his body into the paddler’s seat, stretching out his legs. Air rushed from his lungs in a relieved sigh. Kei held the kayak’s edge with one hand, her other arm flitting like a fishtail to lift her head above the water. But the dead weight of her legs pulled her toward the abyss.

Jacuti reached to her, offering help, but Kei shook her head, then put both hands on the edge of the kayak, dragging herself toward the prow. On the other side of the bobbing hull, OldFish thrust both eyes and ear-knobs higher, keeping sight of Kei.

Kei held steady for a moment, chest expanding before exhaling sharply.

“Now, OldFish!” she sang.

Two tentacles reached under the kayak, wrapping themselves around Kei’s stiff legs and thrusting up, while Kei pushed with the last strength remaining in her arms. The two friends had performed this action many times, and Kei shot out of the water, spinning herself around and landing on the hull. The kayak plunged downward, and might have tipped over, had not OldFish held the kayak firmly until Kei settled herself against the prow.

Kei leaned her head against the prow, feeling her arms and shoulders burn, and watched as Jacuti untied the paddle from its holder and thrust its blade into the sea.

OldFish dropped out of sight, and moments later, the tow rope snapped taut as the kayak began moving forward again.

“Which way?” Jacuti asked. Kei shrugged, her face flushing red, but before she could answer, the tow rope jerked, pulling the kayak’s prow toward the south.

Jacuti looked along the length of the tow rope to a shape jetting below the waves—OldFish. Just beyond the large kopri, Jacuti was surprised to see a smaller shape flashing violet with joy: the kopri youngling OldFish had saved from the Koru-Kah whalers. The small kopri was still with them, swimming alongside OldFish, who appeared to be following the youngling as it flashed westward through the sea. 

The kopri youngling moved forward with certainty, swimming toward a destination unknown to Jacuti. But the escaped na-manu, lost on the trackless sea, had no better plan: any direction away from the Koru-Kah was as good as another.

Jacuti had been born into enslavement on the Koru-Kah’s giant rafts—their floating islands—and knew his Atut-Ma masters too well. They would never let their property escape.

His shoulders flexed, muscles bunching as he began following the kopri youngling. He drove the paddle through the water, propelling the kayak south-east into unknown seas and an uncertain fate.

Only speed mattered now.

CHAPTER TWO:  LIFE'S THIN REED

The decaying remains of a leafperson drifted beside the war galley. Its form was vaguely human, though it had no head—only a trunk-like body with two leaf-like fans sprouting from its back, like two gossamer wings spread limp across the water. From their seats in a small rowboat beside the galley, two Koru-Kah warriors carefully looped rope around the leafperson’s tuberous mid-section, avoiding the touch of tiny sheaves of blue fungus dotting its woody skin. 

Other warriors standing on the deck hauled the drooping form from the waves and lifted it over the war galley’s railing. The wet slap of the waterlogged leafperson hitting the deck interrupted Commander Té-Anka’s interrogation of the overturned whaling boat’s first mate, who lay prostrate at his feet. Té-Anka’s brows narrowed as he glanced at the leafperson, quickly assessing the value of the blue tayjaru fungus still clinging to the figure. A thin smile tugged at the tattoos on his cheeks, which honored the births of his sons. Though not much tayjaru remained on the decaying form, the rarity of the fungus meant that even this small harvest would add greatly to the profits of the trip.

Té-Anka ordered Captain Nai-Yutte to begin the ritual of harvest, to collect every scrap of rare tayjaru, then returned his focus to the first mate. 

“Where is your captain?” Moisture-laden air hissed between Té-Anka’s clenched teeth. Two hours had passed since his son’s whaling boat had overturned, miles away from the Apum-ka, the massive fishing raft Té-Anka commanded. Those giant rafts floated on the water’s surface, drifting along a never-ending current that circled the sea.

“And tell no lies about monsters!”

“It’s not a lie,” the First Mate said, his voice calm. Blue stains on his lips revealed he had eaten tayjaru while shipwrecked, scraped from the leafperson body captured by the whaling ship—just before disaster struck. The young man’s breathing was slow and steady, though one cheek ground into the rough deck as his dilated pupils fixed on the leafperson carcass. There, Captain Nai-Yutte had dropped to one knee, using a sharpened blade to remove tiny tayjaru sheaves sprouting like barnacles from the leafperson. Nai-Yutte carefully placed each piece of harvested tayjaru into a wooden box, while avoiding the touch of blue fungus on his bare skin. 

“It was one of the giant octopus. A kopri,” the Mate continued. “Bigger than I’ve ever seen. The kopri drilled our hull like a clamshell.”

Té-Anka listened, nostrils flaring, disturbed by the young man’s unnerving calm. With each word, the Commander’s teeth ground together, his jaws clenching into a hard knot in his cheeks.

The Mate went on, his voice too steady, too self-assured. “Captain Ki-Kuna cut off one tentacle. Then his blade impaled the monster. But the ocean poured in, and the kopri came over the railing—” 

“Lies! I’ll have the truth from you!” Té-Anka bent low over the prone body, grabbing the Mate’s long black braid and jerking his face off the deck. Té-Anka stared at the blue stains on the Mate’s lips. “You know the punishment for eating tayjaru. Clever lies won’t save you.”

The Mate’s eyes held steady against his commander’s fury, though tayjaru-quickened thoughts raced through his mind.

“We were shipwrecked,” he said. “I needed to think. With Ki-Kuna gone, I took his place as captain. I had the right.”

“You watched your Captain die, doing nothing to save him. That made you a mutineer, not a captain.”

“It happened too fast,” the young man replied, his tone flat. “I was in the bow, too far away to help. With Ki-Kuna gone, I became the captain. I had the right to eat tayjaru.”

Té-Anka tightened his grip on the braid, pulling the scalp from bone, but he knew the young man felt nothing. Tayjaru froze the First Mate’s blood. Té-Anka knew that sensation well—ice coursing through veins, the mind leaping from idea to idea, bringing order to chaos while the body felt nothing.

The Mate ignored the pull of skin from his skull. “There were two kopri. The second obeyed commands from a na-manu slave, the crippled girl. Your new Singer. That second monster towed her away on her kayak. With our old Singer’s son.”

“Jacuti! I’ll carve his mother’s heart out!” Té-Anka slammed the Mate’s face into the deck, then stood tall. “How long ago?”

Nearby, Nai-Yutte finished collecting the remaining tayjaru and signaled for his men to toss the useless leafperson back into the sea. 

“The sun has moved two hand-widths since the attack,” the First Mate replied, a deep purple bruise spreading over his cheek.

“Their direction?”

“East.”

“East?” Té-Anka murmured. “No land lies east.”

“They’ll turn south,” the First Mate said, tayjaru sparking in his mind, lending certainty to his words. “To Ar-Kora Island. It’s that, or die. I made the same calculation myself, in case no rescue came.”

Captain Nai-Yutte approached Té-Anka’s side, keeping his eyes downcast, his head slightly bowed. “Even if they headed straight toward Ar-Kora, two of them on that small kayak? No food. No water?” Nai-Yutte shook his head, daring to raise his eyes. “The ocean will take them, Commander.”

“Not if I find them first!” Té-Anka said, the inked designs above his brows tightening. “They’ll wish they had died at sea!”

His eyes shot toward the eastern horizon, then turned to the young man prostrate on the deck, tayjaru-chilled mind allowing him to wait for death without fear.

“Get him up,” Té-Anka ordered. Several warriors yanked the First Mate to his feet.

“You should have died instead of your Captain! And you ate tayjaru without a shaman’s blessing!” Té-Anka’s voice cracked like a whip, fury lacing every word. He drew his long blade and advanced toward the young man, his eyes blazing like lightning.

“Commander!” Captain Nai-Yutte said, stepping in front of Té-Anka. Nai-Yutte had recruited the First Mate himself—and who wouldn’t have done the same? Floating on a wreck, lost at sea? Any Koru-Kah facing that fate would have sought tayjaru's inspiration. Nai-Yutte knew the First Mate spoke truly—he had become captain, and had the right. But Nai-Yutte also knew his commander would never accept that. Still, the young man did not deserve to die. 

“Break him,” Nai-Yutte said. “Make him na-manu, an enslaved worker. Execution is too quick. Dishonor and enslavement—that is within your right.”

“Na-manu? Still breathing. Still living? While MY son, Ki-Kuna, is drowned?” Té-Anka raised the knife, vengeance clouding his face as he stepped closer to the Mate, whose breathing slowed. His eyes closed. Waiting.

“Drowned?” Nai-Yutte asked, his gaze flicking to the wreckage of the whaling boat, adrift nearby. A slim hope for the First Mate. A chance for life. “Then let him share Ki-Kuna’s fate. Feed him to the sea.”

Commander Té-Anka froze. Hooded eyelids narrowed to slits. His lips curled into a wicked smile.

“Yes,” Té-Anka agreed. “Yes. Let him follow his captain.” With that, Té-Anka motioned to his men, ordering the First Mate to be cast into the open ocean.

Two warriors gripped the Mate’s shoulders, expecting a struggle that never came. Instead, the First Mate’s eyes flicked from the Commander to Nai-Yutte, then to the wreck of the whaling boat. He nodded to Captain Nai-Yutte, then walked calmly across the deck.

Tayjaru gripped the First Mate’s mind as he stepped onto the bow. His racing thoughts noticed several broken oars floating in the water, a length of canvas draped over the overturned hull, pieces of rope, a crate, and scraps of broken wood. His memory flashed to a water cask trapped beneath the overturned hull his ship!

Without a second's hesitation, the First Mate leapt over the railing, diving into the sea.

Commander Té-Anka turned away and began issuing orders. The galley surged forward, heading south by east. Té-Anka strode to the leaping shark figurehead carved into the bow, salt spray misting on his cheeks, replacing tears that would never fall from his hardened eyes.

As the war galley lurched forward, the First Mate crawled onto the wrecked hull and began collecting debris.

A raft, Té-Anka thought. The Mate thinks he can build a raft and float to land. The Commander frowned. Tayjaru revealed possibilities where none seemed to exist. Did the Mate see hope that escaped Té-Anka's mind? The mid-afternoon sun burned into the Commander’s bald head. A heavy stillness settled over the flat waves beneath a windless sky. On every side of Té-Anka, becalmed water stretched to a distant horizon. Without wind to power a sail, even tayjaru could not save the Mate—thirst would take him long before a raft could drift to land.

The Commander pressed his lips into a downward curve, nostrils flaring in brine-scented air as he reveled in thoughts of the traitorous First Mate sharing his son’s fate. But Té-Anka’s vengeance would not be complete until the two young na-manu who had escaped lay writhing on the deck beneath his feet, while he feasted on their sea monster’s living eyes.

“Boom—Boom—Boom,” came the cadence of the drum, and the war galley shot forward, closing the distance to Kei and Jacuti with each stroke of the oars.

* * *

Soon after the sun passed its highest point, Jacuti once again rode as a passenger in the kayak’s bow. He flexed his hands to fight off cramps. A thin smear of mucus streaked his left thigh, where one of the kopri’s tentacles had slithered against him. Leaning back into the kayak’s upward-curving reeds, Jacuti drew short, quick breaths, his face warm and flushed as the weight of the empty sky pressed down on him. 

A small laugh escaped his salt-chapped lips, born from a nauseating mix of wonder and fear at the strangeness of Kei’s friend, OldFish. The Kopri’s tentacle brushed against his leg again, slick with salt water, yet rough at the same time with pebbled suckers that had contracted into hundreds of hard dots, covering the Kopri’s flesh.

Kei looked up from her rowing, frowning at Jacuti’s odd laughter. Water lapped over the kayak’s sides, soaking her rigid legs. 

“There’s nothing funny about this,” she said as the kayak bobbed, half-submerged in the ocean. 

“I know.” Jacuti replied, unable to pull his eyes from the gigantic octopus—a Kopri—curled sinuous around their small boat. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kei said, her voice softening. “But the reeds are fraying. I don’t know how long the kayak will last.”

She closed her eyes, trying to calm the tremors of exhaustion rippling through her arms and hands. Then she leaned low against the kayak, plunging her hand and arm into the sea. She ran her fingers along the underside of the kayak, probing the area where a harpoon had pierced the reeds, the day the Koru-Kah had captured her. During her long weeks in captivity on the Apum-Ka, the Koru-Kah’s floating island, na-manu weavers had done their best to patch the damage, but despite their efforts, the kayak reeds were unraveling. Her kayak was slowly falling apart.

Kei’s voice rose into the air, clear notes calling out to her kopri friend, “Hold the boat, OldFish. I’m getting into the water.”

“We have you,” OldFish replied, before flashing quick signs to the youngling, who floated nearby.

OldFish wrapped several tentacles around the kayak, steadying the boat, while Kei pushed her stiff legs over the side and slipped into the water. The dead weight of her legs pulled her down, but then she felt the touch of the kopri youngling’s rope-like tentacles wrapped around her knees, lifting them from the deep. Kei kept one hand on the kayak’s side, then reached further under, probing and examining the full length of the kayak while the youngling supported her.

The kopri child was learning fast and mimicked every action of the elder Kopri. OldFish smiled—rippling yellow spirals around her eyes—as she watched the youngling helping Kei.

The youngling’s mantle rippled with babbling colors, not yet full signs, as it pulsed jets of water to hold Kei’s stiff legs steady in the water.

Approval glowed on OldFish’s mantle.

“How far do you think?” Kei asked Jacuti, while probing for damage. She forced her voice to remain soft and steady, as if coaxing a child away from the shelter of its mother’s arms. Her fingers pressed into the tightly woven reeds of the kayak’s hull, while her legs draped toward the ocean depths. She took a deep breath, feeling the youngling’s grip tighten on her legs, keeping Kei's shoulders and head from sinking into watery darkness. Her fingers continued pressing, probing, tracing areas damaged by the thrusting harpoons of the Koru-Kah, who had enslaved her on their man-made fishing island.

Jacuti’s mouth burned with thirst as he licked salt-crusted lips. “I see the mountain on Ar-Kora,” he answered, looking south, “that dark spot. Peeking over the horizon.”

“How far?” Kei repeated.

Jacuti’s eyes searched across the water. “More than a day, for a Koru-Kah supply ship. For us? Two. Maybe three days. I don’t know.”

“We’re moving faster than a supply ship,” Kei said.

“We were when we started,” Jacuti replied, his eyes touching on the undulating bulk of the kopri in the water beside him. His panting had subsided, but stabbing nausea still tinged the edges of his voice.

“We started fast, but I slowed down. We all did.”

Kei turned, seeing an exhausted gray settle on the skin of OldFish’s tentacles and mantle.

“You’re right. So at least two days for us. Maybe three or four. We can’t keep this pace. We need rest.”

Suddenly, she frowned, her fingers sinking up to her knuckles into a gap in the hull reeds. She pulled her hand from the yawning gash, an unwanted memory washing over her—of the accident that had crippled her legs during a shipwreck when she was twelve years old. Memories of wind and waves almost overwhelmed her then, along with the ghost of searing pain along her spine when the storm crushed her against an unyielding coral reef. And the sting of salt water filling her throat.

She shuddered, tightening her grip on the kayak’s hull, reminding herself that she was breathing, and that her friends held her safe above the water. She clung there for a moment, drawing air slowly in and out, steadying herself for song.

Then, determined notes pierced the air. “OldFish. Up please.”

A quick green flash rippled along OldFish’s mantle.

Kei placed her hands on the edge of the kayak while OldFish gently peeled the youngling from her legs. Then OldFish wrapped her largest tentacle around Kei’s taut thighs and pushed upward. Moments later, water streamed from Kei’s drenched hair as she slammed into her seat.

Jacuti’s heart slammed in his chest as the kayak rocked, tilting him out over the bottomless ocean. Even with OldFish steadying the boat, his breath came in short, uneven bursts. He closed his eyes, willing himself to forget the vast, deadly sea stretching in every direction.

“Did you find anything?” he asked, once his breathing slowed.

“It’s not good,” Kei replied, her voice hollow as she wiped saltwater from her brow. Her eyes flicked nervously to the horizon. “The repairs are holding. For now. But. I—” 

“How does it know where Ar-Kora is?” Jacuti blurted, his fingertips fluttering against the woven hull of the kayak. His breath caught as he imagined the frayed reeds unraveling beneath him.

“How does what know?” Kei snapped, yanking her gaze from the horizon to glare at him.

Jacuti’s lips twisted in a low growl as he pointed toward the kopri, its sinuous tentacles wrapped around the kayak.

“That,” he said. “Your octopus. That kopri.”

His words fumbled through the fog closing in around his thoughts. He didn’t understand why Kei suddenly looked so furious.

“She isn’t mine!” Kei’s voice cracked, dropping to the reeds between them, heavy with disgust. “I don’t own her. OldFish is my friend. She is not an it. Not a thing.”

Jacuti closed his eyes. Her words slapped hard against his chest, and he sat frozen, struggling to understand this strange, new world he found himself in. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, straightening his shoulders and shaking his head, trying to clear the cobwebs that tangled his thoughts in cottony confusion. “I’m sorry, Kei. I am grateful for OldFish. Really. It’s just—it’s just—it's so far to land. And the reeds—”

“The reeds will hold,” she said, as if the words themselves could hold the kayak together.

“Yes,” Jacuti echoed. “The reeds will hold. . .