Chapter Seventeen: Kono
She was a difficult one to read. When she was still, she could nearly be a statue. Her poise and calm reminded him of the chief. From some of the things she said, it sounded like Hepthys was close to her chief, this Pharaoh. Perhaps she would become chief when the older one stepped down. Kono imagined she would rule a lot like Kuani, wisely, even if it was sometimes difficult to see the reasons behind her decrees.
A shard of doubt, the first he experienced from Kuani, had burrowed into him. When he thought of the chief’s ruling, wanting to nod to himself over the sense and wisdom of it, that shard wiggled inside, sparking threads of wheedling ache through him. Chief Kuani had been right, about him at the very least: he was lazy and irresponsible. Hapua had been clear about that when he’d caught Kono using his magic. Going to the battle for Mele would be a mistake, something Kono believed even if Hapua and Kuani hadn’t confirmed it.
But Hepthys was different. She was an outsider, of course. She was farther from Kono than he thought it was possible to be; far enough to strain his definition of what “human” meant. Despite her bizarre appearance, Hepthys had been a model guest.
She was also a warrior. Untested, sure. So were a lot of them. Ali’kai had never been in a battle before, and he was going. The same went for any number of others who had been included without a second thought. Kono doubted any of them had the command of a spear that Hepthys had. She’d already shown bravery and loyalty. Not including her had been an insult.
Might even have been wrong.
Kono walked away from the firelight. He needed to think. He left the party behind, making his way up the path and out along the edge of the mountain, into the breeze coming in off the ocean, tossing the trees. He shivered for only a moment, shaking the cold out of his limbs. The party receded behind him, the orangey yellows of the bonfires replaced by the velvet blues and startling silver of the moon.
He found comfort there. The moon was always the finest example of the limits of the gods’ power. While the stars showed the many pinpricks in the cloak of darkness they tried to throw over the oceans, they could never block out the sun entirely. It shined through that cloak, taking on the appearance of the moon, reminding the people of the tribes that they were never truly without hope.
Kono emerged onto the lava cliffs where the ritual had been held. His bare feet found the smooth areas of the rocks, and he looked out into the deep dark. The ocean spit up white columns of seawater. Here, on the windward side of the island, the breeze grew stiffer, into something that would fill sails and send them speeding over the water. There was beauty in his home, sometimes more than he could bear.
“Thought you’d be back enjoyin’ yourself.”
Hapua sat in the shadows, right at the edge of the rocks. A tree leaned over him, the island itself embracing the ma’hanu elder. In the dark, his tattoos had taken over his features, and rendering him little more than a geometric mirage.
“I was. I...couldn’t have no fun.”
“Because you bein’ left behind, hmm? Never thought it’d bother you.”
“Me neither.”
Hapua chewed on his lip. The waves continued their pounding. Kono shivered again as the wind kicked up, kissing each spot where the salt spray had found a home.
“So why you care?” Hapua asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Kono shrugged.
Hapua sighed, annoyance creeping into his voice. “Only one thing changed, Kono. You met a new friend. The girl with sails on her back. The girl who fell outta the sky. She the one makin’ you think maybe you need to carry a bit more weight, hmm?”
“I know why you didn’t want me to go.”
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“I didn’t want you to go?” asked Hapua, surprised. “Who said?”
“I figured. I messed up. You sent me out there. I come back early, an’...” Kono trailed off helplessly.
“Maybe I did tell Chief Kuani to keep you here. Maybe I tell her somebody gotta look after them who don’t go. Or maybe I thought you finished your lesson. Maybe I thought we needed all our ma’hanu.”
Kono frowned. “Which one?”
“Does it matter?”
“Doesn’t it?”
Hapua settled back into the dark. Now what Kono could see of his features was entirely gone. There was only the ma’hanu tattoos, the language of the gods inscribed on the skin of their priest-jailers.
“That’s not a question I can answer for you, Kono. I know this, though: You thought the order was wrong. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be out here. Wouldn’t be looking for answers in the sea. You’d be back by the fire, trying your luck with Pua’ku.”
“I don’t—” Kono sputtered.
“I see you watchin’,” Hapua said dismissively. “I was young one time, you know.”
Kono couldn’t think of a thing to say, but felt his face growing hot. In another situation, he might have tried to deflect with a joke, but this was Hapua. Such things didn’t work on the elder.
“So one thing changes, an’ now what would have once been happy news makes you go off an’ mope.”
Kono grunted in agreement. “So what do I do?”
“Aha. That the question you should be askin’. Thinkin’ is good, but it’s for you. Actin’ is what you do for other people.” Hapua rose from his seated position with the aid of a walking stick and a loud grunt. “Too old and too cold out here,” he said. “You keep your thinkin’. I’m gonna get to the ma’hanu lodge an’ try my best to sleep with all the racket.”
“Good luck,” Kono said.
Hapua laughed. “You too, little Kono.”
The elder hobbled up the path and soon was swallowed by the deep shadows. Kono was alone on the black rock under an impossibly big sky waiting for another answer to come to him. But nothing did.
He was trapped by his own realization.
Kono never liked being trapped. It didn’t agree with him. Finally, he slapped his belly once and wandered back in the direction of the village. The sounds of the party had dwindled, only reaching him once the path meandered into view of the bonfires. It was late into the night, when everyone was doing what they wanted to, and all of it was far quieter than the raucous celebration that kicked things off.
Kono took a fork in the road, going above the village and below the visitors’ lodge. Soon he was among the orchards. Only then did Kono pick his way down the path, his enormous feet finding rocks planted into the slopes as makeshift stairs. As he dipped below the treeline, and his senses filled with the ripe scent of the fruits, he felt at ease. He followed the ring of the mountain, and soon, he was out of the orchards and into the jungle itself. A short distance away, he found the cool brackish lagoon.
Surrounded by land on all sides, it was fed from underground tunnels from the ocean. The tides gave the lagoon both a dizzying array of wildlife, and currents that could push an unwary swimmer into the rocks or suck them out into the ocean. A common challenge for the young was to swim one of the underground tunnels from lagoon out to sea. Nearly any of them could do the shortest, but only the bravest attempted the long and winding one. Kono had done it only three years before to impress Haku after the other boy tried and failed, coming up back in the lagoon, coughing and sputtering.
Kono let himself smile. Even for the Kamo’loa, he was born for the water. Kono settled down by the shore of the lagoon, his back against a tree. He watched the black water and waited for sleep to finally take him.
He was still waiting when the air turned blue. He rubbed his eyes, and looked about. The western shore wasn’t far, just past a screen of trees, then the rocky outcroppings marking where the lava tubes opened into the sea. He rose from his place, his limbs only slightly stiff from a night spent against a tree. Stretching, he relished the cool morning air on his bare shoulders.
A path led to the northern edge of the western sands. Hepthys’s shelter was only a short walk down the beach from there. Kono nearly started for it—but he couldn’t.. There might as well have been a wall between her and him.
His decision was made, the only possible course of action he could take, and yet he found it impossible to take another step. He thought if he just started moving, he would be able to redirect himself, and find the sky-girl. He took a step to the village, then another and another, and soon he knew he would end up nowhere else.
He passed first through the jungle then the orchards, emerging at the back of a collection of lodges. The sun had risen, throwing long shadows behind Kono. The village was bustling, the boats down at the bay, being loaded up, ready to sail into the sun. Kono stood at the mouth of the trail, watching them. He should be out there, loading his own boat, Hepthys already inside.
Pua’ku met his eyes from all the way down in the bay. She turned away just as quickly, as though ashamed to see him. Kono’s heart wanted to tear itself in half. He couldn’t look at them, any of them, but he did anyway. Something inside him forced him to stay. As the boats drifted out into the golden water, past sight, he kept watching. Until the entire fleet of boats was given to the horizon, Kono was planted in one spot.
“They’re gone.”
Kono jumped. Hepthys was standing next to him. He hadn’t heard her. Her wings glittered in the morning sunlight. She was difficult to look at for more reasons than he cared to name.
“We should follow ‘em.”
Hepthys’s head snapped over to him. “What?”
“We gonna go help, we better go,” he said.
“You’re serious?”
Kono nodded.
Her grin was brighter than the sun. “I have to get my things.”
Kono’s chest swelled with an unfamiliar feeling. This was the right thing to do, by Hepthys, by himself. Might lead to another exile, but he could do that standing on his head.
Not long after, he and Hepthys were on the open water, sailing hard for Mele.