The moment Toa and Awiyao stepped into the whare whakairo a plump middle-aged woman with dark blue symbols etched into her lower lip and chin strode forward and grasped Toa's hands, the skirt of her loose sleeveless dress—a garment woven in colors of white and blue, with a row of feathers attached to the top of her dress—rustled around her ankles, her long curly dark hair swaying as she walked, leading him and Awiyao to where six men stood and seemed to be waiting—Kaihautu, Huatare, the Babaylan, the Tohunga, and two armed men stationed there with them.

    "You and your brothers will have to leave Moana as quickly as possible," the woman, Toa's mother, said as she pulled her youngest son toward the center of the hall, Awiyao trailing a little behind them. "The Tohunga and the spiritual leader of the Kadasans will explain to you three—four, I mean," she corrected herself upon catching a glance of Awiyao, fully aware now of his presence, "all you need to know of the things that are to come."

    There was a sureness to her voice, a steadiness, Toa noticed. As if this, all that was happening now, wasn't quite new to her, as if she had known this for quite a while now. Just as the Tohunga and the Babaylan did. Just, as he realized then, his father did, too.

    "Whaea," Toa began, looking her in the eye, "you've known this for some time now, haven't you? You and Papa and the Tohunga. Tell me, what is it you have not told us? What secret are you keeping from us and from the rest of our people?"

    "Toa, there is no time," said his mother, severely. "The Tohunga will explain everything on your way to Sanctuarium, and it will all make sense by then."

"I wonder, Whaea," Kaihautu interrupted with a sigh, one that came off rather irate, its underlying tone almost sarcastic, "why you and Papa have decided to let Huatare and I accompany Toa to Sanctuarium. We all know there is no need for Huatare and I to go—well, of course Toa knows nothing of this, and perhaps his Kadasan friend is just as ignorant as he is." He gave off a strange dour chuckle. "But it is the truth, isn't it? All that matters to you is to save the heir, and the heir to the position of Rangatira doesn't necessarily mean the eldest."

    All eyes turned to Kaihautu, then.

    Beside him stood a man stocky in frame, burlier than both Kaihautu and Toa, yet a little shorter than either of them, a stark contrast to Kaihautu's slender, taut figure. Yet he, Kaihautu, and Toa shared a similar complexion of tan skin, albeit a little darker from being under the sun longer, had the same shade of sable hair cut short. He looked up at Kaihautu, the look in his face one of utter puzzlement.

    "What do you mean, Kaihautu?" the burly man, their blood brother Huatare, asked.

    Kaihautu ignored Huatare's question and stepped forward, toward his mother, toward Toa who stood right next to her.

    "Yes, Whaea, I've known," he said, the look in his eyes bearing a cold, quiet rage. "For years now," he added.

    "Kaihautu," his mother said, pleadingly, reaching for his hands, "please, please, my son, forgive me. I regret not having told you directly; your Papa and I should have done so earlier. But that does not mean that—"

    Kaihautu moved his hands out of his mother's reach, positioned himself in a way that towered over her, intimidated her, silenced her.

    At this, Toa slid between Kaihautu and his mother, standing firm and tall, managing to hold his brother's stare with his own. "What's the meaning of this, Kaihautu?" he asked. "Why do you speak to Whaea this way?"

    Kaihautu gave off a laugh devoid of any humor.

    Toa looked straight up at him, noticing the deep blue of his blood brother's eyes swirling dangerously, a brewing storm within. He knew his mother was keeping something from him, so was his father and the Tohunga, but this, what Kaihautu seemed to be talking about, seemed an entire different thing, nothing that had to do with the war and the enemy that were to come.

    Kaihautu shifted his eyes over to their mother. "Don't you think Toa should know, Whaea, since he is, after all, next in line to Papa?"

    Their mother's eyes widened at this. She looked to Toa, who was staring back at her, the expression on his face a mingle of confusion and disbelief.

    Masking the nerves he was feeling with a straight face and the most austere voice he could manage, Toa turned back to Kaihautu and said, "You're angry, aren't you? That's it, you're just angry. Angry that Papa took the Babaylan and the Tohunga's words instead of your own. There is no need to pour out your anger on Whaea, or anyone else for that matter."

    "Toa's right, Kaihautu," said Huatare. He walked over to Toa and their mother, stood next to Toa, shielding their whaea from their eldest blood brother. "I can see you are angry, but now is not the time to throw a tantrum like a bad child. It pains me to leave our people in this event, but we have no choice but to follow Papa and the Tohunga's order to flee to Sanctuarium, and we are running out of time, Kaihautu—"

    "Did you not agree with me, Huatare?" Kaihautu said, cutting his blood brother off. "When I came to you after I heard Papa, Whaea, and the Tohunga discussing amongst themselves, when I told you all I had heard, did you not tell me you found it unfair and bizarre that Toa inherit the post of Rangatira instead of I? Do not dare lie to me, Huatare! I heard you myself, I know what you said, that you disagree—"

    "I never said I disagreed," said Huatare, raising his voice, looking Kaihautu in the eye without flinching. "Unfair, perhaps. Bizarre, yes. But that I disagreed with what Papa and the Tohunga said is a lie from you! I remember telling you how strange it would be for them to break tradition. When you asked me if I found it to be unfair, I told you perhaps so, but there must be good reason for it—"

    "But this isn't just!" exclaimed Kaihautu. "I am the eldest! I deserve the position of Rangatira! It is in my birthright!"

    "And so you have proven to us how unworthy you are of the role," interjected the voice of the Tohunga. He walked over to Kaihautu, placed a hand on his shoulder, all the while giving him a stern look. "We have no room for your air of entitlement and no spare minutes for this argument, Kaihautu, more so at this dire time. We must move, all of us, right now, before the adversary comes."

    Kaihautu swatted the Tohunga's hand away, turned to the elder, and gave him a smile that held no mirth—the look in his eyes one of pure contempt, above a strange mocking smile. Then, almost imperceptibly, Kaihautu said, "And what makes you think, Tohunga, that the New Order is not already here?"

    The Tohunga's eyes widened for a fraction of a second, but he was too late—one of the armed men had made his way behind the Tohunga, his steps noiseless, his movement gone unnoticed, and with a club carved from the bone of an Ika Nui, its blade hard and white, he struck the Tohunga's neck and head in quick succession, delivering both deadly blows so quickly that the next thing they knew the Tohunga lay lifeless and unmoving on the floor.

    "No!" their mother wailed at the sight.

    Awiyao, who had been standing in silence, tore his eyes away from the crowd of his companions just in time to see the other armed man run close to Toa, spear raised in one hand. Just as Toa grew aware and turned to look, just as the man was near enough to strike him, a patch of the floor jutted up from the ground right beneath the man; a column of hard earth rose from the ground, breaking the flooring, and threw the man out of his place, up and off into a distance far away from where they stood. Toa turned to see Awiyao with his bandaged hand raised toward where the man had been.

    "Thank you," Toa muttered.

    Awiyao could only grunt in acknowledgment before a long, deep bellow reverberated through the whare whakairo, permeating beyond the elaborately carved walls and out into the village.

    Awiyao and Toa glanced at the source of the sound—Kaihuatu standing close to the Rangatira's throne, holding a conch shell instrument to his lips, blowing into the wooden mouthpiece.

    "Go!" Huatare yelled over the sound, not sparing them the slightest glance. He was fighting against the man who had killed the Tohunga, his staff blocking the man's club from inflicting any blows on him. "Get out of here! Go! Go!"

    The bellow then came to an abrupt stop, and all that was heard after, in a span of only a few seconds, were a succession of loud thuds as though two solid objects collided into each other, a roar from the ground that shook the floor beneath their feet, the hard knocks of one weapon striking another, and their Whaea shouting, "Do as Huatare says! Hurry! I might not be able to stop him for long!"

    Toa had only half a second of a heartbeat to look back, to see his mother and her arms stretched toward Kaihautu, who was struggling to free himself from the throne he found himself trapped in, the once smooth wooden flooring beneath him now shattered, hard earth enveloping his body up to his neck, binding him motionless to the throne's seat.

From the corner of his eye, Awiyao caught a glance of the man he had knocked out earlier struggling to get to his feet, stumbling and falling to his side as he did so. Awiyao winced at the pain in his knuckles as he stretched his hands open, closed them shut, opened them again, readying himself to fight—

—only for his efforts to be futile. For with those last glimpses, the Babaylan grasped a hand each, of Toa and of Awiyao, and dragged them, running, toward the door of the whare whakairo.

They rushed out into the bright midday sun, the light blinding them for a moment, before they became aware of footsteps pounding against the ground, grass rustling around footfalls. Once their eyes had adjusted to the sudden illumination, the three of them looked up to see men running over to the grounds outside the whare whakairo, going past the men, women, and children who had collected their necessities and gathered themselves there as instructed earlier.

    Toa ran forward, stopping a couple paces from where Awiyao and the Babaylan stood. He waved his arms at the men, and pointed toward the whare whakairo, and yelled, "Men, Huatare and Whaea need your help! One of the men inside has killed the Tohunga, and Kaihautu has betrayed us! You must get in there right now, and—"

    But his words were cut short as the men raised their weapons, all eyes on him, Awiyao, and the Babaylan, all arms and clubs and staffs and spears headed in their direction.

    And just then, someone stumbled out of the whare whakairo, and half-ran, half-limped toward the Kadasans and their sole Moanian companion, his spear raised in one hand, his eyes wide and burning with determination, and out of his throat a guttural cry came forth, startling Awiyao and the Babaylan.

    "Get onto the manaul, now!" the Babaylan yelled, quickly coming to his senses, pushing Awiyao and pulling Toa away from the men and the murderer's accomplice. And with that, the three of them ran toward Mayari, who had been laying on the grass, half-asleep, until she had heard the rise of panic in their voices, looked up to see her young master and his companions rushing over to where she lay, at which she rose up to the fullest height the ropes permitted her to move and let out a loud screech, a cry to be unbound, a plea to be set free in order to aid her dear Awiyao.

    The men were close at their heels, and there was no time to look back, no time for even a glance, no time for either Awiyao, Toa, or the Babaylan to execute a proper attack against them, nor even to stall them for a while at the very least.

    As they ran, Awiyao drew his dagger out of its sheath; despite the sting pulsing through his knuckles, he held the dagger as best he could, as tight as he could, as they approached Mayari.

    But the Babaylan thought quicker and wiser of his actions: as his feet pounded against the earth and the grass, he raised his hands, one after another, up and down and up and down, doing all this in swift succession, sometimes simultaneously, as though he were uprooting invisible things up from the air before him; and with each pull a patch of earth surrounding one end of a rope flung itself out of the ground—chunks of soil and rope and peg flying up into the air and crashing gracelessly onto the grass-strewn floor, leaving odd small craters in their wake.

    And with each rope let loose, Mayari freed her movements, her wings spreading up and out, pulling herself to her true full height. She let out another screech, more powerful this time, as though to terrify all adversaries within reach, as Awiyao, Toa, and the Babaylan came close, hoisting themselves up onto her back.

    Awiyao pulled himself up first, patting Mayari's neck as Toa did the same, as though telling her he could be trusted, that he was no enemy but an ally; there was no time for a proper introduction, Mayari seemed to have understood. The Babaylan then grasped her strong large feathers and lifted one leg to clamber up—but the men behind them had finally caught up, dragging him down to the ground once they had their hold on him.

    Awiyao's eyes widened at the sight. "No!" he yelled.

    Mayari quickly spun around, letting out another screech; she began to levitate.

    "No, no!" Awiyao yelled, slapping her neck to stop her from flying further up. "We can't leave the Babaylan! We can't! Mayari!"

    The men quickly pushed the Babaylan down to the ground, pressing him against the earth. One of the men raised his club, ready to strike the Babaylan on the head, the same way the armed man in the whare whakairo had killed the Tohunga.

    They looked up at Awiyao and Toa, at Mayari who hovered above the crowd, and the man with the club said, "We kill him if you do not descend back to the ground. Surrender, and we will spare him."

    "Awiyao, Toa, do not listen to him!" the Babaylan yelled from the ground, his voice slightly muffled by dirt and grass. "Leave me in their hands, and go! I mean nothing to them, and so does my death! They mean to kill you both!"

    Another man stepped closer to the Babaylan, kicked a strong blow against one side of the Kadasan elder's midsection. "Silence!" he shouted, watching the Babaylan wince in his prone position.

    "We kill him if you do not descend this instant!" the man with the club said. He lifted his club higher; in less than a second, the blade would sail down and snap the Babaylan's neck, then break his skull—Awiyao knew that, and Toa did, too.

    Awiyao breathed out a sigh, patted Mayari's neck. He knew what he must do, what he needed to do—they would be lost without him. "Mayari, baba."

    Mayari lowered herself, slowly, until her talons touched the earth, planted themselves down upon the grass. With that, as promised, the man put his club down, the Babaylan still pinned down by a handful of men.

    "No, Awiyao," the Babaylan whimpered.

    "Now," the man with the club said, grinning, pleased that he had successfully convinced them to surrender, "come down, off the beast."

    Awiyao and Toa had only moved the slightest bit from where they sat, when someone emerged to the front of the crowd, the end of his staff swinging swiftly against the side of the man's head, the club slipping out of the man's grasp. And the end of the staff went on colliding into the other men's heads, hard enough to knock each of them out unconscious, releasing the Babaylan from the hands and feet that kept him still on the ground.

    When Huatare had struck all seven men unconscious before the rest of the crowd, he turned quickly around to face them, holding his staff ready to attack if anyone came any closer. "Rise, Kadasan," he told the Babaylan, in almost a whisper. "Quickly."

    The Babaylan stumbled to his feet, one hand clutching his side where one of the Moanian men had kicked him.

    Awiyao and Toa remained seated on Mayari's back, unmoving, watching all this happen before their eyes.

    "Hasten, Kadasan," Huatare said.

    The Babaylan went on to clamber up Mayari, sat himself behind Toa who aided him up onto the manaul. Huatare kept his staff up, prepared to strike, looking from side to side and all around, aware of even the slightest movement amongst the crowd and the weapons they held. And, when he had caught from the corner of his eye that the Babaylan had settled himself on the beast's back, Huatare took slow, careful steps back toward Mayari, who stood remarkably still in place, as though she felt the thick, almost tangible tension in the air as much as everyone else did. Her eyes were fixed, too, on the people around her, glancing from time to time at Huatare edging toward her—this Awiyao noticed as he held tight to the feathers around her neck, her flesh pulsing with each deep breath beneath his touch, his hands and legs prepared to command for sudden flight if anything were to go wrong.

    Huatare had only lowered his weapon, slowly and cautiously, into its sheath behind him, his eyes still set upon the men surrounding them; he had only turned back to climb onto the manaul, when someone ran forward from the front of the crowd, straight toward Huatare, spear raised, and plunged the sharp end of the weapon into Huatare's back, through his chest, through his heart, all in a span of a couple seconds that not one of them—Awiyao, Toa, nor the Babaylan—had managed to stop the man in time before the deed was done, before the man flung his spear aside, along with Huatare's limp form, to the ground, and grabbed hold of Mayari's feathers and began to heave himself up, one hand on a weapon that seemed to be a cross between an axe and a staff strapped to his side.

    Toa could only stare in horror at Huatare's subtly trembling body, at the shaft of the spear sticking out of his back, at the pointed end of the weapon protruding from his chest. He sat, unmoving and silent, watching blood flow from his brother's wound, trickling out one corner of his brother's mouth, deep dark red pooling onto the grass beneath his dying form. He watched Huatare grow stiller and stiller, until he trembled no more, breathed no more, lived no more.

    Even as the man who had killed his blood brother climbed up onto Mayari by her feathers, even as the Babaylan knocked the man straight in the head with the hilt of his bolo, quickly followed by a long slash that wounded both of the man's arms, and sent him flying off the beast with a strong gust of wind, even as the men around them rushed over, Mayari swiftly rising up and off the ground in circles, Toa sat frozen, eyes fixed upon Huatare's lifeless figure, even as the men trampled upon his blood brother's empty shell, even as they rose into the air, high above the village, away from the reach of their new enemies—he still stared blankly at the point where his brother had once lain dying, and now dead. And he spoke no word, made no sound, but only felt the wet of a tear slide down his face, felt more careen down his cheeks, blurred his vision, pouring one after another, then altogether; and he screamed and sobbed and, with both hands holding onto Awiyao's shoulders, he buried his face into his own arm and went on crying, as a warrior shouldn't—a moment of vulnerability and of weakness.

    They were now sailing smoothly through the sky, past clouds and smaller birds that flew past them, and Toa hadn't noticed the Babaylan was holding him firmly by the shoulders until he felt the Kadasan's rough gnarled hand pat his back soothingly as the tears continued to flow, as the sobs continued to escape his throat.

    "I am sorry for your loss," the Babaylan managed to say, after quite a while. "Moana has lost two great men on this morose day. The Tohunga was a friend of mine, as you are with Awiyao, yet the pain I feel over the loss of my dear friend will never compare to the pain you feel over the loss of your blood brother. We—Awiyao and I—mourn with you, Toa, and we will do our very best to help you redeem your tribe, and we shall do so in honor of your blood brother and of the Tohunga—their memory and their heroism shall never be forgotten, and their passing shall never be in vain."

    Toa's tears didn't spill as much now as they did moments ago; his sobs had ceased, yet he was still gasping for air, drawing in deep breath after deep breath, his head spinning slightly.

    "But my blood brother, Huatare—" Toa said, between heaving breaths. "He—he wasn't—he shouldn't have—he shouldn't be—and Papa and Whaea—my home, my friends—our people—what shall become of them?"

    "Hush," said the Babaylan, one hand gently rubbing Toa's back. "Hush now. As I said, time will come when you shall redeem your people and your land. And as for your family, we can only hope the best for them, that they be spared, that the adversary shows them even a sliver of mercy, of kindness—"

    "They didn't show Huatare even a sliver of kindness," said Toa, suddenly yelling, looking back at the Babaylan; new tears welled his eyes again, his irises bearing the image of dark blue clouds that swirled chaotically in his emotional storm, little sparks of electric blue cutting through the dark sky within. "They killed him then and there! Without mercy! Without a sliver of kindness! He shouldn't have died if he hadn't come to aid us! If all that Kaihautu said were true, he shouldn't have been involved in the first place! And mind you, Kadasan, they were our own people! Our own people, who should have shown him love as he was their brother! What more if these foreigners were to come into our land? We are not their brothers; they would not show us even the smallest act of love! So what more would they do to us? Imagine how they would destroy us!"

    The Babaylan breathed out a sigh, glanced elsewhere, averting Toa's eyes. For a moment he said nothing, as though thinking through his words, then he said, in a voice a little above a whisper, "I understand you are in pain. I understand you are anxious for the fates of those you love and care for. Perhaps you wish to return to your tribe and attempt to set things right, to aid your brethren in their fight against our enemies." At these words, Toa felt a lump in his throat, quickly swiped away the tears that blurred his vision, and kept his sights fixed upon Awiyao's back, feeling his friend's shoulders tense beneath his grip. "But there is no wiser course of action than to make our way to Sanctuarium, as quickly as we could, and wait for the right time—in Elohim's time—when you shall redeem your people and your land. And all we could do in between is to prepare for that day."

    Toa said nothing in response, kept his eyes, still wet with tears, straight ahead, sometimes glancing at the clouds and expanse of blue around them, avoiding even a glimpse of the Babaylan, who he wished for the remaining hours of the day to have no conversation with.

    Throughout the rest of the flight, no one spoke, the air about them filled with a heavy solemn silence, weary yet pushed with the need to move, to quietly fight the urge to look back and return, to force themselves to go nowhere but onwards.

    And throughout their aerial sailing, and as they landed deep in a forest for the night's rest, away from enemy eyes and ears, all Toa could think of was his blood brother. The thought of Huatare and his unjust death wasn't what primarily occupied his mind, nor the fates of his mother and father and Moanian brethren, but of Kaihautu and his betrayal. It was Kaihautu's fault, he knew, he was sure of it. And all he felt was a need for vengeance, for justice to prevail, a burning desire raging within him; in the nocturne silence, he vowed without a word uttered that he himself shall kill his eldest blood brother upon his return to Moana, and for that he must ready himself, train himself to fight better than he ever had. All must be set right, Toa thought to himself, as he stared up at the moon, between the cracks in the foliage above him.

    "Still awake?" said a voice in the darkness.

    Toa looked to his left as Awiyao sat beside him. Drowned deep in his thoughts, he hadn't noticed Awiyao's approach, hadn't heard the padding of Awiyao's feet upon the grass. It didn't help that, admittedly, Toa had been feeling the subtle pull of sleep for a while now, the images in his mind's eye, words said and etched into memory, all woven together into an almost incoherent narrative, into a trailing fabric of thoughts and feelings he could only understand.

"I couldn't sleep," said Toa, rubbing his eyes to keep himself a little more awake, although Awiyao's sudden arrival had jolted a bit of consciousness back into him.

    Awiyao chuckled. "Liar," he said. "It's dark, but there's enough moonlight for me to see your silhouette rocking back and forth for the past few minutes now. Just a matter of time before you fall face-forward or back against the ground, asleep."

    Toa shook his head, feeling his face flush from embarrassment despite the cool night air. Giving up the facade, he yawned and looked at Awiyao, at the vague shape of his stocky friend amid the shadows enveloping them.

    "And as for you," said Toa, "what's keeping you awake at this time?"

    "Thoughts," Awiyao replied. "Thoughts of my mother, if she is all right, if she still lives. And my cousins, my friends, my aunts and uncles . . . my father." Awiyao paused, exhaling a sigh. "You know my father and I disagree so often, yet I still hope, still wonder, if by some miracle, they have escaped. Or, if they had been taken captive, their lives have been spared. I don't know, and this uncertainty is what scares me, it's what keeps me awake, thinking." He sighed again, a faint cloud of mist escaping his lips, swirling momentarily into a feeble shaft of moonlight before disappearing, before Awiyao pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and turned his sights back to Toa. "And as for you, brother," he asked, "what keeps you awake tonight?"

    "The same as you—we both worry for the fates of our families, of our tribes," said Toa, pulling his cloak closer about him. "The very thought of Whaea and Papa, my friends back home—You have seen yourself what Kaihautu is capable of, his betrayal we never foresaw. Those men who killed Huatare and Tohunga are only the hands; I believe Kaihautu is the mastermind behind all this—the brain to it all, as far as Moana is concerned—the reason Huatare and the Tohunga are now dead."

"And so you hope he hasn't done the same to your father," said Awiyao, "or to any of those closest to you, your loved ones who would decide to go against him." His eyes were fixed on Toa, or rather Toa's silhouette as the faint moonlight afforded him. "That's what you're driving at, isn't it?"

Toa took a moment to consider his reply to Awiyao's question, the night still and quiet around them. "Partly," he said at last. And as the words left his lips, he felt tears brim his eyes once again; there was something, he realized, about saying things aloud, that made all that had happened all the more real, that ripped internal wounds open without the slightest mercy, leaving his soul raw and bleeding, leaving him vulnerable. Toa struck a fist to the ground, swatted his tears away with his other hand.

Awiyao glanced back at the Babaylan, surprised his friend's sudden pound against the earth and their talking hadn't woken him, or Mayari who slept close by. The elder's soft snores drifted from the Babaylan's blanket-clad form, lying peacefully on his side, evidently exhausted from the past couple days' events, to Awiyao. Mayari seemed to open one eye a fraction, only to fall back asleep and make no other movement for the night. Awiyao then quickly turned back to Toa, and listened.

"You—You wouldn't think," Toa said, one hand hastily wiping tears out of his eyes, "that your own blood brother would—that he would have killed one of his own flesh and blood—Huatare shouldn't be dead, he shouldn't—but then with all that had happened I must—it must be done."

Awiyao leaned in closer to Toa, his eyes squinting in the darkness to see the look on his friend's face. "What must be done?"

    "The blood of the traitor, his and of those who follow him—their blood for the blood of the innocent slain," said Toa, his nails pressed into his palm, certain his knuckles had gone pale from the way he clenched his fist. "Huatare and the Tohunga, their deaths must be avenged—and if Kaihautu has killed Papa, all to take the post of Rangatira for himself, if he has killed Whaea for going against him, if I have no family left—"

    The words ceased, then, so sudden as though a force unseen had pounced upon Toa and caught any further thought in his throat, held them captive, trapped, closed in on every syllable he intended to pronounce next, crushed them to silence until they no longer existed, until Toa could no longer remember what he wished to say after. He felt the walls in his neck contract, smothering him, till he was heaving in breaths; felt the tears stream, from a drizzle to a rain, down his face.

    Awiyao swallowed the lump in his own throat, and after a moment of thought, of silence and of tact, he said, "I know words will never be enough, and I know you're probably sick of them after what the Babaylan said earlier, but I am sorry for your loss."

    At this, Awiyao sensed a flicker of annoyance in Toa, yet he continued:

    "I know there is only so much I can understand, only so much I can feel completely. Losing the people we love to this sudden cruel war, yes. But the betrayal of a blood brother, I know I will never fully comprehend that, nor feel it as deeply as you do. Yet I still mourn with you, Toa. And I swear to you this—"

    Toa turned to him, then, one hand still wiping tears away from his eyes, the flicker of annoyance now gone, replaced with an earnest interest in his friend's next words, in this promise . . .

    "If it is true," Awiyao went on, "and we all pray to Elohim that it is not so, if Kaihautu has slain your mother and father, and left you with no family—and you know what, even if they still live, I would still swear this same oath to you; in these times you feel betrayed and perhaps alone, you'll need this, I know you will. And I know we are different by blood, and there is no changing that—I am and will always be Kadasan, from birth till death. Yet, despite that, I say this from the depth of my heart and by our solemn truth, I swear to you that from this day onward I shall be as your blood brother as you shall be mine. I promise you, Toa, I'll be with you as we avenge Huatare's and the Tohunga's deaths. And as we fight against this enemy, and as we redeem your people and give Kaihautu the punishment he deserves for his betrayal, I'll be with you through it all. And I promise you I'll never leave you, I promise I'll never betray you as Kaihautu did. This I swear to you, brother: you are now my family as I am yours."

Toa raised his head, one hand passing under his nose, the other giving his eyes another swipe. He let out something that sounded like a cross between a sob and a laugh—which it might had actually been—as he tugged his cloak closer about his shivering form.

"Thank you," he said, turning back to Awiyao. "Thank you, Awiyao. And I—" Toa drew in a breath. "I swear to do the same for you. I-I'll fight with you, redeem your land, your people with you. It is a promise I swear to keep, and the even greater promise, I swear to never betray you, just as I have sworn to myself never to betray my people as Kai—" Toa's breath hitched in his throat. "To never betray my people, as he did."

Realizing how strange his last words sounded, coming out weaker, quieter than needed, Toa shifted his eyes over to the canopy above them, studying the cracks where a half-shadowed orb of light, floating up in the black fathomless expanse, feebly reached its rays toward them down below. Like hope in these dark times, he thought to himself . . .

"There's this old Tiernan proverb the Babaylan picked up during his years of training in Sanctuarium," said Awiyao, breaking the silence, his eyes—having followed Toa's—fixed up at the moon. "They would say, 'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.' They all scoffed at it, thinking it foolish. Applicable only to the people of your own kind, never to those outside. Subtly prejudiced, they would say, while being prejudiced themselves. Yet here we are. Funny how it holds completely true now, don't you think?" He chuckled, only for the feeble laughter to fade quickly as he said with a sigh, "But never would I have imagined it would be in this way."

Toa hummed in agreement, one hand raised again to wipe the tears off his eyes. "And so it holds true, brother," he said. "All in ways unforeseen, it proves itself true."