The sun didn't rise so much as it exposed them.
The night's darkest moments finally came to a slow, hazy reveal. A dim, uncertain color, neither gray nor blue, shone through the sea.
The stars seemed to fade, yet were still visible in the distant sky. No moon was visible, despite the time.
The two torchlights on the Drua became dim, casting a burned, sickly smell of smoke. The waters gently hit the edge of the vessel with a sound like the sea tried to consume it and then released it again with a wet, soft shhhoop.
Tolu's skin had taken on a waxen, ashen pallor, the warm, mahogany tone drained away to a disconcerting gray-white visible even in the dim pre-dawn light.
Her jaw was slack, pulling her lips apart slightly in a silent, unsettling finality. Her features were fixed, presenting a terrible, empty mask.
Kanka dropped his head, his voice strained and quiet, thick with accusation. "We have to throw her over."
Tantei spun around. "What?"
"We can't keep her here," Kanka repeated, not looking back. His hands gripped the wooden gunwale until his knuckles were white. "She's dead weight. We lost the chase for nothing, and now we carry our failures too."
Konto's coiling rope slipped. It hit the deck with a soft slap. "We can't just throw her..." he stammered, his eyes wide, looking desperately to Tantei for help.
Tantei inhaled sharply, his eyes lingered briefly on Tolu's face
"We need a decision, guys," Kanka pressed, his voice flat and unforgiving. "We saved her only to lose her. Now we deal with the consequences." The last word was nearly a hiss, strained by a tremor of pain he desperately tried to suppress.
Moments later Tantei stood on his knees beside his sister with a hand on her head. His eyes were shut.
The others stood on their knees as well, with eyes closed.
Tantei muttered, the words ancient and hollow.
"Me vukei keda ki na vanua tiko, ki na yanuyanu. Me vukei keda tale ki na vuvale, kevaka sa sega ni tiko eke me marautaka vata kei keimami."
(May she guide us to safety, to an island. May she guide us to prosperity again, even if she won't be there to enjoy it with us.)
Tambo spoke in a voice choked with grief, his words a private prayer whispering only to the ocean and the sky, his raw pain palpable.
"You belong to the sea now. May the stars you sought guide your spirit home."
He gently reached out, his thumb brushed against the cool skin of her neck, and took a necklace from Tolu.
It was the single piece of jade-green stone, polished mirror-smooth into the elegant, simple curve of a crescent moon, strung on a tightly braided leather cord.
He gripped the stone tightly in his palm, a final, anchoring weight.
Kanka's eyes remained shut, but the small, quiet hiss of his breath momentarily sharpened at the sound of Tambo's movement, acknowledging the final separation.
He fought the urge to open his eyes, unable to look at the talisman that was now all that remained of her.
With a unified, desperate effort, the brothers gently lowered her body over the side of the hull. The dark water closed over her with a soft, final sigh.
The small wake she created was instantly swallowed by the vast, indifferent ocean.
Kanka, tears tracking salt through the grime on his face, looked at the spot where Tolu sunk. He didn't look at his brothers; he looked to the horizon, his muttered plea barely audible above the ripple of the waves.
"Let this be enough," he whispered, his voice splintered with finality. "Let this failure finally cover the cost."
The air felt thin, colder now that the ceremony was complete.
Tantei opened his eyes first, the grief pushed ruthlessly down, replaced by the instinct for survival. He rose, wiping the water from his hands onto his malo.
"It is done," Tantei stated, his voice flat. He pointed to the north where the dim, hazy light was beginning to define the horizon. "We lost our only chance to reach the southern. There's no stopping until we see land at this point. The Bati basically chased our focus away also."
Kanka's eyes fixed intensely on Tantei. It wasn't a look of anger, but of profound, bone-deep disappointment.
He held the stare for a long, heavy second, then, without a word, he turned his back.
Tantei returned the look with a quiet, almost tightened expression that was all sharp, defensive control. His rigid jaw softened just a fraction, a brief flicker of regret crossed his eyes.
The shadows of the night began to bleed away, replaced by a bruised, early dawn of cold, salty-tang spray and the calm hiss of the sea. The single torch lashed to the deckwood had burned down to a dying orange ember, its light struggling against the cold, gray mist rising from the Pacific.
Then, the sun arrived—an incandescent white orb in the vast blue sky. It cast a blinding, exposed light over the water's surface and the brothers.
All four of them ate fish with a slow shluck-shlup from coconut half-cups.
Tambo stood near the deckwood, legs crossed. Konto sat on top of it, his feet kicking empty air back and forth. Kanka and Tantei sat cross-legged on opposite sides of the deckwood's edge. All were fully focused on their meals.
(Kanka‐voicover, The words didn't float, it fell flat onto the deck like a stone. It was a jagged, airless scrape of a sound): "We were Sixty days at sea. We had water, but food was long overrated."
The brothers stood in an imperfect circle, arguing in front of the deckwood's end. Their bodies were fuller then, their voices deep, chest-vibrating bellows. The air was filled with booming, wet shouts that made every word sharp and clear.
Tantei looked at Tambo, his hand hitting the wooden hull with a heavy thud to make a point. "If we turn east, we could make it past the hard winds!"
Kanka: "But we're running out of food! We can't take that route without getting lost in a storm!"
Kanka (Voiceover): "We didn't know what else to do now that all hope was lost."
Kanka sat by the gunwale, feet outside the hull. He gave the others a slow side-eye, and they returned it—a shared look of hate born from exhaustion.