‘Ho!’ ‘Boy.’

‘Ho!’ ‘Boy.’ I heard a voice, but my eyes stayed closed. The glow of Rā warmed my face, generous and steady, and I chose to remain within it. ‘Boy.’ Just ignore it. I smiled, grateful for the moment—this serene gift. Light filtered through my lids like water through a fishing net, Rā’s reminder that even the mind’s darkness can be lit.

A shadow crossed my face. Light vanished, and with it my peace. I opened my eyes. The old man stood over me; I was in his shadow once again.

His white hair was tied in the topknot I remembered, though his face was younger, unmarked. ‘Boy. What tribe?’

‘Um… I can’t remember. Where are we?’

The old man raised a brow. ‘Look around. You don’t recognise this forest?’

I propped myself on my elbows. Dense forest, cool and wet. I could see my breath. Rain pooled in the banyan roots and dripped from fern fronds. The air smelled of earth after a downpour. I rose carefully, expecting pain—none came. Fallen kahikatea lay like drowned giants among the ponga, silent witnesses to our trespass.

‘Is this Autara? Am I back on Kafiki?’

A moa thundered past, shrieking. I knew the call.

‘Where else?’ he frowned. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

I brushed a fern, collecting rain on my fingertips. ‘I was starving when two women fell from the sky. Then Tāwhiri grew angry and hurled fish. Which place is the real one?’

‘A beach, two gods, and raining fish—sounds like a feast. When was this? Tāwhiri gifting you a banquet?’

‘No,’ I sighed. ‘They were children of gods, demanding my blood as sacrifice. I was older then—older in the real world.’

‘Which ones?’

‘Which ones what?’

‘Gods.’

‘I never learned their names.’

‘Because you weren’t listening.’

‘No. They attacked me.’

‘And then you woke here.’

‘No, first at a feast.’

‘Ah yes. Crays and a bowl of puga, perhaps? If you can’t remember your home, maybe you have none. Maybe you’re dead, and this is your afterlife.’

I shook my head, searching for memory. Nothing.

The old man sniffed. ‘Nothing suits you. Follow me—I know the way out.’

I fell in step behind him, the pace familiar. He walked tall, unscarred. No limp, no god-stick. Another dream, closer to memory.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘I’m not lost. I’m remembering. I remember you finding me in Autara, your shadow over my face like Māui catching the sun. You lifted me from the dirt when I had no name. You carried a spear on your back, your skin lined in green scars that told of battles. I remember asking why they shone. I should ask again.’

‘Ask what, boy?’

‘Why do your tattoos glow green, old man?’

He stopped, turning. ‘Because I was a hero once, and the gods wrote my deeds into my skin. These scars hold victories and losses, bloodlines and mana, the vessel of all spirit. As for the colour—who knows? That was their will, not mine. Had I chosen, I’d have chosen red, for the blood of my enemies.’

‘I remember you saying that. I remember you now, Faturaki.’

‘And your own name?’

‘I do. I am Ho, your adopted son.’

‘Good. Then wake. Kafiki needs you. We have work to do.’

Ho bolted upright. “Enough of these bloody dreams,” he muttered. Crawling to his knees, then to unsteady feet, he stumbled to the island’s eastern edge. The air tasted of salt; the sea lightened with dawn. Far off, a black freckle marked the face of Takaroa: a waka, cutting southeast toward him.

I am not lost. I’m just remembering.

When he awoke, the island was silent and still. Tāwhiri’s fury had passed down the archipelago, leaving his home in ruin and stinking of fish.

Starved, he took six of the finest tāmure to the lagoon, washing them clean. After scaling and skinning, Ho ate them raw, sitting on the sand to watch the sunrise. The flesh was soft and sweet, kind to his broken jaw, yet tears came anyway. Dreams of Kafiki. Faturaki. His body and wairua brought so near to death. He wept as he chewed through fish after fish, thanking Takaroa for sparing him once more, amazed by the bright morning after such a violent night.But his body, long unfed, rebelled. Soon his stomach turned, forgetting its work. He spent the morning doubled over in the rock pools, between sea and stone, cursing Takaroa and the countless fish of his realm for their deceit.

By midday the sickness had passed. Salt clung to his lips, the sun to his back, and at last he felt empty—but alive. Ho rose, peeling himself from the coral rock and rubbing at the grooves it had pressed into his skin. Turning southeast, he faced the line where the reef lifted a white bank against the waves. Beyond it, the horizon shimmered—and there, faint as breath, a waka. A sail caught the light. Voyaging craft, medium-sized. He judged it a day away, if the crew kept their hoe moving.

He walked to the edge of the rocks where Takaroa broke upon the island. Blue water climbed the stone and fell back in ribbons of foam. Ho whispered a prayer, then leapt into the sea.

When he was clean, he turned west toward his shelter, gathering fish along the way to cook or cure. Whether the approaching voyagers were friends or enemies mattered little. Perhaps some forgotten foe had found his exile—or a rival seeking to claim his place as Champion of Kafiki. Either way, he would meet them with food first.

It had been a long time without human voices, and he had missed people—and that amazed him.

Passing the lagoon, he found Kalapa half-buried in the sand, at the very spot where Tāwhiri had almost bested him.

His spear greeted him warmly, though its mouth was full. ‘How are we feeling, Champion?’

“Truthfully,” said Ho, “I don’t know. My body aches, my mind wanders—and when I ate, I cried.”

‘There is no shame in tears,’ said Kalapa. ‘I would long to weep myself, but all I can manage are splinters. The closest I come is through others—the pain I inflict. It is not satisfying, Ho. Like being told of sweetness, yet never tasting it.’

Ho skewered an armful of fish along the spear while his companion spoke on.

“I suppose you’re right. Still, I would hate to start weeping when my guests arrive. I must keep control.”

‘Why?’

“Why? Because I am the Champion of Kafiki. I am a hero.”

Kalapa was silent for a while. Then, softly:‘It has been ten years, Ho. Are you still a champion?’

Ho turned back to the lagoon. The water was littered with dead fish, their silver bellies clouding the shallows. By armfuls, he cleared them from the lagoon until it lay empty again. Only when he could swim without touching the dead did he feel at peace.

It had been ten years on this rock.

Memories of the last two days rose like tidewater—the battle with the demigods foremost. He had blacked out when Arahuta struck, and when he awoke on the narrow northern beach there was no sign of the heavenly visitors. Doubt crept in past the ache of his wounds. Perhaps he had imagined it all. Perhaps the gashes came from some foolish tumble in the surf.

Maybe I smashed my face on coral while spear-fishing with Kalapa, he thought. What would gods want with a warrior who no longer wished to fight, exiled from the tribe that had taken him in, with no kin and no ancestors to claim him? He had no mana left to show them, no treasure within, no roe to harvest. Why would a god spare his wairua instead of freeing a suffering spirit? He could have done that himself—would have, if not for Arahuta and Loha.

Now, wading through the lagoon with warm water lifting around him, Ho felt peace. The wish to escape life had at last escaped him.

He let the beauty of the moment take him, sinking to his knees as if to wash away the last grains of doubt clinging like wet sand. Then, breathing deep, he slipped beneath the surface and rolled onto his back, drifting open-armed upon the water. He smiled—for the first time in years.

Once at rest, it took little to stir a smile—birdsong, the colour of coral, the feel of sand beneath his hand, the cool breath of water on his skin. The island itself was the gods’ reminder that beauty waited everywhere, if only he would take the time to look. And those who never looked, he thought, were the ones who suffered most.

The sea itself was his healer. Rest and solitude were the only medicine for a wounded body and a troubled mind. That was why he had exiled himself without word ten years before. It had taken half that time to wash free of the bloodshed and the dread of who he had been—the Champion of Kafiki. What that title really meant. Looking skyward, Ho acknowledged the blue above was the same in his lagoon. He marvelled that such calm could follow so fierce a night, that such skies could exist where yesterday had been all black fury.

Gods come and go, he thought—terrible at first, leaving ruin behind them, yet always clearing a path for life.

He rolled onto his belly and swam to shore, stepping from hot sand to cool grass. Beyond the lagoon, a narrow track wound through the forest toward his shelter.

When he first came to this island he had explored its two green spines of forest—one narrow, skirting the northern beach; the other broad, running down the eastern coast. He had chosen the eastern grove, where the coconut trees stood tall and close, and there he built his sleeping platform, though the wind scoured it often.

Entering the jungle now, his steps felt sure again, his belly fuller. The shade welcomed him; palm leaves laid broad shadows across his path. A brush of fronds against his skin reminded him he was still bare, and that he would need covering before any visitors arrived—lest they think him gone wild.

When Ho reached his clearing, he despaired at the sight of his collapsed shelter. But to his astonishment, the pola blinds still stood.

He had tied them between the coconut trunks, as the eastern tribes of Kafiki did, to break the wind. The storm had stripped most of the trees bare; coconuts lay scattered among the flax at his feet. He smiled—at least he would not have to climb for them now.

A breeze rose and sent a broken frond clattering against his legs. He sniffed the air for rain; there was none. The air still tasted faintly of salt and thunder.

The afternoon was beginning to leave with the heat, and he hurried to ready himself before darkness returned.

By dusk, Ho was satisfied with his work. Broken branches, empty shells, and storm-tossed debris were piled high upon the fire pit, burning down to ash.

He unearthed his cache of preserved fish—wrapped in leaf and stone—and set them on the matting he’d spread across the clearing. A great turtle shell he filled with coconut water, and beside it placed six gourds of fresh water for washing.

There was time yet to sweep the sand and lay out his weapons and carvings. Around the clearing’s edge, at the east, south, and west, he set three god-sticks for his favoured atua: Takaroa, god of the sea, his eyes of pearl shell to guide the fishing. Rongo, giver of peace and fertile gardens, carved from drifted rota wood with a serene smile and high head-piece, his form reminding Ho where strength should lie. Tū, the war-god, tongue thrust, eyes wide, to stand in balance against Rongo. He murmured prayers to each, fixing them firmly in the ground so their tapu would be seen and respected. Then, as the last light faded, Ho loosed his topknot and dressed himself in his one good lavalava.