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When I thought of her there, watching, I didn’t feel angry. I felt lost, like I’d missed an opportunity that would never come around again. Why hadn’t she tried to talk to me? Why hadn’t she said something? I’d needed her so much and by the time I’d finally found her again, it had been too late.
I’d thought that becoming mermaid would make things easier, but the more information I received the harder it became to answer anything in black and white. Suddenly, the shades of gray were more alive than they had ever been.
I was reaching for another piece of glass, wanting to see—wanting to know—when an overwhelming sense of doom, of panic, washed over me. It pressed in from every side, smothered me. Terrified me. I tried to get a handle on it, to figure out what was happening, but everything was jumbled up in the all-encompassing horror sweeping through every inch of me.
Kona reached over, pulled me against him, and something about the solid heat of his skin brought me back from the edge. Kept the hysteria at bay. And that’s when I knew.
I grabbed on to Kona with hands that shook. Something’s wrong, I told him. Back at home. Something’s happened to my family.
Chapter 17
What do you mean? Kona asked, confused. What’s wrong?
I don’t know, I told him. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
I shot straight up, swimming for the cavern’s exit with every ounce of energy I could muster.
Tempest, hold on! Kona caught up to me, wrapped his arms around my waist.
I spun in his hold, nearly decked him before I caught myself. Let me go! I screamed, struggling against his hold. I have to get home. I have to get—
I know, he told me calmly. I’ll go with you. Just calm down, breathe for a second. Tell me what’s going on.
Something’s wrong. I don’t know what. I don’t even know how I know. But I feel it, in here. I pounded on my chest. Something terrible has happened.
All right, then. Kona nodded, never questioning my certainty. Let’s go.
We both shifted, then swam through the cave like our tails were on fire. Once we hit the open ocean, Kona shifted back, got dressed, but I stayed in mermaid form. I needed to get home as quickly as I possibly could.
Panic rocketed through me with every stroke I took, burning with the certainty that someone I loved was hurt. Badly. Not Moku, I prayed as I swam grimly beside Kona. Not Moku, not Moku, not Moku. Please don’t let it be my sweet baby brother.
But then I didn’t want it to be Rio or my dad either. Please, I prayed, please let them all be okay. Even as I said the words, I knew it was too much to hope for. I could feel the bad news closing in, wrapping itself around me like a tourniquet that cut off my ability to think, to breathe.
You need to tell Hailana, Kona told me, before we get too far away.
She’ll say I can’t go, and I won’t listen. It’ll end up being a huge thing, I warned him.
She’ll want you to go. I told you before, Hailana understands.
I stopped my disbelieving snort just in time to keep myself from sucking up a whole bunch of water—maybe I was finally getting the hang of this thing.
Tempest …
Fine, I’ll do it. But when I tried to reach out to her, she wasn’t close enough. And I wasn’t strong enough to initiate communication from this far away.
I told Kona what was wrong and he held the bridge. It took only a few seconds for me to reach Hailana. She was in another Council meeting and pissed that I wasn’t there with her.
I have to go home, I told her. Something’s wrong.
You can’t leave now, she answered. There’s no way. We need you here.
They need me there.
You can’t keep doing this, Tempest. Her voice was stern. You chose your path. Your loyalties lie with us now.
They should, I knew, but it wasn’t as easy as she was making it out to be. I’d walked away from my life on land, but that didn’t mean I could just forget it ever existed. I had spent seventeen years of my life with my family. Trying to stop caring overnight about what happened to them was impossible, even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.
I’m going, Hailana.
Queen Hailana! she shouted at me.
Fine. I’m going, Queen Hailana.
If you disobey me in this, Tempest, there will be grave consequences when you return. Consequences you will not enjoy. Trust me.
The thought that maybe I wouldn’t return snaked through me, but with a quick, guilty look at Kona, I cut it off before it could even fully form.
Then I’ll deal with the consequences when I return, I said.
I’m forbidding you to go!
You don’t own me—you can’t forbid me to do anything.
Tempest—
Drop the bridge, I told Kona, who looked disturbed but did as I asked.
I’m not heading back to Coral Straits, I told him, so don’t even bother suggesting it.
I wasn’t going to. I’m just shocked that she wouldn’t let you leave. There must be something big happening.
The only big thing going on is that Hailana is a total witch. She’s pissed because I won’t fall in line and do exactly what she wants, twenty-four hours a day.
He laughed. You make her sound like a fascist.
She is.
Oh, come on, she’s not that bad.
I started to tell Kona about the hints she kept dropping regarding our relationship, trying to get me to lose faith in him, but figured that, one, he wouldn’t believe me, or two, he would try to figure out how I could have misinterpreted what she’d been saying.
I could also tell him that she said his sister’s death was accidental, that it wasn’t Sabyn’s fault, but that was crossing the line and I knew it. Kona would tell me about his sister’s death when he was ready. For now, I was going with his interpretation, because for me, a choice between the two of them would always come down to Kona.
For one brief, stupid second, I wondered if he would make the same choice between his kingdom and me.
Come on, he suddenly said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward an influx of warmer, faster-moving water. Let’s shoot the current. It’ll shave a good hour off our time.
That was the last conversation we had for a long while. We were both too busy concentrating on swimming—through exhaustion and beyond—to have any energy left for something as mundane as talking. Still, I was grateful that Kona was there. I felt so lost, so confused, so frightened, that I swore the only thing keeping me sane was the feel of his strong, lean body beside me.
All I could think about was that I was just like my mother. She’d left, and maybe she’d kept track of things with us, maybe she hadn’t, but she’d never been there. Not when I needed her, not when my dad and brothers needed her. And now, here I was, an ocean away when something bad happened to my family. If I hadn’t been in that cave, connected to them through my mother’s memories, would I even know that there was a problem? Or would I be swimming along, living my life without ever knowing that something was wrong?
You doing okay? Kona asked.
Yeah. What else could I say?
That I felt like I was going to rip apart into a thousand different pieces?
That the guilt was nearly killing me?
That if we didn’t get to La Jolla soon I was really afraid that I might lose what was left of my mind?
Hey, it’s going to be okay, Kona said.
