I shrieked—I couldn’t help myself—tried, just like last time, to drop the pearl. It didn’t work, but then I hadn’t really expected it to. The ache, the agony, grew worse and just when I was at the breaking point, I was thrust into another memory.
Though my mother looked the same, I got the impression that she was older here than in the last one, which meant this had happened sometime after she’d met my father. After she’d left our family and returned to the ocean.
Cecily was standing in front of a beautiful coral reef, her long hair flowing behind her, and though this image too was just a little out of focus, her green tattoos sparkled with an iridescence so brilliant that I had never seen its match. In front of her were three merpeople—two men and one maid. They looked tired, beaten, in no way capable of harming anyone.
In my mother’s head, I saw their crimes—speaking up against Hailana, disagreeing with how she ran things, complaining about her decisions. I wish I could say it surprised me that they were being punished for this, but it didn’t. Even today, Hailana was very careful about who she let disagree with her—and where she permitted it. Mostly, it was just her Council, in closed chambers.
My mother seemed to draw herself up, to gather her power, and I waited for her to carry out Hailana’s orders. To banish these people who had really done nothing wrong. I prayed that was it, that she wouldn’t have to imprison them—
A blinding flash of light encompassed the scene for one long second, two. When it cleared, and I’d recovered from what felt like a first-degree burn to my retinas, I saw the three people on the ground, Cecily standing over them with a face so blank it could have been carved from stone.
And that’s when it hit me. Cecily, my mother, had just murdered those people in cold blood.
My stomach revolted, and I dropped the pearl seconds before I was blindingly, joltingly ill.
PART THREE
Amplification
“Every wave, regardless of how high and forceful it crests,
must eventually collapse within itself.”
—STEFAN ZWEIG
Chapter 15
Where have you been? Kona wrapped an arm around me while I was swimming by, whirling me back to face him.
I stared at him blankly. I was so out of it, so caught up in the nightmare I had witnessed in Cecily’s cave, that I hadn’t even seen him.
Where have you been? he repeated. I was worried. His face was inches from mine, and he looked more disturbed than I had ever seen him.
It was that distress that finally got through to me, finally yanked me from my own reverie and back into the present. I reached out a soothing hand, laid it on his cheek. I’ve been out. Exploring. I needed to take a break. Why?
I thought you might be with Sabyn.
I shook my head incredulously. After everything I’ve done to placate you about Sabyn, you really thought I would spend extra time with him. Seriously?
I don’t know. You disappear for hours without a word, even knowing how worried I am. I looked everywhere for you—and him—and neither of you were around. What else could I assume but that you were together?
Though it so wasn’t the time or place, I wondered fleetingly where Sabyn had gone—since he obviously hadn’t been with me—but then that thought drowned in the tidal wave of my indignation at being interrogated when I really needed my boyfriend to just be there for me.
What else could you assume? Oh, I don’t know, Kona, maybe that you could trust me like you expect me to trust you? Or maybe you could assume that I know how worried you are about me even being near him and that I would never, ever, do anything to deliberately hurt you like that?
I sighed, tried to figure out a way to make him understand that I was being careful. I knew he was acting like this because he was worried, because just the thought of Sabyn being near me stressed him to the breaking point, but something had to give. We couldn’t go on like this.
Maybe you could have assumed that after all your warnings, and knowing how freaked out you are by Sabyn even being here, that I would never go behind your back with him? Those would have all been good assumptions.
I turned away from him, started to move in the other direction.
Don’t swim away from me, Tempest, he said furiously, reaching for me again. I wasn’t taking it this time, though, and I lashed out, sent a mild surge of power straight at him that wouldn’t hurt but did slam him back a good four feet. It worked only because he wasn’t expecting it, but I didn’t care. Never in my life had I put up with a guy manhandling me, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to start now.
Don’t touch me, Kona.
What is with you? he demanded.
I think that’s my question, isn’t it? You’re the one being completely irrational.
We squared off across a small oyster bed, both of us confused. Both of us angrier than the situation warranted. I knew it, just as I knew I should tamp down on my temper and actually talk to him. Yet I didn’t want to do that right now, not over something so trivial and yet so important. He was the one who’d grabbed me, who’d spewed ridiculous accusations all over me. And he was the one who was acting like a total ass.
Look, I told him. I’m not doing this with you. I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t even know what happened between Sabyn and Annalise, because you won’t tell me. Which is fine—your family, your privilege, whatever. But that means I don’t have to tell you everything going on in my life either. And you don’t get to jump down my throat every time I turn around just because I don’t report to you every second of the day.
I was just worried.
Were you really? I looked him up and down contemptuously. Are you sure about that? Because I’m about to shatter into a thousand pieces here and it doesn’t look like you give a damn. It doesn’t look like you care about anything but your hatred for Sabyn.
That got to him. I could see it in the way Kona’s shoulders slumped and in the shamed look he couldn’t hide. He ran a hand over his face, across the back of his neck, and when he lifted his head again there was concern, real concern, in his eyes. What happened, Tempest?
You don’t actually expect me to answer that, do you?
Please. I’m sorry. He reached a beseeching hand out to me.
I knocked it away before he could touch me. You’re saying that a lot lately, but it doesn’t seem to matter, does it? Five minutes later you’re jumping to the same wrong conclusions. I’m sick of it.
Sabyn chose that moment to swim by. Trouble in paradise, Tempest? He ran a hand down my arm and across my lower back, and I jumped at the shock of electricity that pulsed through me at his touch. Like always, it paralyzed me for a second, made every brain cell I had freeze up. Before I could recover, he leaned down and whispered, Whenever you get sick of whiny ass over here and want to try for a real man, remember I’m first in line.
I shrugged him off, started to tell him off, since I was completely disgusted with the way he was using me to get to Kona. But it was too late. Before I could even say a word, Kona launched himself at Sabyn with a roar. Then the two of them were rolling across the ocean floor, pounding on each other for all they were worth.
A crowd was gathering, and rather than deal with everything that entailed, I turned and just swam away. My training session could obviously wait, and with the way I was feeling, if I didn’t see Kona for a month, it would probably be too soon.