Here, with none of the sounds of the city to drown it out, the ocean was a loud, overwhelming source to be reckoned with. Not that I ever forgot that—it was pretty impossible to think of it as anything else—but sometimes the ocean as source of reckoning got drowned out in the routine of everyday living. Of just being. Out here no one would make that mistake, least of all me.
I’m not sure how long I sat there, just watching the push and pull of the waves. Feeling that same push and pull inside of me as I tried to figure out how to get my life—and my clan—back on track. There was no easy answer, no simple plan I could devise. Whatever was to come next would take everything Kona, Mahina, and I had. And even that might very well not be enough.
Eventually I became aware of another human presence. Not because he said anything, but because—even after everything that had passed between us—I was still attuned to Kona. Could still sense him as he walked over the makeshift path from the cave to the rock where I was sitting.
“You couldn’t sleep either, huh?” I asked.
“Hard to sleep when I don’t know what’s happening with my people.”
I nodded my understanding. I was struggling with it myself, and that was even after my people—or at least a group of them—had tossed me out for Sabyn. I could only imagine how much more difficult this was for Kona, who had been raised from an early age to consider the throne, and the tens of thousands of people he ruled, as his responsibility.
“How are you feeling?” he asked softly.
“Better. Zarek’s a miracle worker.”
“I’m glad. You scared me.”
“I scared me. Being at Sabyn’s mercy—it was bad. I don’t ever want that to happen again, to me or anyone else.”
“Do you want to tell me about what happened?”
I thought of Sabyn, of the blank look on his face when he did so many of the terrible things he’d done. Sometimes he’d been in a rage when he’d hurt me, but most of the time he’d just been blank, resolute. Like beating me was just another chore he had to get through. Being on the receiving end of that attitude felt a million times worse than the anger. And more dangerous.
“I really don’t,” I told him.
I could tell he wanted to argue, but in the end he just nodded and said, “Fair enough.”
“Why don’t you talk instead? Tell me what’s going on here. What you’re planning.”
He nodded. “To be honest, we’re still working out the growing pains. There are more than two thousand of us on the island, with three princes turned kings in the last few weeks and months. Which is …”
“Difficult for you.”
“You have no idea. Everyone wants to be in charge, to make the final decision, but no one is thinking clearly. So much of what they propose is nonsense.”
“And what do you propose?”“I’m not sure yet. But whatever it is, it doesn’t involve sacrificing great quantities of my people.”
“Of course not!” I answered, shocked and a little horrified.
“You’d be surprised. At the moment, it feels like you and I are the only two rulers who think that way.”
“Then why are the others here? Why don’t you get rid of them?”
He shrugged in a self-deprecating way I’d never seen from him before. Almost as if he was embarrassed by his decision and what he was about to say. Which, on further reflection, I suppose he was. “There’s safety in numbers. I may not believe in what they preach, but working with the other selkie kings and merKings can help provide shelter and food and protection for my people that they might not otherwise get.”
“They can also get your people killed. I’m not sure that’s an even payoff.”
He swallowed convulsively as he watched the waves, staring at them like they had all the answers to the really hard questions. I recognized the look, and the sentiment.
“You don’t have to deal with them anymore,” I told him. “I’m here and I’ll back you one hundred percent. Surely, together, we can come up with a way to get our kingdoms back, a way that doesn’t involve war or sacrificing our people to the almighty machine. We can find a way to defeat Tiamat without them.”
He shook his head, bemused. “Looking at you right now, I could almost believe what you’re saying.”
“Believe it.” I grabbed his hand, squeezed tightly. Took comfort as much as gave it, and for the first time since this thing began, I started to feel confident. Like somehow this was all going to turn out okay. Or at least not as badly as I imagined in my nightmares. “I’m not going to spend my life exiled on this island, not when Sabyn has my people at his mercy. And not when Tiamat is out there somewhere, just waiting to cause as much chaos as she possibly can. Haven’t you had enough of living under her shadow, just waiting for her next move? I know I have and I’ve been doing it for only a year. You’ve been doing it—”
“My whole life.”
“Exactly. At some point, enough is enough.”
Kona was nodding, but his eyes were guarded, sad, as they took in the bruises Zarek had lightened but not healed completely, as he’d concentrated on my bigger injuries. “People are going to get hurt.”
It was my turn to make a big deal of the bruises. “People are already getting hurt. Hiding isn’t going to change that. It’s just going to make it worse.”
He nodded. “I know.” Then he stood, pulled me into a hug that somehow felt like more. Warning bells went off inside my head as his lips brushed against my cheek, a little too close to my mouth. I stepped back, smiled to soften the blow of my rejection. I wanted to keep the peace between us, but I didn’t want to lead him on. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone.
“It’s good to have you back, Tempe.” He smiled a little sadly.
“It’s good to be back,” I said, pushing the memories of Mark and my family and La Jolla down deep inside of me where they belonged. Where they couldn’t hurt me. “Now why don’t we head over to those maps and see if we can figure out what to do about Tiamat and her damn army?”
Kona and I worked through the rest of the night, adding to the map that he had just begun when he’d come to get me. It showed the entire Pacific Ocean by political boundary, meaning all of the different territories were outlined, complete with a list of the rightful rulers as well as who we believed were in control of the different territories at this point.
According to Kenji, the selkie king whose territory stretched from Japan to the Philippines, Tiamat herself had taken over his lands. Ceto, one of Tiamat’s most fearsome monsters, had seized control of the mercity of Abalone Shores, which was in the far North Pacific, up near the Bering Strait, deposing the merKing Dimitri in the process. The third and final king on the island with us—the selkie king Vikram—had been run out of his territory by the half-octopus, half-man creature that had come for my dad and me. Its name was Turisas and, next to the Leviathan and Tiamat, it was the most dangerous of the sea monsters. When I mentioned to Kona that I had fought him in La Jolla, his reaction was a mixture of pride and horror. I figured I’d concentrate on the pride and forget all the stories he’d told me about Turisas. I had more than enough trouble sleeping as it was.