They’ll be joining him within a few months, if things go according to plan.
I started to say something else, but she cut me off. Enough, Tempest. We need to talk about this next phase of your training.
What if I don’t want to do the next phase? Jared said—
Jared was wrong, which is why Sabyn is your trainer now. Her voice dropped, lost its saccharine quality. Became as harsh and vicious as she was. You are here at my behest, Tempest. I think you’re forgetting that.
I don’t have to be here, you know.
Oh, really? Are you planning to run back to Daddy, let him take care of you against the big, bad sea witch? Tiamat would rip him apart before he even figured out he should run. And Kona? She laughed. You don’t actually think the selkies will accept a mermaid for a queen, do you? Oh, they all come down to play with the maids, but in the end, they marry their own kind. Always. Kona will never marry a non-selkie, and there’s no way his father would ever allow him to put a half-breed mermaid on the selkie throne—no matter how well they put up with you now.
It took every ounce of control I had to keep my jaw muscles loose, relaxed. But I managed it. I would never give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d gotten to me. I don’t need anyone to take care of me.
No offense, darling, but you don’t know what you need. You may have power, you may be as special as everyone says you are, you may even be the one who will kill Tiamat as the prophecy states, but you are nothing if you don’t understand how to manipulate that power. Sabyn can show you much more than Jared ever could.
I eyed her suspiciously. I had trouble accepting that she would do anything to help me. What happens when I’m stronger than you?
As if I would ever let that happen. She got up from her jeweled throne, swam slowly toward me. You’re a weapon, Tempest, she told me on our private line of communication. A top-of-the-line, first-class weapon. If you aren’t careful, if you don’t do exactly what I say, that’s all you’ll ever be. One I wield and then discard once it’s finished being useful.
I will never let you break me.
She held up one elegant, beringed hand and slowly began to make a fist, her fingers closing one after the other. Inside me, my heart stuttered as a crushing weight pressed in on it from every side. Tighter and tighter until the pain was so excruciating I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I tried not to react, tried to ignore what she was doing. But my heart was stuttering, skipping beats, and I knew, absolutely, that if she didn’t stop soon, I would be dead.
Please. It was all I said, all I could get out, but it was enough. She opened her fist and the pressure and pain dissipated. Immediately, I tightened every inch of my tail to rigidity—it was the only way I could have stayed upright in the aftermath of her attack.
My whole body burned with mortification and hatred as I looked at her, this woman my mother had blindly served. I wanted to walk away, wanted to tell her to go to hell. The only thing that kept me standing there was the knowledge that I had a long way to go before I could take her down.
I glanced at Sabyn, saw him leaning against the back wall, a look of amusement on his face as he watched my humiliation. The bastard.
I turned back to Hailana. When do you want me to start?
PART TWO
The Split
“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),—e.e. cummings
Chapter 8
So, how are you really feeling?
I stiffened at Sabyn’s question as we floated into the elite training circles Hailana had set up for me months ago. Located behind the palace grounds, they were three interlocking circles that were meant to be private. Even so, it was not unusual to find a small group of mer watching as we practiced, trying to get a glimpse of me. I’m fine, why?
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you went a few rounds with Tiamat’s goons yesterday? There was laughter in his voice, and the same condescending smirk on his face that he’d been wearing earlier.
I’m fine, I told him again, which was almost true, as my tail no longer hurt. That didn’t mean my chest wasn’t throbbing from my encounter with Hailana or that my brain wasn’t focused on finding a way to get as far from her as possible instead of on this sparring match. Which, considering the number of tattoos Sabyn had, was a truly stupid move on my part. Nothing like getting her ass handed to her twice in twenty-four hours to really make a girl feel good.
Glad to hear it. He turned, winked. And then shot a blast of energy at me so fast I barely had time to leap out of the way.
What the hell was that? I demanded when I could breathe again.
He didn’t answer, just shot another energy blast—and another and another—straight at me. Soon, it was an unending stream that I was afraid would fry me at the first opportunity.
So much for training. This felt more like an assassination attempt.
At first I dodged, but then his careless disregard for my life started to tick me off—imagine that—and I fired back, using my own energy to block his. The first time our energy forces actually met, a shock wave blasted out from the middle of the ring that knocked us both back about twenty feet and then slammed past the boundaries of Hailana’s grounds and into the city behind us.
The power of it shook buildings, flattened nearby merpeople and sea creatures alike. Had even more people ducking their heads out of doorways and windows to see what was happening. Some went back about their business, but others came down to the ring to watch us spar. Which was so not what I wanted.
As I pushed myself off the ground, I regretted that I still had my tail. I wished I had shifted back to human legs for this battle—even after months as a mermaid, I was still more confident in the response of my body in human form, not to mention more powerful. Eight months didn’t trump nearly seventeen years of reactions and experiences, after all.
But since that wasn’t to be—and it was too late to shift now even if I could—I put my wishes out of my head and prepared for Sabyn’s next strike. He looked as shell-shocked by that last explosion as I was, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try to strike while we were both off balance.
Sure enough, a huge blast of power came flying straight at me. But this one was different; I could sense it. Instead of the wide, sweeping blasts he’d been sending my way, this was focused, an arrow of pure power headed right at the center of my body.
I pulled up my own energy—more as a shield than a weapon—but it wasn’t good enough. His power flew right through mine, and though I was able to slow it down quite a bit, it still hurt when it hit. Enough so that I stumbled backward, then fell.
There was a burning across my midsection, and when I put a hand to it, my fingers came away bloody. Damn it. I ducked my head, checked out the damage. It didn’t seem too extensive, just a half-dollar-size circle in the center of my stomach where the blow had struck, along with thin, ribbonlike slices that crossed my torso on both sides of it.
Still, it completely pissed me off. I was getting sick of being used as a punching bag for the entire ocean.
Ignoring the blood and the pain, I sprang back up. And went at Sabyn with everything I had. I sent wave after wave of energy crashing into him until I was exhausted, but it wasn’t enough. His shield was about a million times more effective. No matter what I threw at him, I couldn’t get past it. Blast after blast, wave after wave, with nothing to show for it. Nothing, that is, except Sabyn standing there, laughing his ass off in front of everyone who cared to watch.