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“I have. ”
“You saw what happened?”
I wanted to apologize to her as I had to Mahina, to acknowledge my culpability in the situation, but the words stuck in my throat. After everything that had happened between us I had trouble bowing to her, even though she looked like she was one step away from death. At the same time, I didn’t know what else I could have done. If I hadn’t gone home, if Kona hadn’t come with me and brought the healer, Moku might very well be dead now. I knew Hailana expected my loyalty to be completely to her, but it wasn’t and it never would be. My mother had put the clan above her family. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to.
“Yes,” I finally said.
“You must be thrilled to find me so humbled. ” A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye.
“No,” I repeated. “You couldn’t have known—”
“I should have. I made some huge miscalculations, Tempest, and they have cost my clan its last chance at survival. We are doomed now. ”
“There are survivors. We can rebuild—”
She snorted, the first time I had ever heard such an unelegant sound come from her. “Most of the clan is dead or injured. Who is left to rebuild? After everything I’ve done to keep them safe, I ended up destroying them. I am finished as their queen. ”
I didn’t know what to say. She had made mistakes and when the deaths were dealt with, when the shock had worn off, people would be furious that she had brought such a powerful enemy right into the heart of the city. She hadn’t meant to, had thought Sabyn was on our side, but it was her job to seek out the truth. Underestimating Tiamat and misreading Sabyn so completely were terrible, terrible mistakes.
Still, I couldn’t leave her like this, miserable and guilty and closer to death than I had ever thought possible. “The clan can survive,” I told her. “We can prepare—”
“Oh, we can, can we? And where were you today, Tempest? The clan needs a strong leader, one who sticks around when things get tough. If that leader isn’t going to be me, who will it be? You keep running off to play at being human even though you clearly aren’t. How are you going to lead these people?”
“I have no desire to lead your clan, Hailana. I’ve told you that before. ”
“Your clan, Tempest. Or it would be if you ever chose to accept us. But you run between us and the selkies and the humans like you’re ashamed of what you really are. ”
“If being a mermaid means I have to—” I forced myself to stop before I said something that I would regret. She was weak and badly injured, after all.
But Hailana only laughed. “Have to be like me, you mean? Or like your mother?”
Now that she’d said it, I wouldn’t back away from the truth. “Yes,” I answered, agreeing with both parts of her statement.
“Oh, my sweet, naive little Tempest. I didn’t start out this way, you know. No one does. But centuries of fighting Tiamat and a world that can’t accept our existence, centuries of fighting for my clan’s very survival, have changed the way I view things. I once had high principles and a rosy vision of how the world should work. But that vision isn’t practical. Sometimes, when you’re in charge, when people live and die on the decisions you make, you can’t afford to keep your hands clean. Sometimes you do things you know you’ll regret. ”
I thought of Cecily, of the way she’d killed those people without a flicker of remorse. “And if you do that often enough, you stop feeling bad about anything. That’s the flipside of moral compromise, isn’t it, Hailana? Pretty soon you can’t tell right from wrong. ”
“Look at you, so sure you’d never compromise those pretty principles of yours. But how do you know? You’ve never been tested. ” She swallowed with difficulty, tried to push herself up a little more on the pillows, but was too weak.
I moved to help her, but she waved me away. “I think that’s all about to change. Come talk to me in a week or two about your fine, upstanding morality. If you’re still alive, that is. ”
Dread filled me at her words. I wanted to turn, to walk away, so badly. Because if I stayed, I would be giving her the satisfaction I had denied her for so long. But at the same time, I couldn’t not know. I couldn’t leave here in ignorance if it meant that people suffered because I wouldn’t play Hailana’s game.
“What do you know?” I asked.
“A lot more than you, Tempest. ”
“Really? Is that how this is going to work? You drop cryptic hints, I ask you to explain, you laugh in my face? You really want to play it that way, when our people are in danger?”
“Our people are fine for right now—no one is in imminent danger. ”
I lifted a brow. “Then why are we having this conversation?”
“Because we aren’t the only things under the sea, are we?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t have time for your riddles, Hailana. People are—” I broke off in terror as her meaning finally sank in. “The selkies?” I whispered. “Tiamat is going after Kona and his family?”
Hailana made a point of glancing at the clock by her bed. “My guess is she’s already been and gone. Who even knows if your selkie is still alive?”
“You didn’t warn them?” I asked, trying desperately to reach Kona. As always, I couldn’t reach far enough.
“Warn them? How was I supposed to warn them? My clan is in disarray, my powers burned out—”
“You could have tried!”
“Or I could have kept my mouth shut and hoped Tiamat decided to have mercy on my clan. Attracting her attention now is a very stupid move. ” She reached for me with her good arm, her hand closing around my wrist with shocking strength considering her condition. “Let it go, Tempest. ”
Kona! I called out, using everything I had to try to send the message across the ocean at him. Please, Kona, answer me. There was no response.
I pulled away from her, headed across the room at a dead run.
“Tempest!” Hailana called after me. “You have to think of what’s best for the clan. You have to think like a mermaid … and a queen. ”
“I can’t sit around and watch while people die needlessly. ”
“You won’t be able to stop it. ”
“No, what I won’t be able to do is live with myself if I don’t try. ”
“And that—that weak little heart of yours—is why you’ll never be half the woman your mother was. ”
“Thank God for that. ” I slammed the door on my way out.
Chapter 28
I was still shaking by the time I hit the main road that led to the castle. “Hey!” Mahina grabbed my arm as I raced by her. “You’re running around like your tail is on fire. ”
I didn’t answer her. I was too busy screaming for Kona in my head. Where was he? I wondered frantically. He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t be!
“I’m sorry. I have to go,” I told her.
“Go where?” she asked incredulously. “Look around, Tempest. We need you here. ”
“Tiamat’s taking aim at the selkies. Hailana didn’t warn them. ”