Tempest Unleashed (10 page)

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.

Frustrated, furious, I pulled back. Concentrated. Tried to focus my power the way Sabyn had, so that I could push it right through his shield. But no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried to condense my energy into a powerful, unbendable weapon, I couldn’t do it. The knowledge grated.

Around us, the water grew choppy with my agitation, until the whole area was literally pulsing. I could feel the storm brewing inside of me, feel the lightning begging to be unleashed. I held firm against it, knowing that the only people who would be hurt by my temper tantrum were those on the surface, or those down below who couldn’t defend themselves. Sabyn, the jerk, probably wouldn’t even be touched.

Come on, Tempest!
he called mockingly.
Is this seriously the best you’ve got?

I gritted my teeth, tried to ignore the taunts as I struggled for control.

I came down here because my aunt said you had real talent. Told me you were our best shot againt Tiamat. Now I’m not sure what she meant. Best shot at getting our butts kicked, maybe?

I clenched my jaw, tried to ignore his words. Either they were true, which was shocking since Hailana never missed a chance to insult me, or he was trying to feed my ego, which was just as dangerous as believing Hailana might actually think I wasn’t a waste of space.

Either way, though, Sabyn needed to go down. The lightning was right there, but I remembered the first time I’d unwittingly let it go, how I’d struck Kona in the chest and nearly killed him. Since then, I’d been working on control, on channeling the lightning, but I couldn’t take the chance, not right now. Not with all these merpeople around.

Instead, I pulled inward. Gathered up the last pulses of energy I had within me. And then focused as hard as I ever had in my life.

I pictured a spear, pulsing silver with power. With strength. Long. Unbendable. Wicked sharp. And then I went about creating it, one unbreakable inch at a time.

It wasn’t perfect—not by a long shot. Even as I was forming it in my head, I could see the cracks, the fissures, the little mistakes I was making. If I had more time or more energy, if I wasn’t so drained I could barely swim, I would have stopped and fixed all the weaknesses. But I didn’t.

Sabyn had grown suspicious by my sudden cessation of activity, had once again begun lobbying energy strikes across the divide between us. I fractured my attention, left half free to dodge what he was sending my way and kept the other half on the weapon I was building.

When I was done, when it was as sharp and as strong as my flagging energy could make it, I reached out a mental hand and grabbed the spear. Then heaved it as hard as I could straight at Sabyn and his unbreakable shield.

He saw it coming, laughed. Waved a hand to deflect it, but he wasn’t strong enough.

A look of alarm flitted across his face and he threw out both his arms to increase the energy of his shield. To strengthen his defenses.

But I was having none of it. I would lose this battle—I knew that. I was still weak from everything that had happened the day before, and I would have no energy left to follow up this attack. But I
would
strike him,
would
make him bleed as he’d done to me.

Closing my eyes, I focused on pushing the spear a little bit farther, a little bit faster. Imagined it spinning, burning, crashing through Sabyn’s shield and straight into him.

Sensing that this was it—good or bad, succeed or fail—I opened my eyes and watched as the spear shot right through Sabyn’s shield in a blaze of purples and reds and golds. The colors bounced off, slamming through the water like electric sparks. And the spear—the spear passed right by Sabyn, but not before it took a healthy chunk out of his right bicep.

It wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind, as I was aiming to mess with more than his bicep, but it would do. Especially considering the look of abject shock on his face. Yes, it would do very, very nicely.

Around me, people cheered—I was definitely the hometown favorite between the two of us—and I took a bow. Then, calling a draw, I crossed the circle to see if Sabyn needed help. Not that I was in much better shape, but still—it seemed like the right thing to do, no matter how annoyed I was with his so-called training methods.

Nice shot
, he called to me as I approached. He didn’t look nearly as angry as I felt. Which, strangely, only made me warier. Most guys I knew didn’t like it when a girl got the jump on them, especially publicly. And Sabyn definitely didn’t strike me as a laugh-it-off kind of guy.

Not as nice as yours
, I answered. I was still bleeding from the earlier blast to my midsection.

He shrugged modestly.
I do what I can
.

The crowd looked a little disappointed at our civility, but once they realized there wasn’t going to be any more fighting between us, they took off, exchanging random bets regarding our next training session. Fantastic. Because I really wanted nothing more than to become the new entertainment down here. People already spent way too much time staring at me as it was. They didn’t mean to be rude, I knew, but always being watched, always being whispered about as the mermaid who would finally vanquish Tiamat, got old really fast.

So, was that really necessary?
I asked once the last stragglers finally moved on.

What?
he answered with an innocence that was obviously feigned.

I thought you were supposed to be training me, not trying to kill me.

For one second there was a deadly serious look in his eyes, one that sent shivers—and not the good kind—up and down my spine. Then he grinned, and the tension dissipated.
Trust me. If I’d been trying to kill you, you’d already be dead.

Why does that not reassure me?
I asked, eyebrow raised.

I don’t know. I certainly meant it as a reassurance.

And not a threat?

His face went blank.
I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Of course you don’t.
I glanced over my shoulder at the now-empty training circles.
So, can I expect this kind of thing every day that we’re under the water?

Not at all.
He grinned wickedly.
That was just a warm-up.

Fan-tas-tic.
So not.
What happens if I can’t keep up? Theoretically?

He glanced down at my stomach wound.
Oh, you’ll keep up.

How do you know?
Was he impressed with the spear? With my technique?

Because the alternative sucks. And you don’t strike me as suicidal.
With that parting shot, he took off for the castle, hand pressed firmly over his wound.

I watched him go, wondering if Hailana had brought him here to help me … or destroy me.

Chapter 9

Two hours later, I was still stewing over the whole encounter. Sabyn might be an incredible fighter, but he was also a world-class jerk. The idea that I was going to have to spend hours every day learning from him, training with him, made me insane. Particularly considering his last comments.

Keep up or die? What kind of teaching strategy was that? I mean, I’m all for real-life experience, but Sabyn was taking it to a new level.

I finally gave up any hope of concentrating on my other duties. I’d tried to focus on my homework for mer-school, but since I was new to the whole underwater-world thing, my teachers were treating me like an imbecile. And I could memorize only so many ocean species a day before tangling with a great white seemed like entertainment instead of certain death.

My other studies—watched over by Hailana—were even less interesting. She’d given me a new book last week—
An Unabridged History of Mer Society.
It was two thousand, three hundred and ninety-four pages long. And it was definitely
not
a page turner. Hailana swore there was a lot of useful stuff in there, but then she thought there was useful stuff in the princess etiquette class she was making me take as well. And call me crazy, but learning to float with a book on my head or learning the entire lineage of the merCrown somehow didn’t seem quite as important as finding a way to bring down Tiamat.

I’d said as much to Hailana a million times, but so far, she hadn’t budged. And whenever I asked any questions about Tiamat, she found a way to change the subject. Which was crazy, but then it hadn’t taken me very long to figure out that Hailana wasn’t necessarily playing with a full deck. And the deck she
was
playing with was definitely a little … confused. I wasn’t sure that senility hadn’t driven her just a little bit around the bend.

The only good thing we agreed on was that she let me train, let me figure out how to use my powers these last few months. Besides my time with Kona, the hours I spent in the training circle with Jared were the only things that kept me sane.