Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Galvin, Aaron (classic fiction txt) 📖

those loyal to the crown. All who will soon come to recognize her for the savage bastard that she is and see proof of your sin made flesh and bone.”

Sydney’s brow furrowed when Rupert moved away to pull back the violet curtain shielding them from the view of the people beyond. Her body warmed when catching sight of her friends and her mother’s followers beyond – all fettered and locked inside their cages upon the pearl-like barge.

Sydney turned numb, however, when noticing a newer construction upon the stage. Built as the trial centerpiece, there stood a freestanding tank, filled to the brim with crystal-clear Salt water. Though it held no prisoner now, Sydney estimated the tank as being large and deep enough to house a single victim. Each of the walls were crafted of glass to provide all in the Nautilus stands a perfect view of whatever poor soul were cast inside the tank.

Sydney understood the king’s threat in full, then. Both she and Nattie’s faces paled in tandem as they looked at one another with horror in their shared gaze.

The queen reached for the king’s arm. “Darius, please. Do not do this! My actions were mine alone, not Sydney’s!”

“True enough, my queen,” he said. “And yet she will suffer for your crimes all the same if you will not give me what I require. Now, where . . . is . . . Jun?”

“I don’t know.” Nattie wept. “I swear to you.”

“You swear?” Darius scoffed. “And what value do you believe your oaths still hold with me? Marriage? Loyalty? Love?” He spat at her feet. “You have broken every one of your vows to me. No, Nattie, such promises from you mean nothing to me now. Soon enough, they will hold little weight with the people either.”

Sydney cringed when Darius strode over to take charge of her from Solomon. Grabbing her by the arm, the king wheeled Sydney around to exit the tunnel’s end alongside him.

“Darius!” Nattie called to him. “Darius, please, don’t do this! Do not cast my daughter into the tank!”

The king stopped beyond the tunnel threshold. “Me?” he said, glancing back. “No . . . no, it will not be me to cast her there, my queen. Sydney’s fate depends on you, doesn’t it?”

My fate? Sydney froze, her eyes frantic in search of her mother’s face.

“Aye,” the king went on, all his hate spent on the queen. “Sydney’s guilt or innocence will be left to your decisions, Nattie. Let you think of your daughter in every answer you give today, lest she suffer the consequences for still more of your lies and actions.”

Sydney stared at her mother with tears in her eyes. Don’t let him do this to you, Mom, she thought. Don’t let him use me against you.

The queen’s jaw tightened as she looked on the king. “How, then?” Nattie asked. “How would you have me save her from the tank?”

Darius shrugged. “You need only speak true, my queen,” he said. “Your silence was not unnoticed during the trials yesterday . . . and the people did not come here to see their queen stand in quiet defiance of her crimes. Guilt or innocence, it is your story they wish to hear, Nattie. Let you sing it to the people of New Pearlaya today, my queen, lest the Blackfin and I tire of this game you play and decide to end it.”

The king’s grip instantly tightened on Sydney’s hand then, yanking her away though Nattie continued shouting for him to stop. Darius would not, however, his hold on Sydney unrelenting as he stepped free of the tunnel with her at his side. The moment they were visible, Darius raised his hand and Sydney’s too in triumphant show of their shared arrival.

The crowd roared approval and applause as Darius led on, waving to the crowd all the while.

For every step he dragged her onward, Sydney could not take her eyes off the tank upon the barge. Her pulse raced at the threat of being thrown inside in view of all in attendance, the change into her Nomad form being brought about by drowning as the Blackfin had done to her in the oubliette.

The king deviated from his path nearby the tank, however, taking Sydney into the royal tent instead. Guiding her to sit beside him, Darius did not release Sydney until she did as he bid her do. Then, with a final wave to the applauding crowd, the king took his seat. “Bring out the queen!” He clapped the moment all of the spectators turned silent.

The single command stirred the crowd anew, their applause turning to boos and hate-speech as the queen was led out by Rupert, Solomon, and a host of Painted Guard.

The hairs on the back of Sydney’s neck rose when noticing one of them still missing from the proceedings. Where is the Blackfin? She wondered, watching her mother continue onward with her escort. Sydney could not remember having seen him that morning, or during the guard change in the night either. That the Blackfin was missing when he had presided over her mother’s trial the previous day set Sydney’s mind to further questions of the Orc leader’s whereabouts.

Reaching the central cage, Solomon left the queen in the care of Rupert as he came forth to unlock the cage door. Rupert gently guided the queen to step inside, then left the Orcs to lock her away.

Sydney watched him leave the cage, Rupert taking up a central post among the prisoner cells as if he meant to preside over the queen’s trial in lieu of the Blackfin’s absence. But why, Rupert? Sydney wondered, watching him stand to attention, his steely eyes holding none of the warmth she had often seen in them when they rode their seahorses together.

Sydney squirmed in her chair when the Orcs finished with her mother, leaving the queen little room to maneuver about her cage. Off Rupert’s nod, Solomon ventured to the neighboring prisoners next, freeing the door of a larger