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

leaned forward beside her, Darius’s face puzzled in question as much as her own. She could feel the crowd hanging on Rupert’s questions and the queen’s every word also.

Nattie glanced at the empty tank of water the king had threatened to throw Sydney inside of, then the queen resumed her stare of Rupert. “My love for Selkies and all those deemed as outcasts is well known,” she offered a sad smile to those imprisoned in the cages. “Garrett Weaver was an outsider too. He was also a dear friend of my daughter’s during our life ashore. He came to the Salt world not by his own choosing, but at the hands of Selkie slave catchers who brought him here for their own gain.” Nattie played to the crowd. “Hear and believe me when I say that Garrett Weaver was an innocent, if ever there was one. Aye, a naïve boy caught in a raging tide in which he knew nothing of, nor how to escape.” The queen looked to Darius with truth gleaming in her eyes. “All that these others have said to you is true, my king.” She gave a weak motion to the other prisoners. “Garrett Weaver was at the heart of why the princess and I, along with so many others here all broke our shared vow to never return.”

Sydney cringed at the immediate frown made by the king when Nattie mentioned her royal title. Mom, what are you doing? Sydney wondered. Are you trying to make him mad?

The queen went on. “I confess that I did not dwell on what the consequences should be for my actions. Not when I chose to break my vows and return to the Salt. Nor when I decided to chase after my child and Garrett Weaver too,” said Nattie. “For what parent would waste a single moment when learning their child has went missing in the night? When they do not know where that child is, let alone the destination they are headed, or soon to arrive?”

Jun. Sydney thought then, biting her lip to keep it from quivering as her brother’s face flashed in her mind. She’s talking about Jun now. Glancing at the king, Sydney saw the king’s anger lessened too, Darius’s face a flood of emotion with every word that Nattie spoke.

“No,” the queen continued, nodding to the other prisoners too. “All of us imprisoned now did not think of ourselves in such moments. Nothing of our own safety or vows. We hoped only that we might find our children and see them safely home before the Salt stole them from us. Before the horrors within this watery world shaped our loved ones into shades of the innocent ones in our memory. That is why we all here returned to the Salt,” her voice broke. “Some of us for the love we bore our children. Others for the love they bore their friends.”

Rupert glanced toward the king, as if seeking direction. Receiving none, he continued on with his inquiry. “Noble gestures, all, my queen,” he said. “But your answers say nothing of the true reason why the daughter of Orcin took a lowly recruit to a Selkie criminal’s tavern.”

Nattie squinted at him. “How, then? I have told you already that Makeda took Garrett Weaver there under my orders,” she said.

“But why?” Rupert asked. “Why would you order her to take him there, my queen?”

The hairs on Sydney’s arms raised when her mother hesitated, the answer to come only after the queen locked eyes with her.

Nattie Gao straighted her shoulders. “I asked Makeda to bring Garrett Weaver to the Selkie’s tavern that he might see his mother again.”

His mother? Sydney wondered. How would Cristina have come down here? I never saw her with us . . .

“His mother, you say?” Rupert asked the queen. “And was she yet another shamed and banished Orc who followed you ashore?”

“No,” said Nattie. “His true, Orcinian mother died not long after her own banishment from the Painted Guard. She never told us her name before death claimed her, but she brought the boy ashore as an infant. The one he came to meet with at the Selkie’s tavern was a foster mother we paired him with. A Silkie sworn in service to me who had long wished to have a child.”

Rupert shifted. “And where is this Silkie now that we might verify your claims, my queen?”

Nattie recoiled. “You doubt me?”

“You are on trial for treason, my queen,” said Rupert, motioning to her manacles. “And lying would be among the least of your alleged crimes.” He tsked. “Or say rather, the heart of them.”

Makeda’s chains rankled before the queen could reply. “I can vouch for the queen’s story, for it is the same as the word I received of Recruit Weaver’s Silkie mother also. Sergeant Luther ordered her body hung in Selkie Square as a warning to those who would raise their hand against their Orcish masters.”

Sydney’s whole body shook at Makeda’s testament. Garrett is gone . . . and Cristina Weaver is dead? She used the end of her gown as a tissue, brushing away the snot running from her nose. She could feel the king’s eyes on her at the news, but Sydney no longer cared. What is this world? She wondered as the trial proceeded. Why is all of this happening?

Rupert approached the queen. “So, you will not deny it? This allegiance between you and the former pod mother, Makeda?”

Nattie’s brow wrinkled in question. “Makeda is sworn to serve the crown,” she said. “She has as much allegiance to me as to the king himself.”

“And yet she abandoned her king to bring her Orcs in search of you instead,” said Rupert.

“At the king’s own order,” Nattie replied. “You said so earlier yourself, Lord Bowrider.”

Rupert shrugged and turned toward Sydney and Darius in the royal pavilion. “Apologies, my king. It seems there is some question as to your commands. Do you recall giving such an order to Pod Mother Makeda?”

Sydney glanced at