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

over. Believing him even as a voice within urged her to doubt. But if I doubt everyone’s intentions, then what am I left with? Sydney thought to herself, again reflecting on her mother and Yvla too, wondering what they would do or argue in her stead. She looked on Rupert again, studying him and thinking back on all the times they shared, coming to her own conclusion without all the voices to plague her process. “You mean it, don’t you?”

“I do,” said Rupert, his easy smile earning one from her in return. “Tell me what to do, Sydney. If it’s within my power, I will help you.”

Rescue my mom and kill the Blackfin, maybe? Sydney snorted at the thought. Oh, and murder my dad too? She shook her head, reminding herself once more that the king was not a true father, nor had he ever been. Sydney looked around the tunnel, listening anew to the sounds of the crowd beyond the tunnel walls and ceiling. “What’s coming next?” she asked Rupert. “What are they going to do with me and my mom in this trial?”

Rupert’s forehead wrinkled. “You?” He asked. “Why would you think that you’re on trial, Sydney?”

He doesn’t know. Sydney thought again, staring into his eyes. How can he not know what they’ve done to me? Where they’ve been keeping me and what I am?

Sydney shook her head, feigning a show of embarrassment before Rupert could inquire on her further. “No, I know that I’m not on trial,” she lied. “I just wondered, you know . . . if maybe I was in trouble for running away.”

Rupert chuckled. “If they held a trial for every royal who had ever tried to run away from this cursed city, Sydney, there would be no royals left. Including me.”

Sydney forced a smile. “Right. I’m just . . . worried about my mom. You know?”

Rupert nodded. “I do.”

“So?” Sydney asked, wetting her lips with her tongue. “What do you think will happen? To my Mom?”

Rupert’s face tightened. “Hard to say with all the rumors flying around. The commoners thumb their noses at both king and queen by running with the story of your mother siring your brother as a bastard son. Meanwhile, many of the royals I’ve spoken with who know both king and queen believe that your father would never truly harm her, despite all he clamors to do in these trials.”

“Then why put her on trial?” Sydney asked. “Why humiliate her?”

Rupert shrugged. “If you believe the royals, they would argue even a king is still a politician,” He scoffed. “And a politician must play to his base when the people demand it. A grand lie, so to say. A show of equality for the people that no one is above the law. Truly though, I think your father means only to shame your mother into giving him any news of your brother’s whereabouts. It’s one thing to deny someone in private, but to deny a king on a royal stage in view of his subjects?” Rupert shook his head. “No . . . no, I think your mother will tell him the real truth now. Then, all of this can be done with and the rumors of her past put to rest for good and all after the people have had their show.”

Or not, Sydney thought then. Because we’ve already him the truth about Jun . . . and maybe Darius plans to use me as leverage against Mom. A shiver ran through her at the idea of the king putting her on display for Nattie and in front of all the people as he had done to her in the oubliette with only the Blackfin and his Orcs around to witness.

But then Darius would have no choice, Sydney argued with herself. If he showed everyone that I was part Nomad, then he could never take that back. He would be forced to convict Mom.

Sydney tried to banish such notions to the back of her mind by calling on the face of her brother instead. “And Jun?” she asked Rupert. “Do you know anything about him? Heard anything?”

“Nothing of note,” said Rupert. “Only that the king and the Blackfin have not rested in their search for the supposed prince.” He sighed. “Much as I am loathe to admit it, you and your Silkie guardian may have been wise indeed to have fled the castle when you did, Sydney. Your father has been manic in his efforts to secure any morsel of information on your brother ever since your escape. And the Blackfin’s reputation precedes him too, I fear. I trust it won’t be long until his seawolves find someone to give up a word of where your brother might be, either here in the Salt, or else ashore.”

“But they’ve not found him, then?” Sydney asked again, her voice breaking. “Jun is safe?”

“As best I know,” said Rupert.

Sydney breathed a momentary sigh of relief.

Then came a worser idea. All the more reason they’ve dressed me up like this. She thought, cementing the idea in her mind that the king meant to use her current safety as leverage against her mother to obtain information of Jun.

Sydney glanced down at her royal gown. A part of her wished to rip at the fabric, to claw at her hair and scrub off her makeup then, all to ruin whatever plans and role the king and the Blackfin held in store for her during the trials.

Rupert was watching her still. To judge the concern on his brow, Sydney gathered he may have even spoken to her.

“Did you say something?” she asked.

“Aye,” he said. “I asked you if any of the rumors are true?”

“What rumors?”

Rupert hesitated. “When you and your mother abandoned the shore and returned to the Salt . . . did you leave your brother behind because you knew that he was half Nomad all along?”

No. Sydney thought, cursing herself for ever having decided to leave the Indy Zoo with her friends in search