Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 by Galvin, Aaron (top 5 books to read TXT) 📗

gown to climb the scaffolding steps. Reaching the top, facing the Blackfin and watery cell, the queen’s shoulders began shaking too. Nattie’s chin dipped to her chest also when the Blackfin guided her to step out onto a single wooden plank lain across either tank end. Like an over-sized dunking tank with its victim positioned several feet over the water, Sydney saw there was nothing for her mother to grab hold of. Nothing to keep her from falling inside if, or when, she was pushed off the beam.

Nattie hesitated to walk the plank.

The Blackfin nudged the queen to traverse it anyway.

Sydney choked in watching her mother’s trembling hands as the queen stood at the end of the plank, awaiting the drop to come.

The Blackfin reiterated the queen’s crimes, conviction, and final sentencing to the crowd. That the penalty for high treason was death and the judgement would be carried out immediately, unless the king saw fit to give his queen a merciful stay of the execution.

Sydney turned to Darius, pleading in her eyes, even as she knew it all for naught with every moment passed. “Please,” Sydney found her voice, reaching for the king, grabbing hold of his hand and squeezing with all the strength in her. “Please, don’t do this. You can stop this all right now.”

His eyes already glazing, Darius shook his head. “Would that I could, child,” he said softly. “Aye, if only I could.”

“But you can,” Sydney cried. “You’re the king.”

“Aye,” said he. “And the people require justice.”

Sydney released him then. “This isn’t justice. It’s payback for how Mom hurt you, just like you’re hurting us both now.”

Darius looked away, ignoring Sydney’s continued pleas, giving a nod to the Blackfin instead.

Sydney startled at the sound of her mother’s immediate yelp and the splash that came after. Wheeling toward the tank, she saw Nattie thrashing underwater, her momentum and chains carrying her to the tank bottom amid a swirled churn of bubbles.

Even as she descended, Nattie’s feet and legs began shifting into a dolphin tail. The queen stopped her morphing efforts when the fetters around her ankles cut off her attempt. In failure, Nattie coughed up a stream of bubbles, her gaze looking toward the surface and kicking with human legs in another failed attempt to reach her goal of escape.

The Blackfin stole those hopes away too, ordering his Orcs to pull on a pair of heavy chins that then slid a weighted, stone lid over the top of the tank and locked it down.

Sydney flew to her feet at the sight of Nattie flailing away, her fists banging away at the glass walls of the tank as if the Blackfin and his Orcs might rethink their royal orders. “Stop!” Sydney screamed, turning her hate and fear on the king, striking at him several times before Rupert pulled her away. “Please . . .” Sydney cried through her tears. “Please! Stop this and save her!”

Then, Sydney heard the overwhelming gasps from the crowd.

Rupert’s grip too had relented for the moment.

Sydney shrugged free of him, only to feel the seahorse-lord taking hold of her again before she had taken two steps forward. “Let go of me!” She fought against his pulling her close once more, stopping when she saw that which had drawn the outcry from the crowd.

Nattie was no longer flailing inside the tank . . . and the water inside had been reduced by half.

Sydney’s brow furrowed at where the water could have gone and vanished so suddenly too. What the . . .

Atop the scaffolding, the Blackfin was raging at his soldiers. “Get this lid off!” he yelled at those sharing the landing with him. “Under!” he cried to all those guarding the barge. “Dive! Dive! They’re underneath, you bloody fools!”

Underneath? Sydney wondered, looking to the water that surrounded the barge, finding the water choppy with the movement of all those scrambling to obey.

Most did not reach the barge’s end.

In keeping with the Blackfin’s orders, one among the Painted Guard ran to dive off the edge and swim below. He was stopped when another of his Orcish fellows armored in black plate caught him by the wrist. The glint of silver came near faster than Sydney’s eye could follow, and she swore that the second of the Painted Guard soldiers had run the other through.

The reality of what she saw cemented in her mind when several of the other soldiers upon the barge also began to fall. Blood spewed forth from the mortal wounds given the Orc soldiers by others who had stood beside them as brothers-in-arms not moments before.

Anarchy ensued upon the barge as the Painted Guard turned on one another, each warier than the next at who was truly friend or foe, and all with their visors down to shield their true identities and intentions of the others.

The Unwanted! Sydney thought when a war broke out among them, remembering back to her time with Quill and Yvla. How her mentor’s lover, an Orc named Fulcrum, had once smuggled Sydney and Yvla away from Anchor Alley and then come to them again disguised in soldier’s armor on the night she was taken by the Blackfin.

One among the Painted Guard confirmed her suspicions a moment later. Stumbling in an attempt to reach the prisoner cages, the supposed soldier’s helmet fell off and skittered across the barge. The soldier within was no Orc, nor even Merrow, but a Silkie face that was far more familiar and welcomed by Sydney Gao. Ellie?!

Though burdened by the weight of Orcish armor and the blood-slicked footing upon the barge, Ellie climbed to her feet again. Ignoring the ongoing fight all around her, Ellie carried onward across the chaotic barge. She lumbered toward the prisoner cages as the other Painted Guard pretenders fought on against the Blackfin’s soldiers.

Sydney pounded the railing in front of her, watching her Silkie friend run toward the Orc prisoner cages. Come on, Ellie! Come on!

Makeda, Owens, and their fellows in the Orcinian cell were clamoring for