Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 by Galvin, Aaron (read 50 shades of grey .TXT) 📕

Poor boy, said Ishmael, chuckling. You really believe that I would allow my friend here to slaughter you now?

I-I don’t know what you’d do, said Garrett, his gaze trailing off to Cursion’s body.

Ishmael grinned wider still in answer of Garrett’s claim. No, you don’t have that much imagination, do you, little Orc. No more than your Uncle Blackfin knows what I will do . . . so, it seems that I must send you on with another message for him.

Garrett’s brow furrowed. What?

Do you not remember my earlier words when we swam together in The Devil’s Triangle? Of your being one of the only Orcs to ever escape me? Ishmael laughed. It seems you are indeed among the most fortunate of your kind, boy. Your uncle sent your former pod-mate, Arsen, here to deliver a message. I would send a reply to him in fair return. Ishmael drifted forward to within an inch of Garrett. Go and swim back to your uncle now, Orc. Tell the Blackfin that he need no longer be bothered with the White Shadow who slew his father, for I have stolen that vengeance from him. Next, I will take the city so precious to him and his fallen father . . . and when I have taken all else that remains dear to the Blackfin, only then will I come to take his life from him too. Ishmael pushed the dagger he had slain Cursion with against Garrett’s chest, the feel of it cold against his breast. Aye, boy, tell the Blackfin that he need no longer fear the shadow that came for his father. It is a raging tide of Red Water that comes to drown him and his cursed city now. He shoved Garrett away. Go. Be gone, boy, before I change my mind and send you back to your uncle as my Night-Stalker friend suggested.

Garrett wasted no time in obeying, fleeing from both in true knowledge that Ishmael would make good upon his threat. And yet even as he ascended, he could not help but look back into the below, his gaze lingering a final time on the sight of his fallen father before the shadows came to steal that from him too.

25

SYDNEY

The surrounding salt water that filled her glass cell had consumed all of Sydney’s tears, grief sapping her strength as well. Ever since the traitor trials had begun, Sydney could not help but think of all the others she knew that were likewise put in chains or worse for her decisions and actions. Yet for all their faces swirling in her mind and the horrid memories of watching others she knew like Yvla, Ms. Morgan, and Barb, all of them slain by the Blackfin, it was the marred face of another that Sydney knew would haunt her all the rest of her days.

Jun . . . Sydney imagined her brother as she remembered him in life. The last she had seen of her brother, Jun was playing videogames in his room down the hall from hers. Sydney had always hated the noise. Over the last few years, Jun’s face was either buried in his phone, or computer screen, more often than not.

Now, Sydney wished more than anything that she could see him lying on the couch in their home in Indiana, his face illuminated by the ever-changing glow of whatever game he happened to be playing. For every time she attempted to picture him safe in his room, Sydney saw only the cold, pale corpse of the nearly decapitated Nomad hostage that the Orcs had cast inside the holding tank of the traitor trials. The wounds upon the captive’s face had been beyond any clear recognition. Had it not been for the slain, Merrow guardian who the Orcs had also delivered, Sydney gathered she would not have recognized her brother at all. All the doubts that Sydney held were banished the moment that Malik Blackfin and his Orcs placed her mother’s friend, Barb, next to Jun’s body.

And it’s all my fault . . .

Sydney’s body spasmed, her strength hollowed at the continued realization that everyone she knew and loved had come to ruin or worse for her decisions. She endured the grieving pains coursing through her, the emptiness inside liken to the oubliette pit of darkness that her cell hung poised over. Though Sydney could not see them in the blackness below, she again imagined the bone litters of the oubliette’s former occupants at the watery bottom. How long? She wondered, placing her hand flat against the glass base as if she could reach into the oubliette below and pluck up the bones to ask them her question. How long until me and Mom, Owens, Amelia, and everyone else from home are nothing but bones and dust too?

Sydney startled when the heavy, old wooden doors leading into the prison she was held in slammed against the stone walls. Pushing off the glass bottom of her cell, she swung around to see which of her captors had come for her.

A single torch cast its fiery glow upon the two-toned face of Malik Blackfin as he ventured in alone, ordering all of the seawolves that he had left to guard her to leave the room.

Why did he send them out? Sydney wondered when the Blackfin closed the oaken door behind him, leaving he and her as the only two within the dungeon cell. What’s going on? Sydney cowered against the furthest reach of her glass cell. What’s he planning to do to me now?

Malik Blackfin smiled at Sydney’s movements as he approached her cell. “And how are we tonight, Princess?”

Sydney’s lip curled at his mocking her. She kept quiet, however, if only for the hope of dashing a bit of the glee that lived in Malik’s gaze.

Instead, her silence seemed to only fan the flame in him. “Angry with me for today’s events at the trial, are you?” Malik