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

dressed in the royal part of a princess with an armed escort flanking her on either side. Unlike in the previous days, Sydney found no one waiting for her at the tunnel’s end. No more Rupert to stand between her and the Orcs. No sight of the king, or Blackfin, to torment her either. Solomon and the Orc guards continued in their escort of her across the threshold and remained with Sydney on her silent march through the Nautilus stands too.

The awaiting crowd rose and cheered at the sight of her, but Sydney gave them no acknowledgment, or reason to continue. Still, the audience applauded her arrival as Solomon and his Orcs brought Sydney to the king’s pavilion and entered in.

Rupert awaited her there. The mask of sternness he wore dropped when Solomon handed his charge of Sydney over.

For a moment, Sydney thought Rupert looked as she had remembered him from their shared days of training and riding in the royal stables. She banished those memories too, a moment later, flinching at his soft touch upon her arm. Still, she did not resist him, Rupert’s grip being far gentler than Solomon’s or any other Orcs’.

She allowed Rupert to lead her further in to take up her chair beside the king’s, but Sydney refused to look at her former friend again as they walked together. Instead, she chose to watch Solomon and the other Painted Guard carry on down the Nautilus rows, then cross over the makeshift bridge to join their fellow soldiers already waiting upon the barge. With Solomon’s arrival and their ranks swelling for his company added, the Painted Guard soldiers fanned out in ten-feet intervals to encircle the barge perimeter and stand watch over the prisoners.

In the Merrow cage, Amelia huddled close to her father, Jack. Both had gathered toward the middle of the cell to keep away from the bars and beyond the reach of the Painted Guard soldiers outside.

In opposite of the Merrows, those imprisoned inside the Orc cages were standing along the bars of their cages, each appearing as ready as the next if any Painted Guard thought to try and reach them. At the forefront of all, Owens and his father had gathered alongside Makeda and still others that Sydney did not recognize. Each had fanned out along the bars and jail door in shared defiance of the other Orcs who stood guard over them.

At the center of all loomed the glass tank that Sydney had originally feared was meant to reveal her Nomad secret to the awaiting crowd.

Sydney’s pulse quickened at the memory of the dead Nomad who had been cast inside in place of her to convict the queen. The anonymous corpse that the Orcs had placed there in lieu of Jun Gao was thankfully removed, the waters re-filled to the brim with clean water and stilled within.

Sydney shuddered in knowing who would inhabit the watery prison next.

The master of ceremony and executioner stood atop the tank, Malik Blackfin perched upon the surrounding scaffolding like a giant, armored crow in patient wait of the condemned queen’s arrival.

Be brave, Sydney. She reminded herself again when Rupert guided Sydney to her chair beside the king and forced her to sit. Though she did not mean to look on him, Sydney’s eyes widened at the momentary glimpse of the king.

Dark circles had swelled beneath Darius’s eyes and he sat slouched upon his makeshift throne, his violet cape covering him as if he were cold. The sharpness in his gaze softened when he noticed Sydney watching. For a moment, she feared Darius meant to engage her in conversation, but the king’s focus shifted when a series of horns sounded from the center of the barge.

Her attention called by the noise also, Sydney looked to the tunnel opposite her.

The crowd was rousing too. A company of Painted Guard marched free of the tunnel, their visors drawn to shield their identities as each surrounded Nattie Gao in armored escort. Despite the crowd’s cries against her, Nattie held her head high in quiet defiance of the slurs that were hurled against her as she walked.

Then, came more than words from the crowd.

Nattie Gao staggered when a rotten melon, expertly thrown, struck the side of her head and burst upon the landing.

Sydney yelped at the blow to her mother, bits of the smashed melon and its juicier insides running down her mother’s brow and cheeks. A wave of further expired produce, fish, and worse came raining down in succession thereafter. Sydney turned toward the king. “Stop this!” She reached for him and was quickly yanked back by Rupert. “Please!” She begged of Darius. “Stop them!”

The king ignored her cries, even as Sydney continued to wrest against Rupert’s control.

Collapsing against Rupert’s strength, Sydney’s body shook at the continued onslaught against the queen. Be brave, Sydney . . . she told herself, weeping at her mother’s continued attempts to rise against the filth heaped upon her. Be brave like Mom.

At Nattie’s continued struggling against the wave of garbage, the Orcs raised their shields and then converged around her. Creating a shield wall to fend off the onslaught rained upon them and the convicted queen, the Painted Guard carried through in their escort. They did not remove their protection of the queen until crossing over the makeshift bridge, beyond the reach and throws of the booing crowd.

The Painted Guard paused a moment, one among their number roughly wiping the filth from Nattie’s eyes so that the condemned queen might see where to walk of her own accord.

Her face and garb besmirched, Nattie Gao carried on toward the water-filled tank and ascended the scaffolding steps without the aid of any Orc. The queen’s face carried a sternness that Sydney had come to recognize when Nattie scolded both her and Jun too. Despite the brave showing, however, Sydney could not help but notice her mother’s trembling, shackled hands and the white-knuckled grip the queen held upon her chains as she lifted the ends of her