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

when they sounded from the darkness again. So, what are they? Who is blowing the horns?

A few minutes later, the alarmists appeared – a pair of Mako sharks speeding into the depths, both bearing a white conch horn in one hand and a bioluminescent lantern in the other to light their way ahead. One broke off from the other to swim for the Mako chieftain. The other swam directly toward Cursion at the center.

High chieftain! The Mako cried, panting for his effort to reach them after so fast and deep of a dive. High chieftain! I bring . . . word from the above.

Breathe, boy, said Cursion first. What news do you bring?

An attack, sir, the Mako gasped. The Blackfin’s seawolves come again to harry our ranks. We drove most of them off and captured a few, but . . . we found some Selkies among them.

Selkies? Cursion asked. How would their kind survive a swim this far out in the open?

The Mako warrior’s gaze wandered toward Garrett and blinked rapidly as if he were soon to pass out for his efforts. They came with a boat, said the Mako, returning his focus to Cursion. The Selkies crossed the Salt upon a boat. They wait for you in the above, high chieftain.

For me? Cursion asked. What concern are a band of Selkies to me?

Not the Selkies alone, high chieftain, said the Mako. There was a Nomad among them . . . a child of Salt and Sand . . . a young brave to fend off the Orc pod and hold them at bay to keep the Selkies safe.

Cursion straightened at that. A young brave to swim alone against a pod of seawolves? He asked, his tone being that of one impressed by the relayed news.

The Mako nodded in reply. There is more also, high chieftain. He hesitated to speak further, his gaze flitting between Cursion and the other chieftains.

What else? Cursion asked. What news?

It’s one of the Silkies, high chieftain . . . said the Mako. She claims her name is known among us . . . and that the Nomad brave . . . The Mako averted his eyes from Cursion and found his target among one of the other chieftains. She claims the Nomad who saved the Selkies from the Orcs is the son of Silent Hammer.

* * *

Part III

The Mermaid Trials

14

SYDNEY

Sydney shivered as Malik Blackfin led her through one of the Nautilus’s main tunnels. There were cracks in the ceiling and walls, the cooler air whispering against her skin, the feel of the structure itself seeming to her as old as time itself.

Sydney’s face pained at the memory of her introduction into the ancient theatre. Then, she had been escorted by Rupert, curious to hear more of his stories about the Nautilus. How it was built in a time before time, to hear the Nomads tell it, when all was dark and cold and the Unspeakables swam its Salt-filled halls, performing their pagan rituals and weaving dark magic. Likewise, she had wondered what the night might hold. What new surprise her supposed father, the king, had in store for the audience and her mother.

Sydney held no such curiosity now. Not for what lay ahead, nor of the ghosts that Rupert Bowrider had once told her haunted the ancient halls, tunnels, and waters beneath them. Still, she recognized the tunnel that her Orc escort led down for the same as when she and Rupert had walked together on the same night her mother was taken captive after the play that Yvla had starred in.

At the tunnel’s end, Sydney glimpsed the beginnings of a stretching pool at the center of all. The pool seemed to elongate with every step, revealing more of the arena-like Nautilus and the awaiting crowds beyond. Like the dolphinarium Sydney had trained in at the Indianapolis Zoo, glass panes surrounded the entirety of the Nautilus’s vast pool. Her heart raced at the notion the glass panes were not constructed there without reason. Despite the torches surrounding it, the dark of the undisturbed water spoke to endless depth. Sydney thought of it as a black mirror, reflecting the glimmer of stalactites like starlight.

At the pool’s center was a floating stage - a royal barge, glimmering as if it were a magnificent, giant pearl. Sydney thought the stage beautiful and haunting at once, unlike any she had ever seen before. Then, she noticed what she assumed to be several freestanding boxes, each covered with violet curtains. Sydney trembled in wonder of what was kept hidden beneath them.

Malik stopped short of the tunnel’s end, his thumb digging in Sydney’s bicep. “Be sure to smile and wave, savage,” he grunted. “You would do well to continue this princess façade and do all in your power to distance yourself from your traitor mother during these trials. In the eyes of the people, I assure you that she is already lost. Wouldn’t want them to lose their precious princess too, now would we? Especially seeing as how you’re no real princess at all, eh?”

A number of retorts flew to Sydney’s mind, then. She held them all back rather than play to his mind-games.

Malik Blackfin smiled at her silence too. “There, there now, girl. Don’t be cross with me for giving you sage advice. Should you prove willing to play your part, it might well be that we find a way for you to survive these traitor trials.”

Sydney could not hold her tongue. “Whatever role you have in mind for me, I won’t do it.”

Malik’s grin widened further still. “We’ll see.” He ushered her forward then, continuing their shared march beyond the tunnel and revealing themselves to the crowd.

A smattering of applause took Sydney aback as she exited the tunnel and entered into plain sight. The whispers came next, but it was the silence thereafter to deaden all to a standstill that struck her more.

Is the silence for me, she wondered. Or the Blackfin?

Sydney fended off