Page 98 of Ocean of Silver

“Then what is the plan?” Peter challenged, his eyes narrowing, and for once, his playful demeanor was gone.

“I’m not walking away from our people,” I added, thinking of Vallie and Miles and all the Advenians we were leaving behind in Synder and the Lux King’s hands. With Sie now imprisoned, I feared a lot of things would be changing rapidly and only for the worst. “I’m not leaving them.”

“I’m not suggesting that,” Tezya said, growing annoyed. “I’m saying we fight back, but first, we need to move and not get caught. I have a plan. Just trust me.”

“Right. Trust you. Trust you like I did before. Just like you promised me no more secrets,” I cried as tears fell down my cheeks. I really didn’t want to get emotional. I was trying to hold everything in. I hated that I was crying again, but it was all too much.

“Fine. Don’t trust me, but you need to come with me,” Tez snapped. “The King will find you here, and if you want to fight back, you have to be alive for that, Rumor.”

Peter cleared his throat. “No offense, but I don’t really think the three of us can take on an entire Kingdom.”

“No, we can’t,” he said. “No more questions until we get moving.”

Peter ignored Tezya and turned to me. “Where’s Sie? I was caught before I could warn him.”

“He’s…” I started, more tears threatening to spill. “He’s in the prison.”

Peter set down the remaining croissants. “Shit.” Pain shot through my friend’s face, and I couldn’t bring myself to meet his gaze. “How long?”

No one spoke. Peter’s knuckles cracked as his fingers wrapped around the armrests of the chair. His blood was starting to seep and stain the metal. “How many days since Sie has been locked up? How long have I been out of it?”

“It’s been a little over two weeks since you were captured and one week since Sie was imprisoned,” Tezya answered.

“Good. Then he’s still alive. I’m not going with you until we rescue him,” he said. My head perked up.

“Then you’re a fool, and you’ll die.”

“It sounds like we have a pretty good chance of dying anyway, and if you truly want to fight back, we need him. You know we need him.”

“He’s in the prison. He’s as good as dead,” Tezya snapped.

“But he’s not dead,” I added, surprising myself. I had to free him. I didn’t know what he would be forced to suffer through, but growing up, both Kingdoms always claimed that an Advenian would beg for death if they were ever sentenced there. That there was no escape. Punishment there was always for life, and Advenians could live for a long, long time. I shuddered thinking of the damage the castle dungeons did to me and knew with certainty that the prison had to be worse. It was my fault he was locked up, and I couldn’t handle the guilt that had embedded in my gut since he was caught. I focused on it, not ready to work through what I was feeling toward Tezya. This. This I could fix. We could rescue Sie. We could make things right.

“It’s out of the question.”

“We rescue Sie, then we follow you North,” Peter said sternly. “We stand a better chance with him.”

“We will all be dead. Do you even know what you are suggesting? Do you even know where the prison is?”

“No. I was kind of hoping you would help us there,Fire Prince.”

Tezya fumed. “It’s at the deepest part of the ocean. There is only one way in and one way out, through a small trench that would barely fit one of us. You have to ascend down slowly, then enter at the bottom. The prison is worse than death. If we get caught—”

I finally looked at Tezya and met his silver gaze for the first time since finding out his secret. “We rescue Sie first.”

EPILOGUE

Sie

Luxians and Tennebrisiansco-existed in the prison. And not just the prisoners, but the guards too. Everyone was intermixed. It was the one place where both Advenian Kingdoms were constantly around one another. There was no separation. Not that they got along, but they shared a common desire. The guards hated the prisoners, and the prisoners would do anything to stay alive.

The prisoners were sectioned into two groups. The trenchers and the loners. I was a loner, and even though the loners were the only type of prisoner to receive torture by the guards, we were considered the lucky ones. Not that the guards made us feel lucky to not be a trencher. They made it their life’s mission to make us miserable, and ever since I arrived, they’d developed an obsession with trying to make me crumble. But they didn’t know that I already came here fragmented. I was a shell of everything I hoped to be. The bits were too shattered to put back together. It didn’t matter what they did to me. I was already broken.

They tortured me multiple times a day. Which, as long as they didn’t perform the torture inside my cell, I was okay with it. I hated being in that cell, hated what lurked below me. The worst part about this place, beyond the asshole guards and the trenchers, was the fact that I was powerless, cut off from my abilities. I hadn’t used my powers in so long that it felt like that part of me was already dead and my body was just waiting to follow. All the loners got injected with Vir Alluse daily, leaving us defenseless while the guards could still use their abilities on us. And they used every single fucking power that existed between the two Kingdoms and twisted it into a sadistic form of torture.

At first, I couldn’t tell which abilities I hated more—the Light or Dark powers, but I had many encounters to determine which form of pain was the worst.

There weren’t any rules down here from what I could tell. The loners were only given one measly meal—if you could call it a meal—and were rationed half a cup of water, if the guards were feeling generous. I honestly would have no idea about the frequency of anything here if I wasn’t privy to the knowledge of the prison from being the Prince.

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