Page 51 of Seaborn and the Seven Seas

She stepped back before the guard could notice, folding her hands in front of her, her expression returning to the careful blankness.

I held her gaze for one second, offering a quick smile. Thank you for being kind to me, I wanted to say but knew better. Her eyes glistening with tears told me she understood. I wondered if she saw her daughter in me, leaving this very room to never return.

I followed the guard out and didn’t look back at Nira. If I did, I wouldn’t keep walking. The corridors stretched long, the same white stone as everything else in this castle, the same gold trim, the same silence pressed against the walls.

We entered a garden, and I slowed my pace, passing a statue of the queen, three times my height, carved from pale stone. Her hands spread wide, chin lifted, her long hair falling in frozen waves around her shoulders. Roses of every color had been laid at its base all around her feet.

Did people pray to her statue? Unbelievable.

We went down a set of stairs, then another. The air became cooler, then became darker, the smell of damp earth replacing the floral scent of the garden above. A tunnel stretched ahead, lit by torches set into the walls at long intervals, their light trembling against the low ceiling.

The farther we walked, the clearer the sound, voices pressing against the wall. We passed through a floor-to-ceiling gate. Up ahead, another gate stood closed, sealing off the narrow space between them. There was nowhere to run but to the arena.

“Pick your weapon and wait,” the guard said, stepping back and closing the gate to lock me in.

A rack stood against the wall. A bow with a quiver of arrows. A spear, taller than me. Two swords, different lengths. And daggers, several of them, handles worn smooth from use. I had Minha’s dagger already hidden beneath the suit.

My eyes moved to the swords. The shorter one would do. I closed my fingers around the hilt and lifted it. Lighter than expected, and manageable.

The gate ahead groaned and began to rise, the chains cranking loud in the narrow space. I edged closer and the light poured in, blinding after the tunnel’s dark.

The sun hit hard, the ground radiating heat through the thin soles of my shoes. While the soldiers wore thick boots, I had on cheap rubber ones.

The arena was enormous, every seat filled. Larger than anything I could have imagined. The walls climbed so high they leaned toward the sky, and the length of it stretched on and on, easily as long as the castle.

The sound, a low murmur that ran through the crowd like the waves of the sea, quieted when I emerged only for a heartbeat.

Thousands of faces looked down at me.

I kept walking, my chin level.

Mothers in the lower rows held their children against their chests, their expressions tight. Not the look of people who had come to be entertained. The look of people who had been forced to attend.

I didn’t let my expression crack. I refused to let them see my fear.

High above, set apart from the crowd behind a sectioned-off barrier lined with guards, the queen sat at the center of the topmost row. The princes flanked her, Lucian on her left, Pierre on her right. Even from this distance, her jewels caught the sunlight, small flashes of color scattering across the stone around her like broken rainbows.

She rose.

The crowd went silent instantly, every murmur swallowed, every rustling stilled.

“Today,” the queen’s voice carried down into the arena, “my son, Crown Prince Lucian, has gifted us a magnificent creature.”

Applauses rippled through the crowd.

“A boarox and another Seaborn.”

The crowd’s cheering boomed.

A lie. Theron had captured the creature. Theron’s men had bled for it. And now Lucian sat with his hands folded and accepted the credit without a flicker of discomfort.

But… another Seaborn? Who else was here beside Jina and me? Certainly not anyone from Jeju. Unless she meant to introduce me.

I kept walking, taking my time until I heard a familiar voice.

“Sis!” Jina’s voice cut through the crowd, broken and desperate. “Do not die!”

Easier said than done.