Read Of Sea and Stone (Secrets of Itlantis) for Free Online Page B

move by magic?
    He snorted now as if I was insane. “We’re beneath the sea, girl.”
    Panic sunk its cold fingers into me. Beneath the sea? How was such a thing possible?
    He pulled away and followed the rest of the men out the door before it slid shut. Nol, who had been listening to the exchange, looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
    “Don’t do that,” he said angrily.
    “Do what?”
    “Lick their boots. Beg them for answers. Don’t act like a thrall.”
    “I am a thrall,” I said, angry now too. “And now you are too.”
    He turned away and curled into a ball.
    I shut my eyes and slept. It was the only thing to do anymore.
     
     

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
    I LOST TRACK of the days. Time was an endless corridor with nothing but the monotonous gray walls as scenery and no one but my listless male fellow prisoners as companions. I missed the slap of seawater against the rocks outside my bedroom window. I missed Nealla’s gruff words. I missed Kit’s jokes and smiles. I even missed the Old One’s rambling. I wondered endlessly what had become of them all.
    Kit’s absence carved a hole in my chest that ached like an open wound whenever I thought of him. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw him leaping to safety, and I saw the man with the weapon lifting his arm and firing.
    I stopped thinking about it, because it hurt too much.
    Eventually, they stopped binding our arms and legs, because we were no threat. Some of the boys paced the room, but most of us sat with our backs to the walls, or lay flat on the floor, staring at nothing.
    There were no bathing facilities, and only a small toilet that we used with the accompaniment of a guard. The first time I walked the length of hall to reach it, I stared around me in astonishment. Brilliant lights shone from the entire length of ceiling. Twisted metal in shining gold and copper colors coiled up and down the walls and made a grid across the floor like woven palm fronds. My feet thumped loudly as I walked, and I smelled the faint scent of the sea, but it was mingled with something else, another odor that I did not recognize.
    I asked the guard about Myo. This one seemed eager to talk, although he mocked my questions. He was young, not much older than me by the looks of him, with curling black hair and eyes as brown as driftwood.
    “He was doing reconnaissance for the Republic,” the young guard said. “We retrieved him when we surfaced.”
    “Republic?”
    “You people don’t know about anything,” he said. “The Republic of Itlantis.”
    Itlantis.
    The Sea People.
    I was silent once more.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    I was lying on my back, counting the number of lines across the ceiling, when they came and took everyone away.
    The guards entered, this time wielding long metal weapons that looked like three-headed spears. They used them as prods to get the boys up and moving.
    I struggled to a sitting position as men herded the boys out. I spotted Nol’s bright yellow hair through the doorway as the boys were pushed forward in a knot of bodies, but I told myself I didn’t care if they dumped him in the sea.
    I waited for them to take me too, but they didn’t.
    The guards left with the last of the boys, and I was alone. I wrapped my arms around my knees and lay down again. The floor was cold against my cheek, and the silence was too loud.
    I shut my eyes.
    Hours later, the door opened again, but only Nol returned. He stumbled when the guard pushed him, and he fell on his elbows beside me. Blood streamed from a cut above his eye and streaked down the side of his face.
    “What happened?” I asked. I felt angry with him for leaving, angrier still at him for returning.
    Nol pushed himself up from where he’d fallen, oddly triumphant despite his bleeding head. “I tried to kick the one guard, and I bit another. They beat me and brought me back after that.”
    “What were they doing with you?”
    “The others were given uniforms,” he said. “Garments like the ones the