Of Sea and Stone (Secrets of Itlantis) by Kate Avery Ellison Read Free Book Online Page A

idea what possessed me to ask it, but once the words were spoken I couldn’t unspeak them.
    Myo looked at me and then at Nol. He sighed, nodded once, and left.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    Myo returned and brought us clothing, the same strange type of garment that he wore. The fabric stretched with the slightest tug. It was thin and soft and had a faint shimmer like the inside of a shell.
    There wasn’t anywhere to change but in that dim little cell. I looked at Nol sharply, and he muttered something under his breath and looked away. Myo politely turned his back as I stripped off my old things and pulled on the new garment. Beside me, Nol did the same. I caught a glimpse of his tanned back and lanky muscles out of my peripheral vision before I turned my head away.
    “Now follow me,” Myo said, as soon as we’d finished dressing, and he glared at us both as if daring either of us to try anything. He slipped through the door first, leading us down the hall we’d traveled earlier.
    “This way,” he said in a whisper, indicating left with his hand when we reached a fork in the passage. We descended a ramp and stopped before a door. It opened like a mouth, revealing a ladder of shining metal.
    “Climb down the ladder and wait in the room below.”
    The rungs were cold beneath my fingers as I descended first. Nol came behind me. When we’d reached the bottom, we found the interior of what appeared to be a small ship. The walls still curved, but the ceiling was closer, and unlit. Lights glowed near our feet, set in recesses in the wall and floor.
    Myo joined us, and the door above the ladder closed again.
    “Come,” he said. “I’ll show you to your bunks.”
    The ship was small, with one common room, two sleeping rooms, and a place for steering that Myo called the cockpit. Our sleeping room had three beds stacked one on top of the other. Nol took the bottom one, leaving me with the middle. The top remained empty, as Myo would be sleeping in the other room.
    “Myo,” I said as he turned to go. “I have questions.”
    He faced me, arms crossed.
    “What happened to my village? Are they all dead?”
    “I don’t know.”
    My throat tightened. “Why did they do this?”
    Myo shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”
    “What about me? Why did you have them take me?” Anger mingled with sadness, and my voice wavered.
    He shook his head again. “I cannot tell you.”
    “Why not?” I shouted.
    “Listen to me. I saved your life. Be thankful for that. It will have to be enough for now.”
    “For now?”
    He didn’t reply to that question. He turned to go, then paused in the doorway as if reconsidering his abrupt exit. His face softened slightly.
    “We arrive in port at Celestrus in a matter of hours,” he said. “I understand from the guards that you know nothing of our people or civilization. You’ll need to keep your ignorance to yourselves if you want to blend in and not attract suspicion from your new masters.”
    “Masters,” Nol repeated bitterly.
    Myo gave him a warning look. “Indentured service is better than death. You will learn what I have to teach you, and you will learn it quickly and without giving me trouble. I think you will find me kind compared to some.”
    “What is Celestrus?”
    He turned his dark brown eyes on me, and to my surprise, he smiled.
    “That you must see in order to believe,” he said.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    I stood at the great glass wall that separated us from the water, staring at the infinite stretch of blue water before us. Light lanced down through the darkness, creating a palate of shades that rivaled the sky. In the distance, shadowy shapes of fins and flutter passed through the deep.
    “Dolphins,” Myo said.
    Fish swam together in groups that turned and swirled like a single living creature, but when the ship passed through the midst of one, they all scattered and revealed themselves to be a thousand tiny, striped bodies.
    “They swim together like that to fool predators,” Myo