Page 104 of Alien Prince's Fake Bride
I’m starting to get winded from climbing the tall steps. “How did you find it?”
“This place? I roamed around the whole palace a lot as a boy. Mareliux did too, before he had to escape to the care of the army. I was left alone with adults who… well, I couldn’t trust them. And the other children at court always wanted something from me. So in order to get away from it all, I explored the palace. Especially the old and unused parts, like this one. There are places where no adult will think of going, but which will look like an exciting hiding place for a small boy.”
Despite myself, I’m starting to like this younger prince. He hasn’t had an easy life, sounds like.
The stairs end in a ledge and a blank wall. “Is this where you came”? I ask.
“Yes.” With one foot, he pushes on the bottom of the wall. With a metallic creak, it pivots around the middle at about neck height for me and upper stomach-height for Nerox. “This must be ancient. The first time I came here, many years ago, it was fromthe other side. It’s the only place I know where they put this kind of door. They obviously meant to turn it into something else, but they changed their minds and just left it. It’s well done, though. From the other side, it looks just like a blank wall. The craftsmen didn’t know it was an entrance, so they didn’t bother blocking those stairs when they built your apartment.”
We go through the pivoting door, and then we follow a labyrinthine route that I know I couldn’t reconstruct if I tried. We go along hallways, through storerooms, down stairs, up again on other stairs, passing probably fifty empty rooms and doors of various sizes and materials and smells. We never see anyone anywhere. It’s not that weird — it’s only about dawn.
“Most of the palace is empty,” Nerox tells me as we walk up another staircase. “Old buildings become uncomfortable and unfashionable, and instead of renovating them, new structures are built. This is an old part of the palace, and so some of it is unused. As a boy, I would always find places that were deserted and figure out how to string them together on a walk so I would never be seen. I know hundreds of places like this. But now we’re here.”
He pushes open a window. The dawn air still has the coldness of night in it as it washes over me. The prince climbs out onto a terrace outside.
I discreetly draw the gun and follow him. He holds out his hand to help me, but I ignore it. I still don’t know what this is.
It’s a terrace on the side of a building, clearly meant as a landing pad for flying transports. But it’s so full of debris andaviatdroppings, and the markings are so faded, that it can’t have been in use for decades. It’s high up, and the lights of the palace stretch away on three sides.
A cool night breeze brushes past my face. I stay close to the wall, gun ready. Nobody’s going to push me off this ledge.
Nerox puts his hands on his hips, back to me. “We won’t see them until they’re— ah.”
It’s a big shadow that obscures the light behind it. Then it comes closer and I hear the soft whine of engines in stealth mode. Nerox and I back up to the wall as the dull black gunship lands, taking up nearly all the space on the ledge. It bristles with weapons and sensors.
I know they can take me out if they want. But it seems like a lot of trouble to go to, when Prince Nerox could have killed me in my bed.
The door on the side of the gunship slides open.
This is it. I clutch the gun, ready to lift it and start shooting.
One Khavgren soldier in all black jumps down on the ground, unarmed.
She takes her helmet off. “Umbra, in case His Highness didn't say it: Ashlynn.”
I relax a fraction and replace my gun in its holster. “All right, Sigise. Extraction plan activated.”
“We have no time to lose,” Sigise says, looking around but focusing on the Prince. “The enemy could strike at any moment.”
She helps me into the gunship.
Prince Nerox stays on the platform, his cape snapping and billowing in the strong wash from the gunship’s engines. “When you see my brother,” he yells to be heard over thewhining turbines, “tell him that the Empress is dead. He will understand.”
The door slides shut, and the gunship takes off before I can ask what he means. Someone killed the Empress?
Sigise sits beside me, her face tight as the pilot has the craft accelerate so fast we’re both pushed back in our seats.
Suddenly a flash of white light fills the cabin, and the ship starts to wobble in the air as if thrown around by a storm. The soldiers grab handholds and mutter.
“They chose a dramatic method,” Sigise says as the craft stabilizes and she leans over me to look out the window. “The army warehouse is on fire.”
I look out, too. Indeed one part of the giant building complex we just came from is burning brightly in the night, pretty far away. “Did they try to blow me up?”
“They did indeed,” Sigise says. “That was a large explosion. They really wanted to be sure.”
“Is Prince Nerox safe?”
“I don’t know if he’ssafe, but that explosion didn't kill him. He’s much too far away from it.”
