Page 88 of Alien Prince's Fake Bride
“Oh, I always know when to leave a room,” Nerox assures us. “It’s strange, though. You two weren’t in there that long. The culprit must have had the grenade ready all day, just waiting for a chance. Not a lot of rooms in this palace have chimneys. He really got lucky that you picked one of them. Practically nobody knew where you were.”
“Youknew,” Mareliux points out. “Somehow. And those girls you brought for some reason.”
“Some servants usually know, and I asked them until I found one who did. Oh, the girls are the regular court bimbos. I’m just having innocent fun with them. But I am certainly one of the suspects. Although probably a dozen people saw me in the Titaniux Arcades after I left your gift inspection, so I couldn’t have dropped that grenade myself.”
“The person who did that has had a lot of time to get off the roof,” Mareliux frets. “He has long since climbed in a window and mixed with the palace staff.”
“He’ll be hard to find,” Nerox says. “But not impossible. Ah, here comes more trouble.”
The circle of guards opens for Empress Juriniel.
“Mareliux! Oh, thank the gods you are unharmed. And Princess Umbra. Once more you have averted deadly danger. Did you use the Syntrix this time, too?”
“I did,” I tell her. “I threw the grenade back up. I can only wish the would-be assassin got a taste of his own gas.”
“That’s a possibility,” Mareliux ponders. “I suppose we’ll know if the gas killed him.”
“This is becoming alarming,” the Empress says. “It was even considered evacuating the Emperor himself from the throne room. That would have been the first time ever any emperor had to flee from there. I wonder now if you two shouldn’t go somewhere safe. The Summer Palace, for instance. It will be much harder for any murderer to get to you there.”
Mareliux looks at me with a crooked smile that says ‘we’ll do that when hell freezes over’. “That’s certainly worth thinking about.Ah, there are guards on the roof now. And I’m sure the poison gas is gone. Let’s go back inside.”
He leads me into another building that’s a part of the huge palace. The Calanian guards follow us as we walk up one set of tall stairs.
Mareliux stops. “Don’t follow us further. I don’t want anyone to know which room we’ll go to.”
The guards stay behind as we walk slowly up another flight of stairs. When we’re out of sight for the guards, he lifts me up and carries me up the tall steps to the next floor before we walk through empty hallways and small, empty rooms that look like they’re being renovated.
We follow a strange route, through doors that I don’t notice before we’re through them and down narrow passages.
Finally Mareliux carries me up a long, winding stair to a tower room that’s quite beautiful. The floor is an incredible mosaic that’s made from crystal pieces the size of Tic Tacs. The ceiling is a deep blue with a myriad of golden stars, and in the middle is a big, curled-up dragon in flight. It’s an alien type of dragon, but I recognize it immediately, with its bat-like wings, four clawed legs and long, flowing tail. A long, yellow flame is shooting out of its mouth or nostrils, it’s hard to tell which.
There are ottomans and low tables, as well as a small white crib along one wall. When I look closer, I see the dragon motif everywhere, from the carvings on the crib to the pattern on the cushions on the furniture and the carved legs on the tables. And, I realize, the floor mosaic. It’s a mirror image of the dragon in the ceiling.
“I was hoping this place was still here,” Mareliux says. “I haven’t been here for years. Not since before I went to the army. Nerox and I sometimes came here to get away from the dangers of the court.”
I look out the single window, made from many small hexagonal panes. We’re above most of the roofs of the palace. “It’s very beautiful. Looks like a nursery.”
“It was, once,” the Prince says and locks the door. “The tower was built for Princess Carelia, many centuries ago. Her father wanted her safe from everyone. Especially from his own sister, the Duchess Xercia. She was one of the most dangerous courtiers at the time.”
“Did it work?”
He opens a little cabinet and looks inside. “It worked as long as the princess stayed in this room. The Emperor kept her here for as long as he could. When she turned twenty, she had to become a part of the Imperial court, which had never seen her before.” He takes out a small figurine of a dragon, turns it over in his hands, and puts it back in. “A big ball was arranged. It was to be her debutante ball, but none of the guests were told that she would attend. The Princess arrived in a wonderful dress, looking more beautiful than any girl anyone had ever seen. She was murdered the moment she stepped inside the Hall of Mirrors.”
“Her Aunt Xercia?” I venture a guess.
“Strangely not,” Mareliux says, looking out the window. “It was a mistake. A countess stabbed her in the throat with a thin dagger, thinking she was another woman she suspected of being her husband’s mistress. Nobody except the nannies and father had seen Princess Carelia, you see. And no one knew the princesswould attend this particular ball and be presented to the court. It was to be a surprise.”
I run my hand along the edge of the crib. “Poor Carelia.”
Mareliux comes over and embraces me from behind. “We can stay here for a while. It’ll be safe. Very few know where this room is. It was actually lost for over a hundred years. Nobody could find it, and people started to assume the Dragon Nursery was all a myth. Then a young servant happened to find the secret door to the downwards passage. It had been painted over. It took them another decade to find the second secret door that led to the winding stairs.”
“Was this before the Empire went into space?” I ask.
He cocks an eyebrow. “No, it was well after. Why?”
“Because if they had flying machines, why couldn’t they simply fly over the palace and see where the tower had to be?”
He leads me over to an ottoman and sits down with me on his lap. “Good question. It happens to have a good answer, too: this tower is built to not look like a tower. From the outside, it looks like any part of the bewilderingly complicated palace structure.”
