Page 49 of Alien Prince’s Fake Bride (The Tentacle Throne #1)

Darient looks over at the crowd, shading her eyes.

“Terieli couldn’t defy her father, although I’m sure that they must have had quite a fight about it.

In the end, her loyalty to her father won.

Terieli wrote a letter to Mareliux, probably strongly suggested by Juriniel, where she said that it had all been a sham.

She told him that she had never loved him, that she had just been using him to get a better position for her father, that she was sorry, but she was going to marry someone else.

Nobody else knows this, by the way. Only Mareliux, you, and I.

It is the kind of thing that a wife should know, but which Mareliux would probably not tell you.

Anyway, Mareliux showed me the letter. He had nobody else to turn to back then.

I could sense Juriniel’s words in it, as if she’d written it herself. ”

My Syntrix ring glows faintly and it’s as if I can feel the grief through the Syntrix, stale and still sore. “Mareliux must have been crushed.”

Darient sighs. “He was heartbroken, of course. He had never trusted anyone like that since he was poisoned. And then his trust was betrayed again. I kept thinking that it was unnecessary to be that cruel to him, to make him think nothing about it had been real. I was only a teen back then, too. But of course now I understand why it was done that way. If Mareliux thought Terieli had been pressured, he would have come to see her, and she wouldn’t have been able to keep up the charade.

By framing the whole relationship as a sham, Juriniel prevented that.

I assume she saw it as a bonus that it was a final confirmation for Mareliux that women can’t be trusted.

Until now, that is. He clearly trusts you, and it warms my heart to see that.

You’ve been immensely good for him, Umbra.

He’s almost the way he was back then. Just more mature, more burdened by responsibilities. ”

“Poor kid. Is all this common knowledge? I mean, except for the letter.”

A cloud passes in front of the sun, and Darient scowls at it. “Not common knowledge, no. I think I’m the only one who has the full picture, apart from him. And now you.”

I reach out to touch her hand. “Thanks. I appreciate it. I did wonder why he didn’t have a girlfriend from before. He’s an incredible man.”

“He is indeed.”

“What happened to Terieli? Do you know?”

She reties one of the ribbons around her tendrils.

“Her father was promoted to general, and the whole family went to a remote army base. Except they never got there. Their ship was attacked by Vyrpy and destroyed. It was the first Vyrpy attack for twenty years. And after that, nobody saw the Vyrpy again until several years later. Everyone was very puzzled.”

“So Juriniel did kill Terieli after all,” I ponder. “In a mysterious way.”

Darient looks at me with interest. “You think Empress Juriniel asked the Vyrpy to attack?”

“I don’t know. It seems like the kind of thing she’d do if she could.”

“ If she could,” Darient says. “That’s a really big ‘if’. It’s hard to imagine a Khavgren Empress asking an enemy like the Vyrpy to do her a favor. But Juriniel is frankly terrifying.”

“What happened to the methane queen? The alien enemy who wanted to marry him?”

The Duchess sighs. “There was some diplomacy, and then it all just petered out. Maybe she just wanted our attention and she was happy with what she got. I don’t think we heard from her again.

Anyway, I’m really just trying to explain Mareliux as well as I can.

The only place he feels safe is the army, Umbra.

Don’t judge him too harshly if he seems gruff and war-like.

He was forced into that, so that he could survive.

The real Mareliux is different. Maybe you’ve seen it? ”

I think back to the jungle planet. “I’ve seen him playful and relaxed.

That’s what made me— never mind.” I almost said ‘that’s what made me fall for him’, but that’s supposed to have happened the moment I saw him.

I have to stick to my story, even if this duchess seems perfectly decent and not out to get me. “It must have been so hard for him:”

“It must,” Darient agrees and straightens up. “Did you eat anything today, Umbra?”

“Not yet. I haven’t been hungry,” I lie.

She nods. “I thought so. Mareliux will never eat food from the palace kitchens. He has everything sent to him from army camps. But I thought he might forget that you need breakfast. Or brunch, I suppose. Perhaps you would like to buy something in one of those booths? Or anywhere else. Pick a place at random.”

I understand what she’s doing. She wants me to be able to eat something and not worry about being poisoned.

“I like the smell from that booth,” I say and point. “But I don’t have any money.”

“Luckily, I do,” Darient says and stands up, opening the pouch at her side. “I’ll give you some.”

I smile and put my hand on hers. “There are limits to how suspicious I want to be, Darient. We’ll go together.”

We walk over to the booth, causing a great deal of commotion because of the whole crowd of people that has gathered. I smile and wave, then change direction to get closer.

“Let’s keep our distance,” Darient says and grabs my hand.

But I won’t be dissuaded, so I drag her over to the crowd. “Let’s not.”

As I reach the edge of the throng, a sea of outstretched hands eagerly greets me. I reach out, my fingers brushing against rough, calloused palms, cool skin, and strange, textured digits unlike anything I've felt before.

A ripple of astonished gasps and excited murmurs spreads through the crowd. “She’s touching them!”

Then, a roar of cheers erupts, a sound that vibrates through the very ground beneath my feet. “Princess Umbra!” Their faces, upturned and beaming, show a mixture of disbelief and genuine joy that an Imperial princess would willingly stand among them, touching them like equals.

And I am equal to them, not better in any way.

I’m distantly aware that a great crowd is gathering fast. Tentacles uncoil and wave, children reach out with both hands, parents hold their babies out to me, tiny tendrils uncurling.

The energy is electric, a surge of raw excitement that makes my own spirit lift in response.

This place isn’t so bad, actually. I can learn to like this.

I stand there like that for a while until both Darient and Sigise firmly grab me and escort me away, through the crowd.

“That’s long enough, Highness,” the colonel growls over the cheers and the calls. “Don’t stay too long in one place as exposed as this.”

They lead me back into the gunship, and Sigise sends her co-pilot to buy food in the booth I wanted.

Outside, the crowd is still keeping a respectful distance, but they’re also calling to me. “We love you, Umbra!”

“That was both very dangerous and extremely graceful,” Darient says. “I would recommend not doing it too much.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” I assure her. “I won’t create patterns that are easy for our enemies to use against me. But this seemed harmless enough.”

The duchess grins. “It was fantastic! Nobody’s ever seen an Imperial princess do that. The Empress certainly never goes out among the people.”

I just nod. It may not have been super smart. I’m not going to stay here. According to the plan, in a few days I’ll be on the way back to Earth and they will never see me again. It may not be the time to start getting popular among the general public.

But what if it was? What if these people really need some Earth spirit, some equality?

The co-pilot hands us alien snacks from the booth.

They’re small, tasty pies with a sweet filling, piping hot.

I have no intention of asking what any of the alien food is actually made of, since I can never know how disgusting the answer might turn out to be.

But I don’t think this could be that bad.

The gunship takes off again.

“We’ll fly around at random and maybe land in a safe place,” Darient says as we eat. “Right now, we’re really only trying to pass the time before you have to return to the danger of the Imperial Court.”

I nod. “The city seems safer than the inner palace.”

“Now," Darient says and holds out a red gemstone. “Mareliux told me to make you practice your Syntrix. This is as good a time as any. Try to make this hover in the air…”