Page 53 of Alien Prince’s Fake Bride (The Tentacle Throne #1)

- Umbra -

Mareliux grabs me and pulls me to him, so that he shields me from the thing that dropped.

But I’m faster. The moment I see the metal thing come to rest in the ornate fireplace, I wish it away, wanting it to go back the way it came. It immediately zooms back up the chimney.

There’s a little bang, then a much louder crash as all kinds of debris and soot comes dropping down into the fireplace. A sooty black cloud starts to spread.

“That explosion was too weak,” Mareliux says into my ear as he drags me to the door, where we meet Caret’ax as he’s storming in.

“Stay out!” the prince commands. “Gas grenade! Evacuate the palace!”

He lifts me into his arms and runs with me through halls and chambers and corridors until we’re outside.

Caret’ax is right behind us, and on the way we warn everyone to get out.

Soon a wailing alarm is blaring, and the palace staff is pouring out of every door.

There must be thousands of them, including guards that form a circle around us, facing out.

Everyone’s staring up at the roof of the palace, but there’s no movement there.

“Gas grenade, dropped into the chimney from the roof,” the prince sums up as he lets me down on my feet. “If you hadn’t tossed it right back up, the explosion would have spread poison gas in the room faster than we could get out. We’d be dead.”

“That’s the third attempt in three days,” I state. “I’m starting to wonder if someone is annoyed with us.”

Just for fun I hold out one hand to see if it shakes. It’s rock steady. My heart rate isn’t even that high. That Syntrix thing is making me really confident.

Prince Nerox comes sauntering over with a grin on his face. “This is fun! I wish you two would spend more time on Khav. So many things happen when you’re here.”

“Wipe that smile off your face,” Mareliux growls. “If Umbra hadn’t reacted so fast, we’d both be dead. You’re just lucky you didn’t stay longer.”

“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.”

“ You knew,” 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 princess would 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.”

“That’s why it only has one window.”

He kisses me on the cheek. “Smart wife.”

“Nobody is eavesdropping here, right?”

“I think we can be sure about that.”

I lightly take hold of one of his tendrils. “That grenade that came down the chimney.”

He gives me an amused look. “Yes?”

“Was that you? I mean, did you arrange it?”

I have the rare pleasure of seeing Mareliux stunned. “How… how could you know?”

“It felt wrong through the Syntrix. You felt wrong. It didn’t feel like it would kill us. It felt more like an innocent prank. And you weren’t that scared, I think. There was no gas in that thing, right? Just a small explosive that wouldn’t have harmed anyone.”

He shakes his head in astonishment. “I think we can start to guess why Earth has a Syntrix barrier around it. Someone realized that you people are too dangerous to give access to it.”

“Why did you do it? Were you bored?” I lean in to get a whiff of his scent, which I now think is as addictive as a drug.

“Someone is trying to kill us. I want them to stop. And I thought, if they think someone else is also trying to kill me, except in smarter ways, then maybe they will take a break and wait for the other party to do it. And it couldn’t hurt to demoralize them by having you save my life again.

Thanks, by the way. You must have thought there was at least the chance of it being real. ”

I straighten one tendril out between two fingers. “I did my best to get it away. That feeling of a prank came the next second. Wait, what about the other attempts? The missile?”