Page 52 of Protected by the Alien Warrior Triad

I say the name of a rare compound used to treat fainting conditions. The doctor ignores me – more concerned about Lord Aeron than a peasant girl like me.

I take the opportunity and rush downstairs in the confusion, not waiting for an answer, or even for the doctor to realize there’s no chance in hell that I have such a rare medicine my med-kit.

Yet as soon as I round the corner, I come staggering to a halt.

The Viceroy strand there on the stairs, blocking my path.

My heart freezes, as he looks at me with an almost reptilian understanding.

“Stop,” he murmurs in his cold, emotionless voice. I suddenly know that he realizes he’d underestimated me – and has no intention of doing so again.

Please work! Please work!

I think the words desperately to myself as I reach into the pocket of my dress and grab the hilt of Forn’s Orb-Dagger.

Yet I needn’t have worried. As my fingers curl around the hilt, it’s as though the dagger canread my mind.

I feel a connection to it – as if the weapon has a mind – and the blade activates – ripping a burning hole right through my dress as the shimmering, black weapon emerges to its full, humming length.

I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. The Viceroy may be in his forties, but he instantly jumps over the banister at the sight of the weapon. He screams to the guards:

“Seize her! Grab the woman!”

His voice echoes down the stairs, and I run in the opposite direction – not even knowing where I’m going.

Dungeon. It must be underground.

Suddenly figuring out where to go, I rushdownthe stairs. A woman screams as I hurtle pass her, dropping a tray of crystal glass that shatters against the floor.

I hear footsteps and guards lurch from around the corner, trying to grab me. I dodge their clawing hands and run down another flight of stairs, listening to the thunder of their boots as the guards pursue me.

At the bottom of the stairs there’s a closed door which I kick open cleanly, not knowing where it leads.

I see a long row of jail cells on the other side of it, and my heart starts. This must be the dungeon!

I’ve disturbed another contingent of guards. The soldiers guarding the dungeon are barely twenty years old, and they look at me in horror when they spot the humming, otherworldly black blade of the Orb-Dagger clutched in my hand.

I run past them before they can react – scanning the jail cells as I hurtle down the hallway.

I pass row upon row of human prisoners, and for a moment I’m worried this is the wrong cell block – that I won’t find the Aurelians here…

…and then I spot them, each locked in their own cell at the end of the hallway.

I run to the first cell and press the dagger’s Orb-Blade against the bars.

I didn’t have to press. The Orb-Blade cuts through the bars like they’re tissue paper, and instantly the thick metal clatters to the flagstones beneath my feet.

I rush into the cell and use the Orb-Dagger to shear apart Forn’s cuffed hands. He instantly grabs the dagger from my hands and leaps through the broken doorway – towards the guards who are thundering down the hallway in pursuit.

The guards instantly drop their guns when they see Forn bearing down on them – turning tail and fleeing for their lives.

Fear grips me too, as I imagine Forn charging after them; into the gun barrels of a hundred more soldiers stationed upstairs.

Mercifully, Forn is smarter than that. He lets the soldiers flee, and then my blood runs cold as I hear a volley of shots ring out from the stairwell behind the dungeon door.

I can’t believe it! The rest of the guards had expected Forn and the other Aurelians to come running up the stairs, and so had lain in wait for them with guns aimed…

Instead, it was the fleeing guards who’d run into their gunsights.

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