Page 72 of Falling Princess

“Father,” I bowed in greeting and moved to stand at his side.

“This is Saskaya and Raghnall’s big moment,” he muttered. “It had better go well.”

There came a strange metallic clicking sound from around the corner of the courtyard. A long shadow stretched into the narrow passageway. The crowd gasped.

The clicking became a whirr. “Oh!” someone shouted. “Look!”

“What the hell is that?”

“One of them Sentinels! It’s walking!”

Excitement rippled through the crowd. I bounced on the balls of my feet.

“It works! Father, they did it.”

“Yes, I see that.” King Rohan beamed. This is the culmination of two decades of research, experimentation, and effort. It’s a homegrown solution to our inability to obtain weapons and training. These soldiers can’t be shot down.

Raghnall, holding a controller like the one I had until I trashed my bedroom, grinned from ear to ear as he led the gleaming machine into the center of the courtyard. I forgot my dignity and clapped. Everyone clapped. He turned it in a circle, then made it bow on one knee. Metal tentacles shot out from its underside, with snapping claws. The head/body component was long, shaped like a loaf of bread, and had a glowing circular lens at the front, which flashed an intermittent blue.

It was vaguely reminiscent of a scary movie Kenton and Bashir watched one night back in our dormitory.Alien, I think it was called.

“A triumph, worthy of celebration,” my father declared.

Without warning, the machine powered down and sat in the center of the courtyard.

Raghnall kicked it. I bit back a grin. “I take it he and Sas haven’t yet fully figured out the control system.”

“Not entirely, it would appear.” Rohan frowned. “He can’t just leave that thing in the middle of my castle. Get people cleared out so we can have it moved.”

Pleased to have something useful to do, I conveyed the order to the royal guards. Once the crowd had mostly dispersed, I dared to approach the malfunctioning Sentinel. Raghnall kept prodding it, frowning at his controller and trying to get it to move. He spoke in terse tones with Saskaya over a radio embedded in the unit.

Unexpectedly, the machine jolted upright and began emitting an odd sort of beeping noise. The circular lens turned solid red. It swung around as though searching for a target.

Raghnall and I stood there, gaping. What had been a bumbling, awkward device, suddenly loomed menacingly over us.

There was a shout from somewhere behind me. The beam stilled. Glancing down, a crimson dot danced over my chest like one of those LED lights at the club. The beeping turned into an unbroken whine.

“Down!” someone yelled, and I realized with shock that the shout was directed atme.

There was a blur two feet from my face. A solid mass knocked the breath out of me. I tumbled to the cobblestones in an undignified heap, grunting indignantly. My pulse hammered through my veins.

I rolled up just in time to witness Lorcan blocking a bright beam of energy that shot out of the Sentinel’s eye. The frantic mechanical whine subsided as soon as the blast shattered the piece of wood he brandished.

Lorcan lunged forward to smash the Sentinel with a spear, and when that didn’t work, he kicked it over. Before the thing could right itself, he drove the weapon deep into its underbelly. Metal clanged against stone, legs kicking uselessly.

Raghnall swore floridly, jamming buttons on the controller. Lorcan didn’t wait to see if it worked. He jumped on top of it and began smashing the eye—which cast about for a moment before fixating on me, again—with the butt of a sturdy hunting knife. When it shattered, he jammed the blade deep inside.

The Sentinel smoldered and smoked, then crumpled to the ground. Lorcan nimbly leaped off. Violet liquid seeped out onto the cobblestones.

Five-hundred-year-old technology, smashed to bits. It’s taken us years to get them working. He killed it in under two minutes.

A huge grin staged a hostile takeover of my face. He was back. Breaking everything in his path, but home safe. I couldn’t conceal my joy if my life depended on it. Fortunately, everyone was too distracted to notice. I scrambled to my feet.

Destruction achieved, Lorcan turned to me, his blue eyes slitted and fierce. Slowly, his face relaxed into an answering smile.

“What took you so long?” I couldn’t keep the teasing out of my voice. Lorcan’s gaze cut away briefly. He’s acquired a deep tan since I last saw him two months ago, but I thought I detected a faint rosiness beneath it. The thin white line of the scar on his cheekbone stood out.

“Miss me?”

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