The one person who didn’t seem a bit amused, however, was Ty.
“Who authorized this?” he growled, moving to make room between Ellina and the top step, where the fool was dancing and juggling for the crowd. “This wasn’t part of the program! You!” he shouted at the fool. “Who told you to do this?”
“Ugh—that Kindred bodyguard of the Potentate’s is such a kill-joy,” a familiar voice muttered. Turning her head, Ellina saw that it was Hennessy Tolland, talking to Jennor Peebles, another of the nobles. “He’s unbearably entitled too! Thinks he can do anything he likes just because he guards the Potentate.”
“If you ask me, off-worlders shouldn’t be allowed at Court at all,” Jennor replied snobbishly.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Hennessy sniffed. “And believe me, when I am consort, it’s going to be my first order of business to keep any foreigners out of our Court and off our world.”
Ellina opened her mouth to tell him that he would never be consort…but that was when the first explosion happened.
Chapter Twenty-four
Something’s wrong—I know it is! There’s something off here.
Ty’s instincts—on high alert for the entire parade—were now screaming at him as he made his way towards the laughing, dancing, juggling fool.
“Hey!” he shouted at the fool. “What’s going on here—who sent you?”
Still laughing, the fool turned towards him and lobbed one of the colorful balls he’d been juggling straight at Ty’s head.
Only juggling balls didn’t normally have blinking lights on them, did they? Lights that started out green and then turned red in mid-air.
It’s a bomb! A Goddess-damned matter incendiary! If it touches anything before it blows, the explosion will be twenty times as great!
Ty’s body was acting before the thought even finished flashing through his mind. Years of instinct and training took over and he raised his blaster—thank the Goddess he already had it out and ready—and shot the device in mid-air, before it could reach him.
The bomb exploded harmlessly in a bright shower of sparks and a puff of smoke but that only confirmed what Ty had already guessed. The bomb was a MID or matter incendiary device. As long as it didn’t touch anything and only exploded in midair, it would do little to no damage. But if it was allowed to land or touch any solid object—if it touched any solid matter at all as it blew—the chain of destruction it caused would be catastrophic.
Just one of these small bombs could take out the entire huge wooden platform they were all standing on and leave nothing but a gaping crater in the earth below.
Thankfully, the fool-who-was-clearly-not-a-fool had tossed the bomb in a high arc, so though the explosion was loud, it didn’t seem to hurt anyone. Ty realized at once, however, that the high toss was no accident.
He was trying to get it over my head, he thought, his gut clenching with the realization. He was trying to toss it directly at Ellina!
And then the fool threw another bomb and another and another and he had no more time to think—only time to react.
One by one he shot the small but deadly bombs out of the air, only vaguely aware that the nobles on the platform were running and screaming—panicking like a heard of startled terga-beasts, he thought distractedly as he continued to shoot.
Then some of the acrobats raced up the steps as well. At first Ty hoped they would try to overwhelm the fool but then he saw, with a sinking heart, that they were dressed in the same multi-colored rags that he was. They dived into the panicking crowd on the platform and began engaging the guards in hand-to-hand combat.
Still, Ty could do nothing but keep shooting. He was well aware that if even one of the bombs got through it would blow Ellina and the entire platform to bits. He couldn’t let that happen—he had to protect her no matter what.
“The Potentate! Guard the Potentate—shield her!” he bellowed at the guards behind him as he continued to shoot—though all the shielding in the world would do her no good if even one MID got through. He wanted to take aim at the fool himself, but the bastard seemed to have an unlimited supply of the small, ball-sized incendiaries and he kept tossing them at Ty—and occasionally trying to get one above or around him—still trying to reach Ellina.
And then his blaster clicked and he realized, with a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, that he was out of charge.
Gods, no! It can’t be!
He spared a glance at it but the energy bar was empty. It must have been drained by his rapid firing. On the plus side, it appeared the fool had only one bomb left but Ty knew he had no more charge to shoot it. He had a spare blaster—of course he did—but as he started to reach for it, the fool threw his last bomb directly at Ty’s face.
Acting on instinct, Ty caught it…and threw it straight up into the air as hard as he could.
It was the only thing he could think to do—the only safe place to throw it. He couldn’t deflect it into the crowd and he couldn’t let it get to Ellina. He could have thrown himself on it, of course, but the very contact of his body against the bomb would have started the chain of destruction guaranteed to blow the entire platform to rubble.
So he threw it straight up and prayed that it would detonate high enough not to hurt anyone but not so high as to touch the craggy rock ceiling above them which was the roof of the Central Corridor.
Please, Goddess, he prayed. Please!
And
