Free The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives) by Courtney Grace Powers Page B

be assassinated by The Kreft.
                  The floor suddenly grumbled, trembling, and the pedestrian walkway groaned to an uneasy stop. Reece caught his balance on the rail and looked around uncertainly.
    “ What was that?” He had to speak loudly; the birds had begun cawing and screeching, flapping in a panicked maelstrom of color and wings. He looked up at them, confused. They were acting as though they'd seen a predator.
                  The building shook again, harder this time; somewhere far off, someone began shouting.
                  “Come,” the duke barked, and Reece nodded and followed him back the way they had come, walking briskly.
                  As they reached the aviary entrance, the third and most powerful boom yet rumbled under Reece's feet and knocked his teeth together. The museum lights hesitantly flickered, and the bloody red auxiliary lighting buzzed on over the emergency exits as a recording of a calm woman's voice began echoing over and over throughout the museum.
                  “What the blazes?” the duke exclaimed. His body guards hustled into the room and took posts on either side of him and Reece, as if their presence would do much good against an earthquake.
                  A slow darkness rolled across the white sun; its shadow slithered over the aviary floor, from one side of the room to the other. Reece and the other looked up. One of the bodyguards cursed.
                  It was a ship unlike any Reece had ever seen. He could tell it was huge—it probably hadn't even broken the troposphere, and yet against the sun it was the size of a bat. It was as black as night, long and pointed at both ends.
                  Feeling a deep shock in the pit of his stomach, Reece walked forward, ignoring his father as he tried to hold him back. He stopped beneath the very peak of the dome and turned in a slow circle to watch the ship as it drifted by. The sun broke around the edges of the shadowy vessel, pouring into Reece's eyes until they stung, but he couldn't look away until he was sure, though part of him knew there had never been any doubt…
    Two quicksilver flashes dropped from the ship, falling, falling…Reece tried to follow them, but they were too fast, too small…
    A moment later, a violent boom like thunder rattled the glass ceiling in its panes. And he knew.
    The Kreft had finally come.
     
     
    Reece sprinted through the museum, followed closely by his father and the two bodyguards, soon joined by a puffing little man with his white hair parted down the middle—the museum curator—and a handful of sentries and tour guides.
                  “What's going on?”
                  “Is that a ship?”
                  “Son of a toffer, they're firing!”
                  “Remain orderly, all of you,” the duke's smooth voice rumbled, hushing the shrill voices in one fell stroke. “The calmer you stay, the safer you will be. Open the doors to the below ground exhibits and form lines to the stairwells. I want a hundred people to a level, their backs to the walls. Don't just stand there— move !”
                  Reece muted the voices and compounded them in the back of his head. He knew what he had to do, but suddenly, doing it seemed like the most complicated thing in the Epimetheus. Just this morning he had marveled over his crew's preparation…now he cursed his lack of foresight. They should have been ready to go at a moment's notice!
                  People milled outside the museum, huddled together against the brisk wind, not yet aware what was happening. They looked to the ship and pointed and gasped, but panic hadn't broken over them, like Reece knew it would soon enough.
                  Panting, he leaped onto the back of a snow-slicked bench and looked over the heads of the crowds.