Page 51 of Sworn to the Alien

My cheeks bulged and I wondered if it was actually blocked.

The Governor frowned before taking it from me.

He turned it inside out and pulled something free from inside. “Sorry. I forgot to remove the stopper! Try again.”

I did.

This time, I didn’t need to blow so hard but my cheeks popped out anyway.

The sound that came out was a horrible high-pitched squealing noise.

I stopped blowing immediately. “That’s horrible!”

“It can be,” he said with a nod. “Unless you do itjustright.”

He took it from me and gently blew through it, a very soft blow, like whistling.

From it came a strange sorrowful sound, deep with aching longing.

His eyes were shut as if he were playing some beautiful instrument.

And itwasbeautiful.

When he was done, he opened his eyes and placed it back on his desk.

“That was beautiful,” I said.

“If you think that was beautiful,” he said. “Then you’lllovethis.”

He moved across the room to another shelf full of trinkets from his various travels.

It was a long straw-like object and he handed it to me.

Upon taking it, my hand immediately dropped.

I blinked in shock at its immense weight.

“That’s Tiberium,” he said proudly. “One of the rarest minerals in the cosmos.”

“Rarest?” I said.

He nodded. “Veryrare.”

“Then it must be worth a lot of money.”

He shook his head. “Not all things that are rare areworth much. It probably should be but no one has yet figured out a purpose for it. Crazy, don’t you think? That we still haven’t unlocked all the mysteries of the cosmos?”

I nodded before carefully placing it back on the shelf.

I was going to ask him to take me back through the palace so I could see the official palace artefacts when he suddenly turned and approached the desk at the back of the room.

“And this,” he said, “is known as the—” He paused. “Layla? What is it?”

I wasn’t listening to him.

When I placed the Tiberium rod back down, my hand had stroked another of the objects.

It rolled slightly to one side and, fearing it might roll off the edge, I hastily grabbed it to prevent it from shattering on the floor.

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