“I don’t keep servants, not anymore.” Adrian’s smile was wry as he caressed a lock of Layla’s hair back from her face. “The palace and grounds are imbued with magic that keeps the environment healthy. Barring wars or damage, the palace will continue just like this, long after I am dead and dusted. And I live alone… because it’s not that quiet when two powerful Royal Desert Dragons are smashing the courtyards apart with their fights. And the domes, and the fish-ponds. And anything else they barrel through in their rage.”
“Your parents.” Layla blinked, suddenly understanding. Dusk had said Adrian’s parents had fought terribly when he was young, but Layla hadn’t considered they’d done it in Dragon-form. She reached out, taking his hand. “I’m so sorry, Adrian.”
“It’s ancient history. My father died when I was a young man, and my mother was happier after that. With your mother Mimi.” Lifting her hand in his, Adrian’s aqua eyes were deep as he kissed her fingers. “Besides, I’m not alone all the time. Dusk comes here, and Rachida. Sometimes I invite the entire clan to stay for a season, to enjoy the palace while I’m away on business. But when my mother was killed, I just… didn’t want anyone around for a while.”
“Because you mistrusted people?” Layla frowned. “After Hunter murdered her?”
“Because I mistrusted myself.” Adrian stroked his thumb over Layla’s cheek as he cupped her face tenderly. “I went crazy after my mother was killed, Layla. I smashed through the palace in Dragon-form for a full week. Dusk talked me down, got me to change back, though I couldn’t calm my rage for a while afterwards. I’m not the only one who has crashed through this place in a blind rage, though. It’s been destroyed many times over the centuries by Dragon-wars or internal fights. Most of what you see now was restored between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries after a major war with the Desert Dragons of Tunisia. There’s only one spot that is original, just as it was built three thousand years ago.”
“The blue courtyard.” Layla had a sudden flash of it, just as she had seen it in her dreams. It was the one spot in the entire palace she remembered vividly from her brief time here as a child.
“Yes. Come see.” Adrian’s smile was genuine as he stepped away, tugging her hand. Layla suddenly felt like Indiana Jones being invited to see the Arc of the Covenant as she followed him through a series of halls, some extremely formal, some far more cozy and familial. They passed extensive kitchens, larders, and halls of palatial bedrooms, then turned into a back-area that Layla suddenly recalled. This area of the palace looked identical to Adrian’s apartment at the Hotel. With a stunned blink, Layla realized he’d recreated the back-palace from his young life to be his living quarters in Paris.
The place where his family had lived was homey and bright, a smaller, cozier version of the first hall they’d entered. It was the part of the palace where Adrian’s family had spent time together, where Mimi and Juliette had been happy. Layla saw flashes from Adrian as they gazed around; him as a child running through the back-palace, chasing Dusk and laughing. Mimi growling after both children in play, still young and looking almost exactly like Layla looked now. The family sharing meals on the stout ebony table, passing rustic dishes Mimi had cooked. Juliette vibrant with her flowing copper hair and sparkling emerald eyes, wearing a dark green evening caftan and telling stories on the veranda at night as a fire crackled in the pot-bellied fireplace. Adrian and Dusk releasing hundreds of crickets into the formal living room while Rachida and the rest of the clan were visiting – shrieking and running away in glee at the uproar.
But Adrian’s father was in none of those memories. Frowning, Layla had a brief vision of Issam knocking politely at the ingress to the back-palace, asking Juliette if he could enter. He looked like Adrian, tall and handsome, striking in his later years with streaks of silver at his temples and in his short beard. She saw Adrian’s parents sitting together stiffly to discuss political matters for the clan, after which Issam promptly departed. He’d not been permitted back here. This area of the palace had been a place of solace for Juliette, her children, and her lover Mimi – as Adrian’s father and mother fought more and more over the years.
“No more.” With a sad smile, Adrian stepped close to Layla, kissing her lips. “I don’t want to see it, Layla. Please. My father was a good man, and he and my mother were life-mates, but when you’ve lived with someone for hundreds of years… sometimes it’s not so easy anymore. He had his lovers, and she had hers. He kept his other families in another part of the palace, and she kept her family here.”
“Your father had other wives? Other children?” Layla blinked, astounded to hear that Adrian’s father had kept a harem, but not seeing any more of Adrian’s memories through their Bind as he shut it down.
“He did. But they’re all gone now.”
“What happened to them?” Layla frowned.
“A plague swept through the palace when I was fifteen.” Adrian sighed. “Normally, Dragons are impervious to disease, but this was something extremely deadly that went around at that time, something Twilight physicians couldn’t figure out how to stop until years later. It wiped out over half the Desert Dragons in Africa. My clan was decimated. My father died in that plague; as did his five other wives and all my half-siblings. Only Dusk and I survived, and Adam. After that… it was just my mother, Mimi, Rachida, and us three younglings. Our clan is still suffering from that plague, at one-quarter the strength we should be – even though we encompass all the sub-clans of the Mediterranean now.”
“I’m so sorry, Adrian.” Layla reached up, cradling his face.
Taking one of her hands, he moved it to his lips, kissing her fingers. “Come see the Blue Courtyard. Come live a better memory.”
As Layla nodded, Adrian led them through the back-palace into a rustic kitchen of enormous iron ovens and stoves hung with copper pots and garlands of spices. And through a vaulted arch, she saw the Blue Courtyard. Square, it was surrounded by vaulted halls and accessed by tiled ingresses. Made of alabaster stone, every arch was tiled in cobalt glass, an ornate pattern of cobalt tiles forming the courtyard walk. The courtyard held ancient potted palms and jasmine, votives of blue glass flickering from every arch of the long quadrangle halls. In the center burbled a three-tiered fountain, shining under the starlight with vivid cobaltzellijlike blue dragon-hide beneath the midnight sky. As Layla stepped to the fountain, she saw gold and white Dragon-fish flickering through the blue-tiled basin.
The effect was deeply mystical. As Layla gazed around, seeing glowing white and blue reflecting the light of the stars all around, she felt the courtyard’s ancientness. A sensation of homecoming filled her – as if this was where she was supposed to be in life. Turning, she saw Adrian watching her, his aqua eyes penetrating as his lips quirked. “You look so at-home here.”
“I feel that way.” Layla spoke, feeling a tremendous belonging filling her. “I can’t describe it, but it feels like I’ve always been here. Like I’msupposedto be here.”
“Desert Dragons all feel that way when they come here.” He spoke softly, moving toward her with a wistful grace. “This is the Well of Arcadia. The palace was built around the well, to house our entire clan long ago. Arcadia was the first Desert Dragon. A shape-shifter of immense ability tens of thousands of years ago, it’s said she dreamed for thirty days and thirty nights while wandering the desert. When she finally transformed into a Dragon for the first time, a wellspring thrust up from the sands as she clawed her talons into the dunes. This is that spring.”
“It is true?” Layla asked him, smiling at the fable.
“Who knows,” he shrugged, gazing at the fountain. “But all Desert Dragons feel a homecoming here. The waters feed the entire palace, and are said to have healing properties.”
“Do they?” Layla asked.
“They helped soothe me when I got into scrapes with Dusk as a child.” Adrian smiled sadly. “But they couldn’t heal my father. Or his other families when the plague came.”
“Do you miss him, your father?” Layla asked, watching him.
“Issam died over a hundred years ago, Layla.” Adrian glanced at her. “I can barely remember his face now. Only that he was tall like I am. And I have his eyes.”
“Does Dusk remember Issam?”
“Not really.” Adrian spoke softly. “My father was simply the man who rescued him. Dusk was raised by my mother Juliette and your mother Mimi. Juliette was my father’s first life-mate, so it was her responsibility to raise the adopted son.”
“This palace is so full of memories.”
“Too full.” Adrian spoke sadly.
