So, he’d filled the garden with as much of nature as he could manage. It wasn’t normal for people to spend their whole lives in space. It wasn’t healthy. He’d built this garden not only to fill the aching hole of loss in his own heart, but to provide an escape for those trapped here on Erral as well.
Tiered terraces filled with flowers of every color. Vines creeped over wood lattices and weeping trees stood guard over mirroredlakes filled with floating lily flowers. Strange fish gilded gracefully under tranquil blue waters illuminated by underwater stones mounted on the walls.
“Rathal. It’s beautiful,” Callie whispered, taking the first few steps into the garden. The entrance dropped a few steps into an indigo hedge maze. It was the smaller of the two, easy to navigate and more for the children and aesthetic purposes than to provide any real challenge.
Glittering string lights colored a muted orange wove through the hedge walls added a whimsical feel to the maze. White pebbles crunched under her feet as she followed the path to the first turn where a golden statue of a crouching Rijijteran posed ready to devour all who would trespass.
Callie halted before the statue, her eyes staring up into the snarling maw full of golden teeth. “They really are terrifying, aren’t they?”
He came to stand at her side, raising a finger to touch the statue’s muzzle. “They can be. It was worse, you know. Before they were civilized.”
Callie frowned and looked at him. Rathal chuckled. “Oh yes. The Rijiterans weren’t always the glowing heroes of the galaxy. Before their written history was recorded, there were dark times. They used to war with each other until their race was on the verge of extinction.”
Callie started forward again as he talked, turning right at the next statue, a Rijiteran male in full armor standing stiffly and holding a flapping banner on a spear. Callie gave the statue a once over before continuing to the next turn and the next, pausing to look at each new statue: a female holding a book, another was a male holding a glass up to the sun, and then they came to a child.
“Oh, wow, they really are born that way then?”
The gold child was frozen mid sprint, her mouth open in a shriek of laughter, tongue lolling to the side of her open jaws. Tiny claws were splayed wide for speed.
Rathal patted the statue on the head. “Yes. They are born with teeth and claws and a nasty bite. Little terrors, the lot of them.”
Wondrous terrors.
A memory floated by, wispy and tattered but loud. Shrieks and snarls and the tumbling thud of many feet running over cobbled stone. He’d been playing with his cousins, about twenty of them, all chasing him in a game long forgotten. Something twisted inside, something painful and tender, like a forgotten bruise brushing up against something hard and making itself known.
“They are loud and wild. They never listen to their parents and cause an unending amount of mayhem.” Rathal smiled, stroking the statue’s tall ears. “But it's a good kind of mayhem. They bring light and laughter and a sort of wild abandon that you can’t help but get dragged along with. When the Rijiterans come back, you should find time to spend with their children, though I wouldn’t recommend a game of tag. They go for the ankles.”
Callie’s laugh was a warm thing. It started deep in her belly and traveled up in waves that soothed his tired soul. His heart gave a jolt of surprise. He would do anything for that laugh. Oh dear. The universe was in such trouble. Now he’d have to make her enemies his enemies for all of time and he was incredibly unstable.
“Yes, I can imagine a dozen little Jacks running around like crazy and screaming for blood. Why all the statues? I know you said you were born on Ara’Ama, but from what I understand, you and about forty billion other people.”
Rathal smiled at her and held out his arm. She took it without hesitation, pressing herself close to his side. Her hand was warm on his forearm and his chest grew tight at how quickly she’d accepted his touch.
“You are right, there were many species that lived and died on Ara’Ama, but I was kin—am kin. A favored cousin of the Empress Yenes… though far removed. My kind, the Ahar, are a subspecies of Rijiteran, a distant genetic relative. My mother was a handmaiden to Empress Yenes, as was her mother before her. A position afforded to them because of the blood ties that bound us to the Imperial family. An ancestor of ours had mated to one of Yenes’. So we were actually blood related, though very distantly and the Empress took a liking to me. I was quite fond of her. She used to sneak me sweets when my mother wasn’t looking.”
He steered Callie out of the maze and along one of the walkways that bordered the lake. The glowing lily flowers were in full bloom and their sweetness saturated the damp air. He kept the gardens warm and humid and the heavy feel to the air always made him sleepy. He yawned and patted Callie’s hand. “I come here to settle my memories.”
His mother used to tell him that children sapped your memories and she would complain that she forgot what she was doing from one room to the next but he had no children to blame for his lapse. Just time.
“What was your childhood like living in a palace with an Empress?” Callie asked, her eyes on the fish in the lake.
It was good that she asked about his childhood. The trauma of losing his planet and family had created anchors that made those earliest memories the clearest in his mind.
He sat on the edge and took a few moments to roll his pant legs up to his knees and to gather his thoughts. He placed his feet into the cool water and smiled as the fish gathered around him, drawn by the shine from his ring adorned toes.
“It was idyllic. I was an only child, a favored son, and spoiled.”
Callie made a noise and he laughed. “Yes, surprising I know. It was made worse by the Empress herself who had only daughtersso I was a fun change for her. Daughters are more valued than males in Rijiteran culture. Not that males aren’t valued, but it was a matriarchy after all. Sons were taught supporting roles, like how to run a household, and were expected to take up a trade that was beneficial to society. I was being trained in technology, with an emphasis on surveillance and security. My father was the head of palace security and it was his hope that I would take up his seat someday.”
Callie sat next to him, pulled her pant legs up over her knees, and put her feet in the water. “Were jobs hereditary?”
Rathal shook his head and she smiled up at his ears when the earrings caught the soft light.
“No. Nothing was just handed to you in the Rijiteran culture. You had to start at the bottom and work your way up in all things. Even the Empress's daughter, the heir, had to start as a foot soldier and climb the ranks just like everyone else. Had she been found unfit, a vote would have been held to determine if the throne would pass to one of her more qualified sisters, or to someone else that was better suited for the job.”
“Well obviously you were good at your job, since cyber security seems to be your strong suit, next to crime lording that is,” she said, kicking her feet in the water. The fish would dart away and then swim back every time she did, so that it looked like they were playing a game with her. She was grinning at them and for some odd reason he wanted to drain the lake and watch as the fish flopped around on the dry bed and died slowly, gasping for breath.
“Is that a compliment?” Rathal asked, flicking water at her to bring her attention back to him and off the damn fish.
