“I just don’t understand why Ari picked me to be his queen,” I murmured to myself, voicing my thought aloud.
“Well, he didn’t, silly!” Jalli exclaimed. “His Drake did—that’s how these things work.”
“His Drake?” I asked. I remembered Ari saying that his Drake had chosen me and that his heart had followed his Drake’s, but it hadn’t really sunk in before now. “So…his Drake fell in love with me first?” I asked, frowning.
“It might be better to say his Drake claimed you,” Jalli corrected me. “That’s the way it goes sometimes. When a Drake decides you’re his treasure—his L’lorna—he almost never changes his mind. That’s what happened with my parents, you know.”
“Really?” I looked at her in surprise.
“Uh-huh. My father was supposed to choose from among the daughters of the hidalgo but his Drake was flying a patrol over a lonely mountain village and he saw my mother hanging the washing out to dry.” Jalli smiled. “My father always says that the minute he and his Drake laid eyes on her, they were both smitten. He carried her back to the palace and told my grandfather point blank that she was his L’lorna and he would have no other.” She shrugged. “So they were bonded, of course.”
“Of course,” I murmured, thinking of how Ari had been so forceful in declaring me as his L’lorna in the Audience Chamber in front of his father and the other Drakes as witnesses. Maybe such bull-headedness ran in the family. I wondered if it would make his mother feel any more kindly towards me…and guessed it probably wouldn’t. After all, even if she didn’t come from noble blood, at least she was still of the Drake people. And I was betting she didn’t have really visible scars all over her body either.
“Anyway, you can soak for a while,” Jalli said, standing. “I’m going to go find you a robe to wear—and maybe some insects for Mr. Seahorse.” She grinned. “Will you be okay here alone?”
“Oh, sure.” I nodded. “I’ll be fine. I like this, uh, bubble bath you put in,” I added, nodding at the pink bubbles. “It’s very soothing to the skin.”
“I thought it might help your scars,” she said honestly. “It always makes my foot feel better when it aches.” She looked down at the appendage in question wistfully. “Sure wish I could go to the human world and get it healed, like you talked about. But I would never be allowed.”
“I don’t see why not,” I said, indignant on her behalf. Why shouldn’t she go to my world and have the operation to heal her foot? Looking around at the huge, richly decorated marble palace it was clear her parents could afford it. “I think you should! Like I said, you’d fit into Nocturne Academy just fine.”
She shook her head.
“I can’t leave the palace halls. I’ll be here all my life and die an old maid—like the Blind Crone seer who’s always croaking around here.”
“The who?” I asked. But at that moment there was a light rapping at the door and I heard Ari’s voice outside.
“Jalli? Is everything all right?”
“All fine,” Jalli called back. “Kaitlyn’s in the bath, but she’s all covered with bubbles.” She looked at me. “Do you mind if I let him in?”
I looked down at myself. As Kaitlyn had said, I was submerged in pink bubbles up to my neck—it was a really deep tub. So I didn’t think it would be a problem for Ari to come in.
“Let him in,” I told her.
“Okay.” She opened the door and smiled at her big brother as he came in.
I sank a little lower in the bubbles, feeling self-conscious. But at least the pink, sweet-smelling foam covered me and I was decent. Taking a deep breath, I looked up at him and smiled.
“Hi, Ari—come in.”
78
Kaitlyn
Ari smiled back at me.
“Looks like you’re enjoying your bath,” he said.
“And the company,” I said, smiling at Jalli who gave me a little wave before she hobbled swiftly out, closing the door behind her.
“I thought you two might like each other,” Ari said.
“Well, Jalli’s a very likable person,” I said.
“Yes, she gets into your heart almost the minute you see her.” He grinned.
“She certainly got into yours right away,” I said carefully. “Jalli was telling me how you saved her from being killed when she was a baby.”
He nodded gravely. “Though I was so young, I remember it well. I took one look at her and my Drake and I knew we couldn’t let her go.”
“It’s a wonderful story,” I said. “But, Ari…do your people really leave babies with birth defects out on the rocks to die?”
“Not now,” he said quickly. “Jalli is the light of my father’s life—her presence helped him understand how wrong the practice was. So we don’t do it anymore.”
“But Jalli talked like it was still going on,” I protested. “She said you have a ‘Council of Perfection’ that inspects every baby when it’s born.”
“We do still have the Council of Perfection,” he admitted. “But they don’t demand that imperfect infants be abandoned anymore.”
“Just locked away where no one can see them?” I asked dryly. “Like Jalli?”
Ari ran a hand through his hair.
“I tried to get my Sire to let me take her with me to the human world, but he wouldn’t hear of it. My father loves Jalli but he thinks she must be hidden away for her own good.”
Or maybe because he’s ashamed of her, I thought. Because Jalli would be a reminder to everyone who saw her that the Alpha Drake of the Sky Lands had fathered a less-than-perfect child.
“You know, there are operations in my world that could help her,” I told
