Heir to a Desert Legacy

“Yet you protect him. Like a tigress with her cub.” Everything was a casual observation from him, no heat of conviction. No emotion at all.

“There are survival instincts that are born into us,” she said, looking down at Aden’s head, his hair fuzzy and wild, standing on end. “An innate need to propagate the species and ensure its survival.”

“Is that all?” he asked.

She shook her head, her throat tightening. “No.”

“It is good. Good that he has an aunt who loves him.”

Yes. It was completely natural for her to love him. To feel like he was a piece of her. He was, after all. Her nephew. Her only remaining family.

The only remaining family that she acknowledged. Her parents were no longer a part of her life. She never intended on speaking to them, going back and peering into the ugliness that was their marriage. She’d escaped it, and she never intended on going back.

Aden represented her last link with family. Her last chance. It was no wonder the bond was so strong. And he had no one. At least, he’d had no one. It had been just the two of them, holed up in the apartment, surviving.

“I do love him,” she said.

“It pleases me.” She noticed he didn’t return the sentiment, and that none of the pleasure he spoke of was reflected in his tone. She searched his face, looked into those hard, black eyes to see if she could find some hidden depth of emotion. Some tenderness for the tiny baby in her arms.

There was nothing there.

Nothing but an endless sea of darkness, a black hole, that seemed to pull light in, only to extinguish it.

“I went to live with my uncle, Kalid, when I was seven. I don’t know if Rashid ever mentioned that,” he said.

“No.” She’d barely ever spoken to her brother-in-law. He wasn’t usually present during her visits with Tamara.

“It is common, with the warrior children, to go and learn from the one currently holding the position.”

“So young?”

“It is necessary,” he said. “As you mentioned, early childhood experiences play strongly into how you will be as an adult. Something so important could not be left to chance.”

“What… what do you mean?”

“Because to be a perfect soldier, you can’t be a perfect man,” he said. “You have to be broken first, so that it can’t happen later. At the hands of your enemies.”

His tone was perfectly smooth, perfectly conversational. Betraying nothing of the underlying horror. But it was there. In his eyes.

It was easy to imagine getting pulled into that darkness. Easy to imagine getting lost in it. In him. The feeling that created rocked her deeply, gripped her stomach and squeezed tight.

She’d never had a thought like that before, had never felt, even for a moment, the sudden, violent pull to someone like she felt for Sayid.

She turned away, redirecting her focus. This six months was for Aden. A chance to introduce him to his home. To give him the transition they both needed.

It was not a time for her to get drawn in by a man with dark eyes and an even darker soul.

CHAPTER THREE

IF THE PLANE WAS LIKE another world, the Attari palace was something beyond that. On the outskirts of a city that was a collision between the old world and the new, was the seat of the royal family’s power. Gleaming stone, jade, jasper and obsidian, inlaid in intricate patterns over the walls and floors, the edges gilded, catching fire in the dry, harsh sun that painted the air with waves of heat.

The only green was in the palace gardens, the lush plants an extravagant example of wealth. A surplus of water in a dry place. The fountains spoke of the same excess, statues carved of young women, endlessly pouring water into the pools below.

The palace itself was shielded from the heat, the thick stone walls providing cover and insulation.

Her entire apartment could fit in the entryway of the palace, pillars wrapped in gold supporting ceilings inlaid with precious stones.

For the fist time, Chloe was ashamed that she’d asked her sister into her apartment. Tamara had never said anything about the shabby little one bedroom, but… but this was what her sister had been accustomed to. And Chloe hadn’t had a clue. She’d known her sister had lived in a palace, but her mind, so dedicated to number and fact, could never have imagined it was this grand.

The suite of rooms they were installed in had been set up for Aden and the nanny. Her room was expansive, a high ceiling with a star pattern arching over the opulent bed, white pillars, carved with scenes of camels wandering the desert, stationed throughout as support.

Chloe wandered in, placing her hand over one of the camels. Amber, she realized, set into a golden background, representing the Attari sand. One pillar would easily pay for a year of her college tuition, a sobering realization indeed.

She followed the flow of the room into Aden’s, which was connected to hers. The bed that had been prepared for him the focal point of the room. Blue with swaths of fabric draped from the ceiling that covered the little crib, making it look like a throne fit for a very tiny prince.

Which he was really.

“An improvement, isn’t it?” She placed him gently into the bed, her fingertips lingering on his round belly.

The sight of him, so small, in the plush bed made her throat tighten. This room had been prepared by Tamara. Prepared for a son she had never gotten the chance to hold. Hadn’t even been able to carry in her womb.

Chloe had done that, and she had hated it. Had been miserable through the whole pregnancy while her sister, who would never even know her child, had longed to carry the baby and hadn’t been able to.

Tears stung her eyes. She wanted to rail at the world. At the injustice of it. Nothing made sense in the world. Nothing. There was no reason. And she, she most especially, seemed to have no way of controlling it. She’d tried. She’d planned. And everything had fallen apart.

Anguish threatened to overwhelm her, to wrap bony fingers around her throat and squeeze her tight, cutting off her air.

“Is everything to your liking?”

She turned and saw Sayid standing in the opening to Aden’s room, his shoulders military straight, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression hard. In that moment, she envied him. He saw things clearly, in black and white. There was no confusion for him. No anger. No grief. He was simply doing what had to be done, and for him, that seemed to be enough.

Nothing she did felt like enough. Nothing felt right.

Not even this, and it was the only thing she could think to do.

“It’s beautiful, but I imagine you know that.”

His shoulders broke rank long enough to shrug. “The palace is done in the traditional Attari style. It is not so unusual here.”

“Ah yes, well, I can see how a castle made of semiprecious stones would get tiresome after a while,” she said drily.

“I find most anything preferable to an enemy prison, in that regard the palace does nicely. It is nicer to look at than a prison cell at the very least.”

“Is that all that makes it better?” she asked, laughing, a nervous shaky sound.

“In some ways,” he said slowly, “it is shockingly similar to prison.” His statement begged a question but he pressed on too quickly. “Your schooling has been worked out. The classes will be broadcasted onto a website you can log in to. That way you can view the lectures in addition to having your reading material on hand.”

“Labs? I mainly work in the realm of the theoretical, which means more mathematics than actual physical experiments, but there is some lab work to be done.”