Blood Ties

Chapter 24: Declan

Declan and Nadia strode arm-in-arm toward the atrium; he had promised her a tour of the palace, and was not about to renege on his word simply because his father seemed to be descending into madness and maliciousness.

"Your father seems..." Nadia bit her lip. The possibilities hung in the air. He doubted she would lie to him, but it would be interesting to see her try. "Fascinating."

"Fascinating?" Declan repeated. "That's all?"

She shrugged. "It's true, isn't it?"

"Which part of the palace would you like to see first?" he asked, changing the subject. Declan hadn't seen his father in thirteen years and the man had barely said a word to him. His fingernails dug into his palms as he walked faster, practically dragging Nadia alongside him.

"Slow down," she said, pacing faster to keep up with him. Her heels clicked against the floor, which had changed from a mosaic of horses to one of gentle blue waves. "You're going to leave a bruise, and then what would your father think?"

"I suppose it would confirm his pre-existing beliefs about me," said Declan, gritting his teeth as he slowed down reluctantly. "And you barely bleed, Nadia. Have you ever even bruised?"

"I don't wish to find out," she said, dropping his arm.

He reached for her. "Come along, then. I'll be gentle, I promise."

"You're hardly a gentleman," she said, but took his hand anyway as they walked at a moderate pace.

Beneath their feet, the mosaic tiles transformed into a pattern of water that made him feel as though he were walking on the ocean. Her white, billowing trousers fluttered in the breeze, the white stark against the blue, reminding him of their first encounter on the beach. That had been only a few months ago, yet it felt like a lifetime.

"I never claimed to be one," he said as they reached the atrium.

Glass walls encased them on all sides, the tiled floor giving way to dirt and grass. Flowering plants sat in pots around the atrium, while vines with every conceivable type of fruit and vegetable wrapped around lattices that climbed to the glass ceiling. Servants and gardeners were busily tending to the season's harvest. The majority of the palace's food was grown in the atrium, especially in the winter.

Nadia's mouth fell open before she could control her reaction. "It's beautiful. I've never seen anything like it. In Milona, we had a few ferns, but nothing like this..."

"Really?" he said. She rarely brought up Milona around him, usually reluctant to discuss the past. Perhaps she felt that it would remind her of who was responsible for the obliteration of her home. "Well, I'm glad you like it. Did you ever garden?"

"A few times, but I wasn't very good at it. My ferns always died of thirst," she admitted. "I wouldn't dare try my hand at it here."

"I remember running around this place as a child, escaping my nurse," he said. "I once hid in an enormous pot for hours... I nearly suffocated to death when they started to fill it with soil."

She laughed, but it was tinged with sorrow. "Didn't your father send anyone to look for you?"

Declan shrugged. "I doubt he noticed I was gone."

"That's rather sad," she said, but her pity vanished when she reached for a pink peony, her eyes lighting up. "Oh, this is lovely! But what do you do with the flowers here?"

"Some of them are cultivated until they can be planted in the gardens outside," he said, his shoes crunching over a gravel path. A thousand aromas filled the air: cacao beans, vanilla plants, a dozen breeds of flower. "The others, well, I don't know. I remember my sisters' maids used to come here and pick them to fill the vases in their rooms."