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Jalli’s dark, lovely eyes opened wide.
“Of course I’m serious. Because deformed babies might grow up to make other deformed babies or even worse, deformed Drakes. That’s why the Council of Perfection was created—to judge if a baby is fit to live or not.”
As she spoke, she went casually over to the big stone tub and tapped a bronze faucet that hung over its edge. Steaming water began to gush out at once.
“But…I don’t understand.” I shook my head, still unable to take in this barbaric practice of the Drake people. I knew that some human societies had done the same kind of thing—the Spartans leapt to mind from my World History class. But how could anybody still do such a thing in this day and age? And if they really did kill all the deformed babies that were born, how had Jalli herself been spared?
“You’re probably wondering how I’m still here instead of just a pile of dry bones out on the rocks, right?” she asked causally, as though it was no big deal. “Well, that’s due to Ari, of course.” She grinned. “My protective big brother.”
“How so?” I asked, fascinated. “I mean, how could he have protected you? He couldn’t have been more than four or five when you were born, right?”
“About that.” Jalli nodded. “The way my mother tells the tale, my father was away at the time of my birth. He was quelling an uprising in the North, you know, and so he couldn’t stay to see me born.”
As she spoke, she added some red powder from a jar to the steaming water filling the stone tub. At once the powder started to froth up and big pink bubbles began to form all over the surface of the water. Jalli stirred the tub meditatively and kept talking.
“Anyway, they could tell right away there was something wrong with my foot,” she went on. “The Council of Perfection came right after I was born and said I must be gotten rid of. They gave my mother an hour to say goodbye and then they said they would be back to put me out on the rocks.”
“But…but how can you just get rid of a baby?” I demanded. “That’s horrible.”
“Oh…” Jalli shrugged. “I hadn’t yet reached my seventh day yet, you see, so I was still a non-person. Well, to everyone but Ari.” She smiled. “Would you like to get in the tub? I’ll turn my back so you can undress if you like.”
She suited actions to words and I began to strip off my crumpled uniform while Mr. Seahorse flew to sit on the side of the tub and peck at the bubbles. I was out of my clothes quickly and laid them in a more-or-less neat bundle on a small chair by the tub.
“Tell me,” I said as I slid into the steaming, fragrant water. It felt wonderful on my tired muscles. “How did Ari save you?”
“Oh, well, as my mother tells it, she was lying in the bed weeping and holding me. She didn’t want to give me up, even though I wasn’t fit to live, you see,” Jalli said.
She peeked over one shoulder, saw that I was completely immersed in the bubbles, and turned around so she could perch on the edge of the tub while we talked.
“So Ari came in the room and asked why she was sad,” she went on. “And Mother told him because they had to take away his little sister and showed me to him—showed him my twisted foot, you know.”
“What did he do?” I asked, fascinated by this peek into Ari’s past.
“Well, when the Council of Perfection came back to take me to the rocks, his Drake came out!” Jalli’s eyes shone with excitement. “The youngest manifestation of a Drake in all our recorded history—they usually come out when a boy is ten or eleven,” she added. “Of course, his Drake was smaller than he is now but Mother says he still filled up nearly the entire room. So when the Council of Wisdom tried to get to me, they couldn’t.”
“But…don’t they have Drakes too?” I asked.
“Oh yes, but there’s were much too big to fit in the human part of the palace,” Jalli explained. “And besides, nobody wanted to take a chance on harming the Alpha-to-be. Ari and his Drake guarded me that way for the entire seven days until I had to be declared a person and then, well, they couldn’t get rid of me.” She shrugged and grinned. “So here I am.”
“Here you are,” I echoed, smiling back at her. I felt like I had a new insight into Ari’s personality now. Could it be that he didn’t see me as deformed or scarred because he was used to protecting and defending his little sister who had a disability? Whether that was the case or not, it made me love him when I thought of how he had protected Jalli when she was a helpless baby.
