Epilogue “How did this even happen?”
Uruk
Al Muthanna Governorate, Iraq
A year after lowering Adeatin into her vault, a river flowed along the ruins of Uruk to the oasis.
Reeds rose from the rocky banks in a promise of a verdant future.
Since burying the girl, she’d sank to a depth of thirty feet, and her Waters of Life bubbled from her grave.
Nobody knew where the bubbles came from, but a few times an hour, they would rise from one of the hidden pipes and float to the surface.
The spring would become a core of the resort and enjoy the strongest security. Six months into the planning process, my father had determined my desert home would overlook the oasis and feature a garden, a retreat Erik and I could bring our future family.
We had a few more truths to uncover before we were willing to welcome our children into the world. Pascal still worked on the trafficking of older women, but he held little hope we’d be able to save any of them if we did find the critical missing piece.
It had taken a lot of luck and a dropped phone to get the information needed to track down the children at the two boarding schools.
We would need a stroke of good fortune to get to the bottom of the fallen mercury clan’s dealings.
Erik, who had settled well into his role as a captain in Dragon Heights, laughed at the insanity of two boarding schools of kids armed with shovels, pickaxes, and a willingness to leave their mark on Iraq. “How did this even happen?”
“My dad is a broker of souls,” I reminded my husband.
“We’re literally going to be married in Vatican City on Christmas.
Why? Because Jesus’s father said so. This is literally the test to see if we can move two entire schools of children around without it turning into a disaster.
Apparently, we can, and that terrifies me.
We’re taking thousands of kids to Vatican City for our wedding on Christmas along with our carbunclo, my hummingbird, and our Yule cats. ”
I doubted I would ever get used to having become friends with Joseph and Mary, but after some scuffling with my parents, they’d settled on a sharing arrangement.
Whenever we stepped foot in Europe, we were part of their flock.
Whenever they stepped foot in North America, they were part of our flock.
Calling our agreement a flock kept everyone from losing their shit over the situation.
The first time Enzo Acri had come to my parents’ place and discovered Erik and me taking lessons in how to be proper dragons from Joseph and Mary, he’d transformed, joined in, and had destroyed half of my mother’s newly planted garden in his excitement to see his great great great grandparents.
Children of the Christ tended to lose their minds when the pair came out.
I glanced in the direction of the living legends, who had chosen rakes as their tool of choice for the work ahead of us.
To complicate matters, Pope Richard had decided to attend, wishing to offer his blessing on the breaking of the ground, drawing every Catholic eye on the planet to our activities. I foresaw the story of the Good Sumerian getting a great deal of mileage.
“Archaeologists around the world are here, we have funding from literally every university with an ancient history program, and I’m pretty sure we have an obscene number of world leaders here,” Erik muttered.
“I saw the President of the United States arm wrestling with your father. Your father destroyed him, by the way.”
“I sure did,” my father said with a grin.
“But you’re not wrong. Iraq wants to be seen in a better light on the world stage, and this project is the perfect way for them to go about it.
By having our own airport and security, it’s easy for us to balance their religious beliefs with the preservation of this site and the resort.
But having the resort being focused on the restoration of Uruk, most aren’t going to be protesting us.
The archaeologists are pissing themselves because they have thousands of students willing to be free labor for a chance to go camping out in the Iraqi desert for three weeks.
Arranging for air conditioning this early in the project cost me more than a little money, but we need the infrastructure.
We’ll be making use of a lot of solar once we’re set up, and the dam we’re constructing below the oasis is going to help a lot. ”
I glanced at the spring feeding the river, which had settled to fifty feet wide and six to twenty feet deep.
As the first step towards reviving the land, ecologists had seeded the river with aquatic plants and sixty different species of fish.
To control the fish populations, birds native to Iraq had also been released.
We would not be releasing alligators, hippos, and other dangerous species to the river, instead relying on science, technology, and careful land management to mimic their influences on the environment. In time, we’d have to combat biting bugs, but we’d cross that bridge when we came to it.
For the moment, we had an excellent start.
“I like how we’re breaking ground now, but we already have an entire bath house,” I muttered, pointing at the sole finished building on the site, which included a bathroom for men, a bathroom for women, a bathing house separated by gender, and a communal soaking pool. “The women’s bathroom is insane.”
There were lights that indicated if a stall was in use, the toilets were armed with bidets to limit the usage of paper, the water was put into a septic system meant to reintroduce the used water back to the environment while the solid wastes would be pumped out several times a year and turned to fertilizers that would be used in the orchards and gardens around the resort.
I had no idea where my father had found the ecologists and environmentalists for the project, but he meant to make use of as much of the resort’s waste as possible.
While plastic straws would not be fully banned, the default would be plant-based straws that could be composted.
Plastic straws would be available for those with disabilities needing them if metal or silicon reusable straws were not viable for their use.
Every building would be accessible for those requiring mobility aids.
He’d made it clear: anyone could become the victim of misfortune, and the resort was meant to welcome everyone.
Not every part of Uruk would be accessible due to the age and nature of the site, but there would be dragons on call with special harnesses to fly guests to those locations.
In turn, dragons would be able to enjoy the resort as guests at a reduced rate if they donated some of their time to helping others.
I worried my father was an evil genius who needed big projects to keep him from taking over the world.
No wonder Dragon Heights viewed him as a tyrant. They had allowed him to become bored.
I would not be making that mistake.
“They really are. To be fair, we needed a primary bathroom and bathing house, so it made sense to get that part built first. We’re breaking ground on the museum and primary resort and your private residence.
” My father pointed in the direction of the oasis.
“We’ll also be breaking ground for the agricultural center.
Your mother had a good idea, and I’m going to roll with it. ”
Nothing was more dangerous than my mother with an idea. “Dare I ask?”
“Iraq pitched their major universities create a working farm to teach students land management. We will be growing a lot of our produce, and what we don’t use will be sent to the locals to assist them. In exchange, we’ll enjoy a lower taxation rate.”
I crossed my eyes at the thought of my mother goosing the Iraqi government even more than she already had. “I see.”
Shaking my head over the insanity, I checked on the Yule cats and the carbunclo, who had decided to go for a swim in the spring, chasing each other in the crystal clear waters while lazy fish swam below them.
Fortunately for my nerves, none of the fish were large enough to harm the felines.
Tourmaline made friends with several of the potted plants waiting to be given permanent homes, gifts from the various universities wanting to contribute to the land’s renewal.
My father checked his watch. “Ten minutes until showtime. How does it feel to be a big girl?”
I laughed. To make it clear I couldn’t care less what people thought of me, I’d dressed up closer to Indiana Jones than a self-respecting dragon heiress.
I’d done myself a favor and left the leather jacket in my tent, which was guarded by a bunch of black dragons all related to Joseph and Mary in some fashion or another.
The pair in question fidgeted, waiting for their chance to dig.
“This is more fun than it should be with the insanity of this gathering. We have more security than guests here I think.”
“We really do.” My father gestured at a woman nearby; she’d picked an outfit a lot like mine.
Her jacket was on the ground nearby, and she had a trowel as her tool of choice.
“That is Dr. Laura Boscoll. She is the archaeologist stuck with us for the day. She’s going to be the lead of the excavations for the first two years. ”
While my father had chosen the archaeological staff, he hadn’t mentioned any names. “Why her?”
“She is a dragon-kin working to earn her pilgrimage. Her clan of golds must contribute something to global prosperity in order to qualify for the pilgrimage. She is… not an artist. She is a historian. This project will prove her worth to her clan. She’s older than she looks, and she should earn her pilgrimage after her work here. Helping to restore Uruk counts.”
Dragons. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “How many relics do you think we’re going to unearth today?”