Free Backyard Dragons by Lee French

tapped one, he disappeared. Claire recoiled and looked around. No one else reacted, and at least two men ought to have noticed. She decided to avoid that shelf in case it randomly ate Knights and spat them out elsewhere.
    She walked past the shelves, peering down each aisle. The huge room curved to the right until she felt certain it had taken her in a complete circle without going up or down. At the end, she stopped and stared at an enormous, intricately carved and painted mural depicting a dozen different scenes.
    The Heart of the Palace, mounted on his white horse, led a small army of similarly dressed men into battle against dragons the same size Enion had been in their test. Unicorns, giant squid, and other creatures Claire recognized from Greco-Roman mythology also showed up in various sections. All seemed more monstrous than the usual depictions.
    The center drew her eyes more than anything else, though. One woman in a bone-white toga-style dress had been depicted with precise care, her image sculpted from the wall. Though the lines of her face had been stylized to a degree, Claire recognized this woman as a near-copy of herself. Even the skin, eyes, and hair all shared the same coloring as hers.
    Given the Heart’s reaction to her, Claire guessed this woman must be Iulia. She couldn’t understand why such loving care had been taken with this depiction. If Iulia was a witch, Claire expected her portrait would show a monster, or at least an ugly hag. She hesitated to apply the term “beautiful,” given it would also apply to herself, but Iulia certainly wasn’t unpleasant to look at.
    Curious about the woman, Claire reached out and touched the mural, brushing her fingertips across the smooth stone of Iulia’s cheek. The world spun around her until she stood at the verge of a ridge overlooking farmland and orchards. Late afternoon sun in a clear, bright blue sky bathed her in gentle warmth and sparkled on the surface of a distant lake.
    She turned around on the spot, dazzled by the view. Behind her stood a white stone structure similar to a gazebo built with scalloped columns. Its dome rose twenty feet into the air with a stone wave at the apex, sculpted froth and bubbles curving in an upward spiral to point at the sky. Its eight gleaming marble columns rested on a layer of wide, square stones set a foot above the rocky ground. From fifty feet away, she thought a design had been carved into the center but couldn’t see it well enough to make out the shape.
    Clopping horse hooves drew Claire’s attention to the cliff at her feet. A narrow path zig-zagged up the near-vertical rock face, bereft of any vegetation. The Heart’s white horse carried him and someone else under his russet cloak to the top of the cliff, its hooves sending tiny sprays of dirt tumbling to the ground at least a hundred feet below.
    At the top, the horse stopped in a majestic pose while the Heart tossed his cloak open. They cut a more striking figure than Justin and Tariel when they preened. Iulia straightened from her perch under his cloak and touched the Heart’s hand at her waist.
    Claire remembered watching her parents on her father’s horse. They’d sat the same way, leaning into and trusting each other. The Heart clearly loved Iulia, making his reaction to Claire all the stranger.
    Since they ignored Claire, she assumed they couldn’t see her. This had to be an echo or imprint of someone’s memory, or perhaps a recreation of an event wholly from the magic animating the Palace.
    The Heart climbed down from his horse’s saddle. “I told you we’d arrive in plenty of time.” He reached up and lifted Iulia by her slim waist to set her gently on the ground.
    Iulia touched his dark beard and smiled at him. “Yes, you did. Erefel is at least as remarkable a beast as you claim.” She took a deep breath, reveling in the fresh air full of pine and rich earth.
    He untied a saddlebag from the horse and carried it to the temple while Iulia