Palace of Darkness by Tracy L. Higley Read Free Book Online Page A

intercept her. “Excuse me.” She smiled. “I am new to the city and looking for family.”
    The girl studied Cassia for a moment and shifted one bag to her hip. “Yes?”
    Cassia swallowed. “My late husband’s family, actually. His name was Aretas, but he left here some years ago. His mother’s name was Gamilath.”
    The girl snorted. “Gamilath and Aretas. Like every other child born in this city.” She pushed past them, but Cassia stayed her with a hand on the girl’s arm.
    “Please, we must find them. His mother liked to grow things. She had beautiful gardens, he once told me.”
    The girl’s mocking smile chilled Cassia. “Have you been into the city?”
    Cassia pointed to the end of the Siq. “We’ve just arrived from Damascus.”
    The girl inclined her head over her shoulder, toward the open end of the canyon. “We may live in the rock, but we have more gardens than sand.” She shifted her bags again and walked on, shaking her head.
    Cassia squeezed Alex’s hand and approached another woman, this one older and perhaps closer to Aretas’s mother’s age. She repeated her question, watching the woman’s eyes form narrow slits as she looked Cassia up and down.
    “People in this city have enough to take care of their own. They don’t need outsiders coming to live off them.”
    Cassia straightened and pulled her shoulders back. “We are family.”
    The woman shrugged. “I can’t help you.” She turned her back and called out to someone across the agora.
    “Mama, Petra people aren’t nice.” Alex’s words were too loud.
    “There are kind people everywhere, Alex. We must only find them.”
    “Where do we find them?”
    Cassia looked at the emptying market. Where indeed?
    She approached a merchant who was packing up his perfumes and unguents into satchels and loading them onto a tired-looking mule. He shook his head. “You will have trouble, I’m afraid, if that’s all you know. The names of Nabataean royalty are overused in every family.” He grinned and scratched his head. “They believe a royal name will bring wealth, I suppose.”
    Cassia thanked him and turned from his table.
    “You’d best get shelter for the night,” he called after them. “While it’s still safe.”
    With what money? I must find family.
    She pulled Alex from merchant to merchant, stopped townspeople, repeated her request so many times she lost count, always withthe same answer or no answer at all. Alex’s hand grew heavy in hers, and it became an effort to pull him forward.
    And then night fell.
    It came suddenly, when the sun dropped behind the mountains, taking Cassia by surprise, for the market was not yet empty. But when she searched for another merchant or stranger to question, she realized the market was a caravan camp, and the crowd that remained were all traders, bedding down for the night under stick-propped woolen blankets or black goat-hair tents, against their camels for warmth and protection. They slept in small rings of fellow travelers, with one sitting watch to protect their merchandise.
    She turned a circle in the center of the canyon, now more like a nomadic settlement than an agora, and felt the isolation bear down upon them.
    They had no blanket, no stick, no camel. No one to watch over them.
    No one who cared.
    Cassia’s stomach clenched with loneliness and fear. Her eyes connected with a dark-skinned trader who lay stretched on a colorful blanket, propped on one elbow, beside his camel. He gave her a half smile, and she looked away, uncertain of his intent.
    “Come, Alex.” She led him toward the end of the market. Her sense of danger sparked, and she knew they were followed.
    “Where will we go now, Mama?”
    “Keep walking, Alex. Keep walking.”
    She knew no better than Alexander where they would go. The open area that had welcomed them from the narrow gorge led only in one direction, but ahead she could see a dark cliff outlined against the night sky. The valley must turn to the