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

left, and the city lay beyond. They walked on, until the cliff face on their left curved and theyturned. It was too dark to see much, though the ground rose slightly beneath their feet. Cassia sensed water on either side of a rise. Ahead, flickers of light here and there indicated homes, perhaps. But how could there be many houses in this narrow valley between high cliffs?
    Alexander’s pace slowed, and Cassia felt the usual stab of guilt at all the boy had endured. She pulled him toward the side of the road. They needed to find shelter.
    At the roadside they stepped onto a stone platform and Cassia studied the darkness, searching for any place to lay their heads. She realized with surprise they had stumbled upon the town’s amphitheatre, with stone seats rising above them into the cliff face. They stood on the orchestra platform, as though about to recite or perform.
    There must be halls behind the seats. And they would be deserted at this hour.
    A scrape of sandal on stone behind them caused Cassia to turn. It would be the first person they’d encountered since leaving the traders, and she hoped for a friendly face.
    But a shape flew toward her out of the darkness and rough arms shoved her. She stumbled backward, tried to keep her balance. Her left shoulder cracked against a column at the back of the scanae . The blow jolted her head forward and sent stinging needles of fire into her shoulder.
    The grubby face of a trader leaned into hers. “What have you got in your pouch there, woman?”
    Cassia turned her face away from his foul breath. Her shoulder burned with a white heat. She brought her knee up quickly, but he was too wary. He sidestepped her effort, then ripped the pouch from her neck. She had lost sight of Alex and prayed he hid in the shadows.
    Her attacker rifled through the pack, yanked out clothing, andtossed it aside. When his fist emerged with her money pouch, her heart sank.
    The trader tossed the pack to the ground and disappeared like black smoke rising into the night sky.
    “Alexander!” Cassia kept her voice low but urgent. The boy appeared at once and rushed into her outstretched arms. She bit back a cry of pain. Something was not right with her shoulder.
    “Everyone wants to hurt us.” His simple statement, as though it were a fact of his life, slashed at her heart.
    “We will be fine,” she promised, knowing it was foolish. “I need you to gather our belongings, Alex.” She pointed to the clothing strewn about the stage. “There is the pack.”
    He darted around obediently, snatching up all they had left in the world and stuffing it into the pack.
    She watched him circle the orchestra, and her head seemed to circle with him, a strange, spinning feeling, as though the stars above were silver leaves in a black eddying whirlpool. And then the blackness rushed down from the sky and scooped her up, and she felt herself falling . . .
    And then nothing as the blackness carried her away.

SEVEN

    T HE BLACKNESS WAVERED ABOVE C ASSIA ’ S HEAD , NOW dark, now orange and flickering, now ribbons of yellow and black in a reddish sky. She fought the heavy pull of her eyelids, fought the thickness that held her with a weighty hand.
    Beside her, behind her, there were murmurs. Tiny fragments of conversation, slivered into words and phrases she could not comprehend.
    Alex. Where are you?
    The pain in her shoulder intensified. She tried to swallow but her throat felt like the Nabataean desert, and the effort caught and choked her.
    She felt the rim of a cup at her lips, held by an unseen hand, and sipped warmed wine, gratitude filling her.
    The darkness came again, but when it lifted, she was able to open her eyes.
    She lay upon a bed, soft with layers of woven blankets. An oil lamp smaller than her hand burned in a niche in the wall. The room was small, though still mostly in shadows, unreached by the tiny flame.
    A man sat beside her. His soft brown eyes studied her, silent butkind, with deep lines like