Palace of Darkness Read Online Free

considered her choices as Aretas came at her.
    She could leave until morning. But it would be worse when she returned.
    She could leave now, forever. But he would never let her take Alexander.
    She could not leave alone.
    No, she must wait. Wait for her chance. She thought of Aretas’s insistence that she and Alex help swindle the traders passing through Damascus. He would give her money as part of the game they played. She toyed with a possibility, turning it over in her mind like a new gold coin.
    The gash in his side must not have pained Aretas too much, at least not enough to soften the blow to her ribs. Don’t cry out. Focus on tomorrow. Our last chance.
    She dodged his fists and focused on her pot of caraway. A little brown on the tips of the leaves. More water, perhaps. Caraway was a sensitive plant.
    Aretas soon tired and left her alone. She wiped the sweat from her brow and blood from her mouth. The beatings never lasted long when he had been drinking. He was asleep within minutes, one arm thrown over his forehead, mouth dropped open and snoring. But Cassia did not sleep, not for many hours. Tomorrow was too important.
    When she did at last drift off, it was with the comforting thought that although her ribs burned like fire, her heart had at last turned to ice.
    She had been weak for too long. It was time for action.

THREE

    T HE EARLY - MORNING LIGHT , WATERY AND COOL , FILTERED into the front room and woke Cassia from her uneasy sleep. She lifted herself from the cushions, wincing at the stab in her side. But she would not give in to self-pity today.
    Across the room, Aretas sat cross-legged on the floor, readying what he called their “merchandise.”
    Nothing more than powder and lies.
    “Paid too much for this alabaster,” he muttered, pouring powdered resin through a small funnel into the mouth of a tiny pearl-white jar.
    “It is beautiful.” Cassia crossed the room and knelt beside him to stroke the smooth surface of the jar. Aretas knew all about luxuries such as alabaster. He had never brought her anything so fine.
    Aretas set the jar on the floor and picked up a small clay jar. He pulled the stopper from it and, in an uncommon gesture of goodwill, held it to Cassia to let her smell.
    She breathed deeply of the cloying scent of myrrh.
    “The trick is to mix it just right.” Aretas sniffed it himself.
    Cassia said nothing. Aretas always enjoyed explaining his schemes to her.
    “A few pinches in the jar”—he let the amber-yellow powder drift into the jar’s mouth—“then a generous coating on the rim and the stopper.” He finished his preparation of the jar, then held it out to her to smell again.
    She took a sniff and nodded. “Smells the same. As strong as the pure myrrh.”
    Aretas grinned. “Though worth a fraction of the price.”
    Cassia tried to match his smile, but her stomach knotted and she felt her expression darken. Aretas did not miss the change, but he mistook her resolve for fear.
    “You will play your part well.” He left no room for argument. “It grows late. You two get dressed.” He reached for another small jar to repeat his villainous process.
    Cassia crossed the room to a wooden box he had placed on the table. Inside lay the dress, the sumptuous silk robe she was only allowed to wear on these occasions. She lifted the pale-yellow silk from its soft folds and let it fall before her.
    “Alex,” she called to the back room. “Get dressed in your linen tunic.”
    She stripped her dirty tunic and let the yellow silk wrap her in softness. In the bottom of the box lay two delicate sandals, and she slipped these on as well, then turned for Aretas’s approval.
    He looked up, nodded once, and then returned to his work. “Better powder that eye.”
    She found some of the white lead powder and brushed it across the bruised flesh.
    Alexander emerged as Aretas packed his jars between layers of linen in a large pouch and lifted the strap over his head and shoulder. “You