She turned her eyes back to Julian, and his words poured forth and seemed to come from heaven itself. His face glowed with passion, and his dark eyes shone so bright she could feel their heat from across the courtyard.
His words spun a cocoon of silk around her, leaving her breathless with the living, shining truth of what he spoke. And then those blazing eyes turned on her and widened. He paused, midsentence.
As one, the group followed his attention to the back of the room, and though Cassia could not take her eyes from Julian, she heard her name called out by a dozen voices and felt the surge of brothers and sisters scrambling to their feet and pressing toward her with much embracing. The crowd grew thick around her, and she lost view of Julian, who had still been standing at the front with a pleased but remote smile.
So many questions. They all wanted to know how she had gotten free of the palace. When she mentioned to Zeta that she had escaped the day before, a ripple of shock went through the group.
“Where have you been then, girl?” Zeta asked.
“I spent the night in the Roman encampment.”
The declaration silenced the room as though a death shroud had fallen upon them, and then it erupted again in a burst of more questions and consternation.
Cassia answered their questions distractedly, still trying to catch a glimpse of Julian. Was he still there, listening? Had he left already, not wanting to be in the same room with her?
At last the questions quieted, and Malik pushed into the group and put his arm around her waist. “Let’s give Cassia some time to rest.” He led her from the courtyard, into the front hall of his home. Cassia allowed him to remove her because the questions and attention had begun to make her head swim, though she had no intention of resting. Not with Alexander still in the palace.
“In here.” Malik extended a hand through a wide doorway. “Some privacy.”
The room was a luxurious bedchamber, larger than the home she had shared with Aretas. “I cannot sleep, Malik.” She turned to the older man.
He patted her cheek. “Perhaps not. But you can prepare. We have reached the final moments of this battle.”
She nodded, fighting down the wash of useless emotion.
He tilted his head, as if to examine her. “Something has changed. You are different.”
She smiled, her eyes misty. “I have met your Jesus.”
He gripped her hands and his face grew somber. “He is your Jesus now, Cassia.” It did not surprise her that Malik somehow knew all that had transpired in her heart.
“Julian has changed as well.” She searched for words to describe what she had seen.
Malik bowed his head and squeezed her fingers. “We are all changed, Cassia. All of us changed because of your coming to Petra. And this night, this night God will show Himself mighty here through us.”
Her heart tripped over itself at Malik’s words. “Through me as well?” She waited, afraid he would say yes, then afraid he would say no.
He bent to kiss the top of her head. “It is only the beginning. But first”—he turned his face toward the door, where Julian stood, his hands on the door frame—“first you must make things right.”
Julian stood aside to let Malik slip from the room, then brought his attention back to Cassia.
Words failed her, and she felt herself blush under his steady eyes. He did not smile, but neither did he scowl. Cassia could not read his emotions. It was almost as if he felt nothing at all. The idea made her tremble. The days without his friendship had made her realize how important it was to her.
“Julian . . .” She searched for a way to begin, came up with nothing, and fell to silence once more, wondering why he only stood there watching her and did not speak. He still had that fiery look about him, and it seemed he had gained both height and years since she had seen him last.
“Julian, I am sorry.”
He smiled and finally spoke, coming into the room. “There is no need.”
“Oh, but there is.” She took a step toward him, then another, but then backed away again. “I . . . I treated you very badly, said things—”
Julian held up a hand and shook his head. “We do not need to speak of it. It is behind us now, and it matters little.”
“It is important to me! You are important to me. I value your friendship, and I cannot bear the thought—”
He drew close to her, but for all his fiery teaching, she felt little warmth from him. It was as though he were one of his sculptures. “You have my friendship, Cassia. And my respect.”
She searched his eyes for some sign of more. “I want you to know that those things I said—”
Again, he held up a hand. “Please, Cassia. There is no need to speak of it again.”
“But—”
“And it is of no consequence. Not any longer. There are other things.”
She had thought him cold when he first entered, but now she saw his face light from within.
“Other things?”
“The flock here.” He turned his head to the doorway. “They are about to be called forth to a great challenge and a great showing of power. I must focus on them, on helping them stand firm.”
“You are . . . you are leading them.” The wondering words fell from her lips.
Julian’s back straightened, and again the glow of something other-worldly, something heavenly, shone from his eyes.
He does not need me.
The thought rocked her, even as she saw he had become everything she had wanted.
All those years with Aretas, she had been drawn to his strength, his confidence. And yet it was a layer of stone over a core that crumbled with a lack of integrity, and in the end it had been their undoing.
But Julian . . . She looked up into those dark eyes, the full lips, alive with a smile that was no longer for her, and she saw he had become a leader with both strength and character.
The effect on her heart was shattering, and she reached out for him, wanting him to know she loved him.
“Cassia.” He held her hands far from him. “You will always be dear to my heart. But God has shown me that I do not need the approval of others, nor their praise, for I have His acceptance and His call. And that is where I must turn my life.”
“But—”
“Rest awhile, if you can. The night will be long and it will be fierce.” He dropped her hands. “I will be here when it is time.”
And then he was gone, and she stumbled backward, sank into the generous bedding Malik had provided, and felt the heavy weight of a great loss.
FORTY-THREE
HAGIRU HAD NOT IMAGINED THIS DAY AS IT HAD UNFOLDED. When the gods first whispered to her that the boy must die, she thought the Festival of Grain would arrive with sacred celebration and a resolute certainty that she acted in accordance with the will of Dushara.
But as the time for the sacrifice drew near, Hagiru found herself in the Temple of al-‘Uzza, kneeling before the massive black cubic stone, beseeching Dushara to guide her acts.
Rabbel’s body grew cold in the death chamber, Cassia had escaped every attempt to dispose of her, and from what Hagiru’s assassin reported, she was returning to Petra with a contingent of Romans protecting her.
She whispered a prayer, a powerful supplication that called on the gods to give her success, then laid her hands on the black stone—a presumption for which she would have executed anyone else.
“Dushara, strengthen me. Al-‘Uzza, guide my hand.”
Surely the sacrifice of Alexander would assure the gods’ favor and keep the Romans from annexing Petra and her kingdom. When the boy was out of the way, Obadas would sit on the throne, with her behind him. And a new era of strength would come to Nabataea.
The crackle of dry tinder and a smoky scent drew her from the stone betyl to the outer chamber where a priest prepared a sacrifice. She swept across the chamber to the altar and circled it, staring into the flames and seeking knowledge.
Why did the Romans come with Cassia?<
br />
She could think of only one answer. Instead of a provincial governor, they intended to place their own king, nothing more than a puppet of Rome, on the throne of Petra, as they had done in Judea. The long line of Herods, the first of whom had been born right here in Petra, had kept relative peace for Rome for many years, until some sixty years ago.
And if the Romans meant to put their own king in Petra, somehow Cassia had convinced them it should be Alexander.
Hagiru stopped before the altar as the priest threw pinches of incense into the flames, which popped and sizzled over the flesh of a young lamb.
She breathed deeply of the burning scent, letting it dizzy her and carry her mind to a place somewhere in the heavens, as though she floated above the temple.
The sense of power that came with this mental flight comforted her for only a moment, before thoughts of the Romans, of Cassia and her brat, invaded and brought her earthbound once again.
The surging hatred for the girl and for Rabbel’s grandson was like flames in her throat.
What did she have if she did not have Petra? With Rabbel gone, power was all that remained. And if that was taken from her, she would have nothing.
Be nothing.
The silent priest offered her a chunk of the lamb’s cooked flesh, and she snatched it from him and chewed it angrily, uncaring that it scorched her mouth. The flesh was fatty, and she could do little to destroy it. The lack of cooperation angered her further, as though the meat also defied her and refused to be controlled. Could she not even rule over a piece of meat?
She spit the mouthful into the fire.
Enough.
She turned from the altar and stalked to the temple entrance where one of her slaves waited to escort her back to the palace. “Fetch the boy. Aretas’s son. Bring him to my chamber.”
The slave bowed and ran to do her bidding. At least someone listens to me.
Hagiru strode back to the palace, unheeding of anything around her. Only one thing concerned her. Was her desire to do away with the boy truly in obedience to the gods, or was she only motivated out of a selfish desire for her son to rule? She almost feared to seek the answer of the gods on this matter, and yet she feared even more doing something that would not please them. She could not take that chance.
So once in her own bedchamber, where her personal shrine for the household gods burned with its own small sacrificial fire—an oil lamp and incense—she braced her hands against either side of the wall niche that housed the small figure of Dushara, with his grapeleaf garland and curly beard, and opened her heart to whatever the gods might say to her.
Hagiru had not realized how much she had been holding the voices at bay until this moment of opening herself. The voices rushed in, like air into an unused chamber, feeding a flame within her.
She put her hands to her head, trying to still the clamor and the matching chaos that overtook her physical body and seemed to turn her organs in upon themselves.
It was always like this at first, as though the gods themselves fought over which of them would reign in her mind, which of them would speak. And when one voice would speak louder than the others, still she often felt they were all there even yet, pacing behind the leader like an angry pride of desert lions, waiting for their king to fall.
The competing growls faded as she stared into the lamp’s flame, and one voice spoke, low and soothing.
Destroy the child.
Hagiru sighed and closed her eyes. So simple. So definite.
The door to her chamber swooshed open and she turned, ready to take possession of the boy and enact the will of the gods.
A slave bowed at the waist, his wide and fearful eyes still on her. “The boy cannot be found.”
Hagiru huffed. “He is about somewhere. Look in the courtyard. Find Bethea.”
“They are both missing. No one has seen them for some time.”
Her blood ran colder, like an icy wind had blown across her veins. “The pathetic little thing cannot have gone far. Find her.”
But in the end, it was not the slaves who located Bethea. They came to Hagiru in the palace courtyard, where she lounged beside the fountain, watching Obadas draw pictures of tigers on the flagstones with a sharp rock.
“We have searched throughout the palace.” The slave was clearly terrified to bring the news to the queen. She rose from her chaise, tried to burn a hole through the slave with the force of her glare, then strode past him into the front halls.
Here, in the fading daylight, she closed her eyes, let her head drop backward, and breathed a prayer. “Gods and goddesses of Petra, hear me.” Her scratchy whisper diffused through the hall. “I am your servant, here to do your bidding.” She let the silence build, then issued her request.
“Show me the boy.”
Dark thoughts and fearsome images tumbled through her head, visions of fire and blood, screams of terror, and she welcomed them in, glorying in them, for she believed she saw the near future and it would be good. And then the face of Alexander, at first blurred and distorted but then growing sharp, appeared before her, and she saw him, huddled and frightened, in the cell where Cassia had spent too little time the day before.
The messenger slave still cowered behind her, and she whirled on him. “Below the palace,” she barked. “In the cells. You will find him there.”
His eyes grew large at her certainty, but he fled toward the steps at the end of the hall.
Hagiru went to the palace entrance, ignored the two guards who offered to escort her anywhere, and stood on the portico, her gaze trained upward to the cliff top where the altar waited. The sun had nearly dropped behind the westernmost cliff of Petra, and already Hagiru could see that a line of citizens snaked up the back side of the cliff, a procession that would continue until the High Place had filled for the festival. Even then, people would be perched on ledges and sitting on the paths that led upward, as close as they could get to the holy sacrifice.
A scuffle in the hall behind drew her attention and she turned to the palace.
Two guards dragged a woman and a child toward her.
Bethea. Hagiru stared at her protégé and shook with a hatred borne of betrayal. She was never good enough.
Bethea would not meet her eyes, but Hagiru had little interest in her at the moment. She would deal with the girl later.
But the boy . . .
She towered over Alexander, who looked up at her with the innocence of a lamb. Perfect.
“Bind him,” she said to the slaves, then looked toward the High Place again. “It is time.”
FORTY-FOUR
“CASSIA. CASSIA, IT IS TIME.”
She jolted awake, disoriented. Had she slept in Malik’s extra bedchamber? How could she sleep when the moments of Alexander’s life were disappearing like grains of sand blown across the desert?
Malik smoothed her hair and smiled. “It is good that you rested.”
“No, no, I must do something.” She swung her legs from the bedding, then paused, dizzy.
But do what?
This question had plagued her since she returned to Petra without the Romans. She had no confidence they would arrive in time, for although Corvinus had agreed to help her, he could as easily take the city by force without any agreement from her.
So she had no plan. Nothing but the certainty that she would be on the High Place before the sacrifice took place.
Her glance shot to the small square window in the bedchamber. It was not fully dark, but it had grown late as she had slept.
She stood, then gripped Malik’s arm, trying to draw strength from him. He laid his hand over hers.
“Remember who goes with you, Cassia.”
She nodded. “I know. You and Julian will be there. And the rest of the church.”
“Jesus walks by your side. The very Spirit of the Christ is within your heart.”
She searched his eyes, wanting to believe he spoke truth. “I think I finally understand what you have been telling me, Mal
ik. About not needing the love of others if I could understand the love of Christ.”
He smiled, though she sensed a sadness there as well. “And so you have found the strength you sought. Not within. And yet it is within. For you are not only the mother of a king, you are the child of a King as well.”
She faced him fully, looked more deeply into his eyes, saw into the depth of his heart. “What is it, Malik? I see—I believe you are afraid.” Her voice shook a bit at the observation. If Malik was afraid, how could she be brave?
He inhaled deeply, then looked away, to the darkening sky outside the window. “The Father will use this ability you have, Cassia. This way of seeing to the heart.”
She bowed her head. From the time her parents had called her “Little Sorceress,” she had sought to use her ability only to protect herself. But she thought now of her words on the rocky ledge with Julian. “I do not always use it fairly. Sometimes it is a way to wound others.”
He shook his head. “It is a gift, you will see. A gift from the Father, to guide you in how to love others well.”
She caught his hands in her own, drew them up between them, and kissed the gnarled fingers, remembering the first time they had met and the way he had laid these hands on her injured shoulder. “Tell me why you are downcast.”
“I do not fear the queen.” He spoke as though confessing secrets. “Nor do I fear that God’s power will be defeated tonight. But—” He sighed and dropped his head, then lifted it again and met her eyes. “I have told no one this. Not even Julian.” He smiled but his eyes watered. “The Lord has given me to know that my time here in Petra is coming to an end.”
Cassia frowned. “Where would you go?”
“To glory.”
Her breath caught in her chest and she dropped his hands.
“It is well, Cassia. The church here will thrive, the Lord tells me. Under capable leadership, as you must know.”
She pressed her hands to her chest, as though that could ease the heaviness in her heart.
Palace of Darkness Page 27