Tempt the Stars

what he meant, because most of the people hanging around the gate, waiting for friends and family to come out, looked like a mix of those on the road. With one exception. A depressing number had what looked like slaves following along behind, thin men and women, and in some cases children, in bare feet and simple tunics, their arms reaching for packages and boxes or the reins of animals.
    Most of the slaves didn’t look native. Some of them didn’t even look human. I was staring, probably rudely, at one with mottled blue skin and what looked like a few extra arms when Rian grabbed my sleeve.
    Because yeah.
    The guards were thick on the ground in here, too.
    They were slightly less obvious, lounging by food stalls or interspersed with the crowd by the gate. But there were plenty of them, scanning the new arrivals with the watchfulness of cops and security forces everywhere. And they didn’t look like they missed much.
    But they missed us, thanks to Caleb.
    He waved a hand, sending a jolt of something to goose the last in a line of camels a little ways in front of us. It gave a startled bleat and crashed into the next in line, and then the whole group, already tense from the dark tunnel they’d just been through, were bellowing and bucking and scattering in all directions. The frantic driver and his boy ran after them, yelling for help, which they reluctantly got from some of the merchants with vulnerable piles of fruit and veg.
    They didn’t get any from the guards.
    But for a moment, everyone was watching the show instead of the line, and we slipped through.
    “This way, quickly,” Rian said, pulling us out of the crush around the gate and into the more anonymous crowd.
    Or, at least, that’s what it looked like she said. I couldn’t hear a damned thing. To the sounds of people talking and cart wheels squeaking and animals bleating and merchants cursing and music blaring from every tavern on every street had just been added a blast of horns from the higher walls, heralding the arrival of night.
    I grabbed Rian’s arm, so I wouldn’t lose her, and gave up on subtlety. Nobody could hear me in all this anyway. “Where are they keeping him?” I yelled, only to have her nod at the street directly ahead of us. And say something I couldn’t make out, because I don’t have vampire hearing.
    But then, maybe I didn’t need it.
    Far above the smelly, raucous, lively streets was a long, low, elegant building of balconies and terraces and a few graceful towers. Patches of greenery interlaced the stone here and there, almost shocking in this landscape. What looked like fountains caught the last of the light in a few places. And while the place looked like it had also been carved out of the local stone, it must have come from a different strata. Because it was a pale, honey gold that shimmered against the darker layers all around, as if laced with gold dust.
    If ever anything had screamed
palace
, that was it.
    “It’s not behind the highest wall,” Caleb said, in my ear. As if he’d come to the same conclusion.
    “So . . . that’s good at least.”
    “Depends.”
    I turned to look at him. “On what?”
    “On what’s on those upper three levels.”
    They were dark, now that the local sun had set, set into the cliffs under an overhang of stone, with just a few stray lights gleaming here and there ominously. Like a heavy brow over glittering eyes. I felt myself start to tense up again, even without knowing why.
    And then I got a reason when Caleb gave me a massive shove from behind.
    I stumbled and then hit the ground, wrenching a wrist and skinning my hands in the process. But I didn’t mind. Because a moment later, somebody in a swift-moving chariot tore through the souk—including the area where I’d just been standing. If I’d stayed where I was, I’d have been crushed under its wheels like the worldly belongings of one unfortunate immigrant.
    The driver never even appeared to notice. I watched from the ground as he turned onto one of the spokelike streets radiating out from the hub formed by the gate, his bright green silk robe flapping as he whipped his chariot back and forth on a crazy course that seemed intent on doing the most damage possible. Until it hit the front of a shop and crashed inside, the camel creatures bucking and rearing and making enough noise to cut through even the noise of the crowd.
    The driver jumped off, laughing, and disappeared into a tavern across the street, along