Mirage Read Free Page A

blurted out. “Who advised him to do this?”
    Dash’s eagerness seemed to snap Borte out of his conspiratorial mood. His face returned to its hard lines. “It is for the good of the herd. It is for the good of all Equians.”
    At the southern edge of the market, they stopped at the bottom of a wide ramp leading up to a massive open-air palace that overlooked the rest of the city. Gold and gemstones covered the building’s ornate pillars. At midday, it glinted like a second sun. Aluna couldn’t look away.
    “The seat of the High Khan,” Borte announced with forced enthusiasm. The four other guards responded in perfect unison. “May the High Khan live and rule forever!”
    “Tides’ teeth, could they have crammed any more sparklies onto that thing?” Hoku mumbled.
    Calli lowered her eyes. “I know! There’s even gold inlay on the ground. Under our feet! Who needs to walk on gold?”
    Dash frowned. “This building was not here before. Our people are practical. The desert demands it. High Khan Onggur is first and foremost one of his herd. I do not understand this . . . this
display
.”
    But deep down in her gut, Aluna was starting to see the big picture, and it terrified her. They’d come here to warn the desert Equians about Karl Strand and his clone Scorch.
    Maybe they were too late.

B ORTE MADE THEM REMOVE their head wraps before seeing the High Khan. Hoku didn’t mind. He had gotten used to the confining fabric, but missed running his fingers through his hair when he got nervous. No one wore head wraps inside the city. Mirage’s dome blocked out the harmful parts of the sun’s rays and left only the light. “There is no need to hide from her radiant glory,” Borte said. “Those who continue to wear head wraps are clearly hiding from something else.”
    Hoku shoved his head wrap into his satchel, wishing for the millionth time that he hadn’t left Zorro back in the HydroTek dome. The Dome Meks had convinced him that Zorro’s mechanical raccoon body hadn’t been built for the desert, that the sand could damage his tech and break him forever. Hurting Zorro was not a risk Hoku was willing to take, despite how much he missed the furry little guy.
    As they walked up the ramp toward the palace, Hoku noticed the horses. Horses painted on the stone beneath their feet, horses engraved on wide pillars holding up the palace’s roof, horses embroidered on the black-and-red banners flying overhead. And the gold! Didn’t the Equians understand how useful gold was as a conductor? That it resisted corrosion better than a lot of other metals? And here they were, slathering it on every depiction of the sun in their artwork instead of using it in their tech.
    “Send a good bolt of electricity through this place, and the gold might electrocute all the Equians at once,” Hoku muttered to Calli. She barely suppressed a giggle.
    At the top of the platform, Mirage’s artificial wind snapped the banners and blew Hoku’s hair into his eyes. The High Khan stood at the center, surrounded by tables of food, piles of bright pillows, and a handful of advisers and servants all wearing Red Sky’s colors. The contrast between the stinky, smoke-filled market below and the High Khan’s breezy palace couldn’t have been more stark.
    To the High Khan’s side, a handful of other Equians stood in a clump. They each wore different styles of clothes — some in elaborate embroidered and beaded layers, others in simple desert tunics. A ring of Red Sky guards surrounded them, blocking Hoku’s view. But if he’d had to guess, he’d say they had also arrived as guests and discovered that they were something else entirely.
    High Khan Onggur’s presence dominated the pavilion. He was easily the largest Equian Hoku had ever seen — not quite as big as Great White, but just as impressive. Onggur’s muscled arms bulged. His black hair fell in one long braid at his side, a perfect match for the shiny black coat of his powerful horse