Author: Leah Cypess

“Find out more about who ordered the at ack. I know.” Darri looked over her shoulder at the closed door.

“It wasn’t dif icult to figure out who you were looking for at that disgusting party. And I had no maid when I woke up this evening.”

Cal ie moved swiftly, put ing herself in the narrow space between Darri and the door. “She’s not your maid.

She hasn’t been anyone’s maid for hundreds of years.”

Darri turned around and looked down at her. “If you’re not going to come in with me, wil you step out of my way?”

“There’s nothing you can do here, Darri.”

Their eyes were only inches apart. Darri’s were dark and hard, and Cal ie’s heart twisted. She had always hated having Darri angry at her.

“I said,” Darri snapped, “step out of my way.”

Her heart twisted harder, and then something snapped. Cal ie lifted her chin. She was shorter, she was younger, and Darri stil thought of her as a child; but ever since the moment Darri had stepped into the banquet hal , without any idea of what she was walking into, Cal ie had felt like she was the older sister.

“Don’t tel me what to do, Darri. You have no idea what I’ve been through, or what I know. I’m the one who can handle this. You’re just get ing in over your head.”

Darri went red with fury. “Over my head? Because I haven’t become a sniveling courtier who turns her back on her own family? Because I’m just a Rael ian barbarian?”

Wel . . . yes. Cal ie clenched her fists at her sides. “Is that what you think I’ve been doing? I’ve been through terror and hopelessness and come out on the other side. And yes, I’m a part of this court now. It was the only way I could survive.”

The anger vanished from Darri’s face. She said, so softly Cal ie could barely hear it, “And you blame me.”

“No,” Cal ie said, and her own anger drained away just as fast. “Not anymore.”

“You should blame me.” Darri gave Cal ie a stricken look. “You believed me, when I said I would save you.

And instead I let them take you away.”

And suddenly Cal ie was back on that horse, her hands trembling so hard she could barely hold the reins, looking over her shoulder at her older sister. Watching the stretches of grass grow longer and longer between them, not quite believing that Darri wasn’t fol owing her.

She turned away, but Darri grabbed her chin and pul ed her head back, forcing her to look into her eyes.

“I should have stopped them. It doesn’t mat er that I couldn’t, I stil should have, and if you hate me, Cal ie, I understand. I failed you. It’s my fault, everything that’s happened to you.”

“No,” Cal ie whispered. She jerked her head free. “Darri, don’t you see? The reason you were the one who failed was because you were the only one who even tried.”

“I’m here to do more than try. This time, Cal ie, this time it’s dif erent. I’l be the one who stays, and Varis wil take you back. They have no use for both of us. You can go back to the plains—”

Cal ie felt dizzy with panic. “Into the arms of my loving family? Do you think I want that?”

“We always knew we meant nothing to Father,” Darri said. “We were never going to let that stop us.

Nothing has changed. Everything wil be the way it was going to be, before—you’l be married to one of the warriors, and you’l have your own tent, your own horses. You’l have your own life, and when it ends, your spirit wil ride the wind. You won’t spend your life and your death buried in a castle, in darkness, surrounded by monsters.”

“Instead you wil ?” Cal ie whispered.

“Instead you wil ?” Cal ie whispered.

“Yes,” Darri said. “Gladly. Al I want is to save you.”

If she cried, she was lost. Cal ie struggled against the tears, forcing her eyes wide, clenching her throat. She waited so long that Darri started to move forward again, and Cal ie held up both hands to stop her. “Darri, wait. I’m—I appreciate it.” It sounded terribly inadequate, for what Darri had just of ered, but she couldn’t think of what else to say. “But you have to believe me. You can do no good here.”

“I’m not here to do good,” Darri said flatly, and shoved Cal ie to the side. Cal ie had been braced for that, ready to fight, but she should have saved herself the trouble. Her sister was strong.

Wel , Darri had been living on horseback, while Cal ie had spent her time in long gowns and gossipy parties. For an unguarded moment, shame tickled her—a reminder of what it would be like to see herself through her own people’s eyes. A hint of what it would feel like if she went back.

Not that it mat ered. She would never go back.

Darri glanced over her shoulder at Cal ie, clearly surprised at how easy that had been, then turned back to the door.

“Hold on a second,” Cal ie said. “You can’t just knock on the door and expect—”

Darri leaned back and kicked the door open. It hadn’t been locked, and the force of her kick slammed the door to the wal with a thud.

The girl in the room glanced up at them and disappeared at once.

“See?” Cal ie mut ered.

Darri leaned against one side of the doorframe and put a foot up on the other. “So what?” she said. “She’s invisible, but she’s stil here. I doubt she’s interested in finding new living quarters, or giving me a chance to look through her belongings.”

“That’s your great plan, then—to wait her out?”

“Yes,” Darri said.

Cal ie looked at her sister’s face and sighed. “She’l do it, you know,” she addressed the emptiness in the room. “She’l literal y stand there for days.”

“But she has to eat, doesn’t she?” The voice that spoke back out of the emptiness was sharp, with a commoner’s accent but not a hint of servility. “Whereas I do not.”

“We just want to talk to you,” Cal ie said.

“Alas,” the voice murmured, “I do not want to talk to you.”

“That’s a shame,” Darri said. With one smooth movement she pul ed open her belt pouch, dipped into it, and flung out her hand.

Cal ie heard Meandra scream before she saw the flashes in the air and realized what Darri had done. The scream was so loud it nearly drowned out the tinkling of dozens of coins hit ing the floor.

Cal ie had seen those coins a mil ion times before she left the plains. They were minted in the Green Islands and favored by merchants because of their stable value and smal size.

They were made of silver.

Meandra was visible now, crouched on the deep blue rug near the bed, screaming. An angry red welt showed where one coin had hit her cheek.

“Darri!” Cal ie gasped.

Her sister strode into the room, bending to scoop up one of the coins as she went. She grabbed Meandra by the hair, wrenched her head up, and made as if to slap the coin to her neck. The scream became shril and terrified.

Darri’s hand stopped with deadly precision an inch from the maid’s throat. “Who is the Defender?”

“Don’t kil me!” the dead girl shrieked.

“They’re coins, not knives. They won’t kil you. They’l only”—Darri paused—“hurt you.”

“I can’t tel you—”

Darri’s smile froze Cal ie’s blood. Barbarian, she thought. She would real y do it. She would do anything.

“Are you sure?” Darri said. Her hand moved. Cal ie couldn’t see if she touched the coin to the maid’s skin or not, but the movement ripped another scream from Meandra’s throat. And right on the tail of the scream, a phrase.

Darri let go of her hair and stepped back. “Thank you.”

Meandra looked up at her, sobbing, the welt an angry red on her round face. Cal ie flinched slightly as Meandra looked past her sister at her.

“Let’s go,” Darri said, and strode back toward the door, leaving the deadly coins scat ered on the floor.

Cal ie had to scurry to keep up with her. “That was not smart.”

“I got my answer, didn’t I?” Darri flung over her shoulder. “So the Defender is the leader of the dead. Very interesting. Do the living know that the dead have their own leader?”

“That’s not important right now. Darri, stop!”

Her sister obeyed so instantly that Cal ie, who hadn’t expected compliance, almost ran into her. She took several hasty steps back.

“You don’t know what you just did.” Even though the hal was deserted, Cal ie instinctively lowered her “You don’t know what you just did.” Even though the hal was deserted, Cal ie instinctively lowered her voice. “The prohibition against silver weapons is as old as Ghostdawn.”

Darri shrugged, turning to face her. “Coins are not weapons.”

“You just proved otherwise, didn’t you?”

“So what are they going to do, sneer at me more obviously?”

Cal ie jabbed her hand downward. “The Guardian himself punishes those who bring silver weapons into the castle, and his decisions are never questioned. Don’t you understand what it means here, to carry a weapon that could murder a ghost and steal his chance for vengeance? A ghost could never come back to haunt you!”

Darri pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “Neither could anyone, in the rest of the world.”

“But we’re not used to it.”

“We?”

Cal ie let out her breath in a hiss and pul ed her shoulders back. “We. I belong here now, Darri.”

“No.”

“Yes!” Cal ie felt tears in her eyes, heard them in her voice, and knew there was no stopping them. She went on, heedless of the humiliation, as the first few tracked down her cheek. “I don’t blame you for what happened to me, al right? I know there was nothing you could have done. But there’s nothing you can do now, either. I can’t go back.” She looked away. “I belong here.”

Darri stepped around to the side, so that she and Cal ie were stil face-to-face. “Do you? Or do you try to fit in, night after night, minute after minute? Afraid to step out of line lest you be cal ed a barbarian. Ashamed of where you come from. That’s not belonging.”

“It is to me! And that’s not how it is!” Dimly, Cal ie was aware that she was contradicting herself. The air felt like it was choking her, and Darri’s circling made her feel like prey. “Leave me alone, Darri! Don’t you see? That’s al I want from you. I like it here! I won’t leave.”

“Can’t,” Darri said.

“What?”

Her sister’s face was oddly intent. “Just before. You said you can’t go back.”

Cal ie didn’t like that expression. “It’s the same thing. Can’t, won’t—I’m staying here, Darri, whether you like it or not.”

“Fine.” Darri shrugged abruptly. “Have it your way. I only want to help you.”

“You want me to need your help. And I don’t. Not anymore.”

“So you’ve said, again and again. So this is the last thing I’l of er.” Darri smiled, but it wasn’t a smile. “Take this. It might be useful.”

And she threw the silver coin at Cal ie.

Cal ie screamed and dodged. The coin whizzed past, mere inches from her face, and hit the wal . It slid to the floor and landed with a dul clink.

The two sisters stared at each other. Darri’s face was white. “You’re—”

Cal ie didn’t want to hear it. Before Darri could finish the sentence, she went invisible and ran down the hal , cut ing a large arc around the tiny silver coin nestled in a crack in the stone.