Author: Leah Cypess

Chapter Eight

In al her years at court, through al the parties and banquets she had at ended, and despite al the teasing she had endured from Jano, Cal ie had never got en drunk. But there seemed no time like the present to start.

Or to find out if ghosts could get drunk.

After leaving Darri’s horrified expression behind her, she made her body solid again. The older ghosts flickered in and out of visibility without a thought, walking through wal s and even shifting appearances as if their bodies meant nothing at al , but Cal ie—like most of the newer ghosts—stil hated feeling like she wasn’t there.

She wandered the hal s, seeking oblivion. Final y she found the type of party she had never, until now, dared step foot in: a party of the dead.

The dead withdrew to the depths of the castle for their own private parties, af airs marked by barbed comments about centuries-old feuds and long conversations about the obscure hobbies with which the ghosts fil ed their endless time. There was nothing to exclude the living, except the occasional rumors of the penalty exacted from anyone alive who tried to impose themselves. If you tried to join the dead, it was said, they would welcome you with open arms. They would make you one of them.

But I already am one of them, Cal ie thought, with an anguished bit erness that had not dul ed in five weeks.

And now it wouldn’t be long before everyone knew it. Maybe that was for the best. Though she had invented dozens of logical reasons for keeping her death a secret, she now knew that al she had real y wanted was to hide it from Darri.

The party was in a large, dimly lit room, crowded with long couches, square card tables, and silent servants carrying trays of delicacies and pitchers of wine. It was far less raucous than the party she had at ended earlier: a musician floated near the ceiling playing a plaintive, dissonant melody on his lute, and the ghosts sipped wine and murmured, fading in and out, their laughs low and throaty.

Lamps gave enough dim light for Cal ie to make out a familiar figure lounging on a couch in the far corner.

Feeling drunk already—by association, and by the sense of not caring that was spreading through her—she headed across the room, ignoring the startled and scornful glances she drew after her.

Rael ian foreigner, Jano had said to her long ago, after she had commit ed a far less obnoxious social blunder. Doesn’t know where she’s not wanted.

Wouldn’t that include this entire country? Cal ie had snapped at him, her misery final y breaking into anger.

That had been the first time she had surprised Jano, and soon afterward he had stopped being just her tormenter and become her friend.

Of course, Jano—for al his childishness and casual spite—was far less intimidating than the ghost she was approaching now.

Clarisse didn’t look up until Cal ie was standing right next to her couch. Then she tilted her head, her golden hair spil ing over the light blue upholstery. “Cal ie. Should you be here?”

“Probably not,” Cal ie said. “I’m looking for the Defender.”

The murmur and rustle of cards stopped short; even the music went silent, for a startled moment, before the musician jerkily restarted his melody. Cal ie looked up and saw that every face was turned toward them, cards lying ignored on the tables, goblets and forks lowered. Dozens of dark eyes glit ered at them, unnatural y alight in the dimness.

Cal ie stil didn’t care. The feeling was dangerously liberating; she was almost enjoying herself.

“Wel , wel .” Clarisse leaned back with the smile of someone set ling in to watch a theater play. “Where did you hear that name?”

“From you,” Cal ie said, not bothering to hide her smugness. Clarisse’s smirk al but begged her to knock it down. “You got a lit le careless while my sister was outfighting you.”

The smirk didn’t budge, but Clarisse craned her neck to observe the masses of party goers openly watching them. Many had gone translucent, the lights of the lamps flickering through their wavering forms.

No one living should know that name. So they were demonstrating their deadness. They were afraid.

“Child, you should stay out of mat ers that don’t concern you.” Clarisse crossed one ankle over the other.

“The living aren’t supposed to know about the Defender. You can either forget what you know, or we can solve the other part of that problem.”

Cal ie resisted the urge to tel her just how not frightening that threat was. She met Clarisse’s mocking green eyes and said flatly, “They’re my kin. I can’t forget.”

Something deep and bit er flashed across Clarisse’s face. “You can try,” she said. She drained the rest of her goblet and held it high. A servant rushed over from the corner to refil it.

Cal ie clenched up inside. There had been a time when she had envied the ef ortlessness with which Clarisse fit into the court, somehow making her foreignness an asset instead of an embarrassment. She claimed to be a princess from somewhere to the west of the Kierran Mountains; no one believed her, but it didn’t much mat er.

When Cal ie had arrived at Ghostland, Clarisse had been there for less than a year, and had already been working her way methodical y through the hearts of high-ranking noblemen.

working her way methodical y through the hearts of high-ranking noblemen.

“As kin go, yours are not bad,” Clarisse said, swishing the wine in a slow circle. “Your brother, in particular.

He interests me.”

“Why?” Cal ie said bluntly.

The dead girl tilted her head to the side. “Indeed. A good question.”

She said it with complete seriousness, and Cal ie wasn’t sure what that meant. What she did know was that if Clarisse thought it would annoy enough people, she real y would go after Varis. Her apparent goal ever since Cal ie had known her had been to make as many enemies as possible, usual y by entangling herself in dozens of conspiracies at once, supporting opposite factions simultaneously, helping people one minute then turning and destroying them the next. Her dal iances with increasingly powerful men, culminating with Prince Kestin himself, had only given her the power to destroy more plans and facilitated her ability to make herself hated.

Cal ie had not been very surprised when she died. The fal from her horse could easily have been engineered by one of the many people she had angered. But when Clarisse’s ghost hadn’t made an appearance for two years after her death, everyone had assumed the fal was an accident after al . Most of the ghosts returned only a few nights after their murders; the longest she had ever heard of was a week. Obviously, Clarisse had been somewhere else al this time.

“I doubt you interest him,” Cal ie said final y. “There is that whole you-tried-to-kil -him problem.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I’l see if I can make him forget that.”

“We’re Rael ians,” Cal ie snapped, then wished—too late—that she hadn’t said we. She flicked her skirt away from her legs; it was stil uncomfortably sticky from the wine that had spil ed on it earlier. “Rael ian bedtime stories are about blood feuds. They don’t forget when people try to kil them.”

Clarisse sighed. “Then I suppose I’l have to find a way to make it up to him.”

And that, Cal ie decided, was just about enough of that subject. She sat on the other end of the couch, as far from Clarisse as she could get. “Tel me about the Defender.”

Clarisse took a sip. “You know what’s odd? I can’t think of a single reason why I should.”

“If you don’t,” Cal ie said, “I’l tel the Guardian—”

“—that I tried to kil you?” Clarisse stretched her arms over her head. “There are other things you should talk to the Guardian about first. He hasn’t told you anything at al , has he?”

“Why should he tel me anything?”

“He’s the reason you’re here.” Clarisse sat up, curling her legs under her, and smiled at Cal ie. “He advised King Ais to accept your father’s of er to send you.”

“Why?” Cal ie demanded.

“You should ask him.”

Cal ie put one hand down on the couch cushion; the embroidered velvet felt cool and smooth beneath her palm. “I’m asking you.”

“And maybe I’l answer you. Some other time.” Clarisse took another sip and made a face. “I miss good wine.”

She lifted one hand to cover a yawn and vanished. The goblet landed on the couch, spil ing red wine al over the light blue cushions.

Cal ie remained where she was, aware of the dead watching her. The wine stain spread jaggedly over the cushion, seeping in, a dark purple patch that no one would ever get out. She touched it with her finger, which came away wet; she lifted that finger to her tongue, and tasted delicate acridness.

She remembered the first time a ghost had vanished from right beside her; remembered her instinctive shudder, the horror that had whipped through her. She had just seen that horror reflected in her sister’s eyes, and she understood it completely. Once, a long time ago, she would have found herself repulsive too.

Cal ie was no longer that girl—that Rael ian girl. She didn’t have to think of herself the way a Rael ian did.

She didn’t have to be ashamed that Darri knew. It didn’t mat er what Darri thought of her.

And her thoughts stopped there, as if they had crashed painful y against a rock barrier. Because it did mat er.

It mat ered so much, and yet there was nothing she could do to change it.

If not for Darri, she thought bit erly, she could have been whol y a Ghostlander. She had no clues to her murder, no idea how to seek out her kil er; and she hadn’t, in truth, been trying al that hard. In time the part of her that thirsted for vengeance would have withered, become something she could ignore, just as al the ghosts did. Nobody in Ghostland would think any less of her. Jano would think more of her. She could have fol owed her strongest instinct and done exactly what the rest of the court was doing: pretend she was alive, pretend so hard that she would come to believe it. Most of the time.

Most of the time would have been enough. Even the living weren’t happy al of the time.

But she couldn’t forget, and she couldn’t pretend, now that Darri knew.

You’re the entire reason I’m here.

Guilt writhed through her. After al those years and al her sacrifices, Darri had come to Ghostland and discovered what Ghostland had made of her sister. Now that she knew, she would never look at Cal ie without reservation again.

Cal ie picked up the goblet, drained the few dregs stil sloshing at its bot om, then held it up and waited for a servant to come by. She could do a lit le pretending, at least, while Darri wasn’t there to stop her.

Chapter Nine

His sister wouldn’t come to her door; not an unexpected outcome, but an annoying one al the same. Varis lifted his fist to pound on the dark wood again, then thought bet er of it. He lowered his hand and glanced down the long, dimly lit hal .

It had been a night and a day since Darri had walked out of the banquet hal with Prince Kestin. Varis hadn’t seen her since then, but had been told by a servant that she was holed up in her room, refusing even the food that was left outside her door. Apparently she was refusing his visit as wel , even though he had been knocking and cal ing her name for several minutes.

Varis sighed and stepped back. No doubt it had final y dawned on his impetuous sister that he had no real intention of leaving Ghostland anytime soon; that despite Kestin’s death, their father’s plans stil required her to spend her life in this castle.

She had a right to her grief, and there was nothing he could say to make it bet er. If she would listen to anything he had to say, which she wouldn’t. She had made it quite clear that she hated him.

It had been a long time since he had cared. He spent most of his time now riding out to bat le, and when he returned there was admiration in the eyes of the other warriors and adoration on the faces of the women and children. He had seen no reason to visit the tent of the one person in his father’s camp who would greet him with irrational hostility.