Author: Leah Cypess

She left Varis’s room without looking back, the cold metal in her boot growing gradual y warm against her skin.

Chapter Ten

Varis did not, in fact, know the location of Clarisse’s rooms; but at the bot om of the spiral staircase, he directed a crisp question to a cowed-looking servant, who told him which way to go. As Varis turned to start back up the stairs, the servant added, “But her death was accidental, Your Highness. Her rooms are unoccupied.”

So people stil did occasional y die by accident in this castle; Varis had been beginning to wonder. Although Clarisse, obviously, was not one of them. He folded his arms across his chest. “Why haven’t they been cleared, then?”

“Prince Kestin ordered them left alone, after her death. He hoped she would come back.” The servant bit his lower lip nervously, but Varis kept his eyes trained on him, and the man kept talking. “When she didn’t, no one had the heart to approach him about . . . changing the arrangements.”

He hoped she would come back. What a sick place this was. Varis turned his back on the servant and strode on down the hal .

Clarisse’s bedroom was large and sparsely furnished: a bed, a single ornate table with three chairs, and a few rather grimly colored tapestries. Clarisse wasn’t in sight—which did not, of course, mean that she wasn’t there.

Varis closed the door behind him and walked slowly around the room, taking it in. Looking for . . . he wasn’t sure what. Something that would help him understand what Clarisse was plot ing and why.

Hanging on the wal beside the bed was a painting of a young family, dressed simply but—judging by the material of their clothes—richly. The man had an angular face and a smal , peaceful smile playing at the corners of his mouth. The woman was on the border between plain and pret y, with reddish-brown hair and sharp, dark eyes. She looked as if she didn’t quite belong in her stif ly embroidered dress. A young girl sat on the woman’s lap, looking bored.

The portrait was masterful, but marred by an uneven rip right down the middle, separating the man from his wife and child. It had been ripped and then glued back together on a separate sheet of parchment, so that the original pieces fit together jaggedly.

Behind him, someone drew in her breath. Varis turned to see Clarisse watching him from the doorway, her arms wrapped around herself, tracing her bare shoulders with her fingernails. She was now wearing a dark green gown with a daring neckline, her hair arranged in intricate loops and coils at the base of her neck. Even with the memory of the snarling beast-woman fresh in his mind, Varis blinked in admiration.

How could she possibly be dead?

“I’m so glad you came,” Clarisse murmured, but the sultriness in her voice seemed rote. She was looking, not at him, but at the painting.

Varis was trained to recognize weakness. He took a seat on one of the ornate chairs. “Who ripped the portrait?”

Clarisse leaned back against the doorpost. “I did.”

“And who glued it back together?”

“I did that, too.” She let her arms drop to her sides, stil looking at the painting rather than at him.

“I see.” Varis leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, ignoring the burst of agony from his right shoulder. “And why did you do that?”

Her lips twisted. She strode into the room and stood in front of the bed. “That’s not real y what you’re here to ask me, is it?”

“I came because you invited me,” Varis pointed out.

“You would have refused the invitation if you thought you had nothing to gain from it.”

“Maybe,” he said, mimicking her earlier tone, “I couldn’t stay away.”

She laughed and smoothed her skirt down with her hands. The look she turned on him made it suddenly dif icult to breathe. “You know, I’m rather glad I didn’t kil you.”

“As am I.” Varis got to his feet as wel ; not a planned move, but an instinct. His muscles were coiled tightly, expecting an at ack. Clarisse leaned back with both hands on the bed, clearly waiting for him to walk over, but he only stepped to the side. “Why did you try to kil me?”

She smiled at him and traced a finger along her col arbone. So obviously deliberate—yet somehow, that didn’t stop it from working. “I was fol owing orders.”

“I’m aware of that. Why does the Defender want me dead?”

“It doesn’t mat er. He no longer wants you dead, and more importantly, I no longer want you dead. I have . .

. other uses for you.” She pushed herself away from the bed. “I just proved that, didn’t I? I saved your life.”

“Even if you hadn’t shown up, Jano couldn’t have kil ed me.”

“I would have kil ed you,” Clarisse said, as if explaining the obvious to a very simple child.

“Real y. And how would you have done that?”

She moved without warning, a flash of green silk and golden hair; but he had known how she would react, and by the time she reached him he was already turning, moving out of the path of her lunge. She recovered in an instant and turned, but by then he had his dagger out, its edge at her throat.

an instant and turned, but by then he had his dagger out, its edge at her throat.

Her green eyes went wide and startled. Then she laughed and moved forward. The dagger went right through her slender throat; she went translucent as it passed through, then became suddenly solid with both arms on his shoulders, pinning him up against the wal . She was surprisingly strong, but not half as strong as he was; he could have thrown her across the room without much ef ort. Instead he met her eyes, mere inches from his, matched her quick-breathed smile, and slid his other dagger lightly across the back of her arm.

She screamed and flung herself away from him, clutching at her arm. A thin red line ran across it. She was not breathing at al now, and her beautiful face was contorted with fury.

Varis held up his second dagger. “Looks like steel, doesn’t it?” he said. “I could have used it first, against your throat. You would have been dead before you knew what was happening.”

For a moment he thought she was going to at ack him again, silver dagger or no. Then, with an evident ef ort, she composed herself. “Ingenious,” she said.

“We use it to coat the hooves of mounts carrying suspected spies. Then when we catch the spies, we pour the molten metal over them. Slowly.”

“I am suitably impressed by your barbarian ferocity.” Clarisse let go of her arm. The wound was gone, her skin unblemished by blood. “What other tricks did you bring with you, Prince Varis, for fighting the dead?”

So that, Varis thought, was why he was here. “I brought weapons to defend myself only,” he said. “We did not come here to fight the dead. We are here to seek an al iance.”

She laughed. “You Rael ians have no more interest in al iances than we do in sundials. Come, Prince. You tel me your secrets, and I’l tel you mine. Doesn’t that sound like a fair trade?”

“It does if we reverse it. I want to hear your secrets first.” He gestured at her arm. “Let’s start with your last trick. Can al ghosts do that?”

“No.” She traced her finger along her arm, and al at once there was no arm, just two yel ow bones hinged together. Then, almost before he could be sure he had seen them, they were once again covered with smooth white skin. “Only the older ghosts can change their forms, and only the very oldest ones can do it with such precision. It takes time, usual y, for the dead to free themselves of the memory of life.”

“But you haven’t been dead that long,” Varis said.

“I’ve wanted to be able to change my shape for quite a while. And what I want, I usual y get.” She glanced swiftly at the portrait, then away. “Besides, I’ve always had a talent for accepting reality.”

Varis slid his dagger back into his boot. “And what,” he said quietly, “is the reality?”

“That this body doesn’t truly exist.” She ran her hand down her side. “Or rather, what does exist of it is currently feeding worms.” For another of those split seconds, her arm was gone, and this time he couldn’t see the bone for the plump white insects coiled around it. “Yet I can eat food I don’t need, I can cry tears I don’t have, I can blush if I choose to. I feel that I have to breathe, except when I remind myself that I don’t. The power of a mind, freed from its body, is rather incredible. The trouble is making it do what you want to do, instead of spending al its time trying to pretend it stil is inside a living body.”

“I was under the impression,” Varis said, “that the pretense of life is exactly what most of the dead want.”

“Your impression is correct.” Clarisse walked toward him, her feet making no sound on the wooden floor.

“They do a good job of it, don’t they? Most of them even fool themselves. They think they’re happy because they get to act alive. They shut out of their minds the fact that they’re dead and trapped and fading every second of their existence.”

Varis clasped his hands behind his back. “And you don’t?”

“I don’t.” She rested both hands on the back of one ornate chair, leaning forward. “I don’t need to pretend. I can embrace being dead because I chose it.”

He found that he was entirely unsurprised. “You died on purpose.”

“Of course. You honestly think any of these buf oons could have kil ed me?” Clarisse tossed her hair; it floated about her shoulders in a cloud. “Once I realized what Ghostland was, everything I did was aimed at giving them a reason and an opportunity.”

“Why?”

She shrugged, but there was nothing casual about the expression on her face. “It’s a very useful thing, sometimes, to burn your bridges behind you. While they’re there, you know you can cross back over them.

After al , I could always sail back over a sea, ride back through the plains, climb back over the mountains.

There’s no way back from death. And once something is impossible, you don’t have to think about it anymore.”

“Did you know you would no longer be a sorceress?” Varis asked.

She blinked in surprise, which made him feel disproportionately pleased with himself. “How did you—”

“When Darri at acked you,” Varis said, “you wiggled your fingers.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Wiggled my fingers?”

“Very elegantly,” he assured her.

“Thank you.” She was silent for a moment, watching him. Then she let go of the chair and straightened. “I didn’t know. Sorcery has never been commonly practiced in this kingdom, so there was no precedent. But it turns out that spel s designed for living minds don’t work very wel with dead ones.” She made a face. “It did give me a head start, however. I already understood how powerful my mind was.”

Varis stepped back and leaned against the wal . “You know about magic, then.” He slid both his hands behind him, against the smooth wood. “Do you know what kind of magic was required to make the dead begin behind him, against the smooth wood. “Do you know what kind of magic was required to make the dead begin coming back to life?”

“Not entirely.” She pul ed out the chair and sat on it. “It would have required more than one sorcerer to add his power to it, that’s for certain. And spel s so powerful need sacrifices. Wil ing sacrifices, usual y. With unpleasant consequences for those sacrifices.”

Varis nodded. Clarisse leaned back, propping her elbows on the back of the chair. “But spel s must be channeled through human minds. There is someone in this castle whose existence fuels the spel and gives it power.”

Varis strove not to change expression, and knew he wasn’t succeeding. Clarisse tilted her head to the side and brushed a stray strand of hair away from her eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to know who?”