Author: Leah Cypess

Cal ie snorted. “Not that this isn’t very spooky, but if you’re al that powerful, how is it you don’t know that I’ve already joined you?”

The murmuring stopped as if cut of by a knife. Clarisse jerked her head to stare at Darri’s sister.

“How?” she demanded.

“Drowned,” Cal ie said.

The two ghosts faced each other for a long, silent moment. Darri was uncomfortably aware of just how silent it was. She knew they were surrounded; she had seen the shadows, heard the whispers. But now she could not hear a single breath except her own.

“Wel , then,” Clarisse said. Her voice was suddenly brisk, and the fuzzy edges of her body sharpened back into clearly defined lines. Her hair fel heavily against her shoulders. “This is more complicated than I thought.”

“So it appears,” Cal ie said.

Clarisse smiled at her, baring straight-edged teeth. “Wel beyond me.”

“We can simplify it,” Cal ie said.

“By walking away? No, I don’t think so. He already knows you’re here. He’l decide what to do with you.”

“He?”

“He?”

But Clarisse had already turned and swept into the darkness at the back of the cavern. The air behind her shimmered vaguely, and a faint unreal sound, like the shadows of sighs, fol owed her into the blackness. Darri turned to the cave entrance and found it blocked by a wal of bones, skeletons crushed together into an impassable barrier, their empty-eyed skul s leering at her.

Cal ie looked at Darri and rol ed her eyes. Feeling vaguely comforted by that, and also knowing that she had no choice, Darri stooped and pul ed the disguised silver dagger out of her boot. It was a comfortable weight in her hand as she fol owed her sister and Clarisse over the slick, dimly lit stone and into the pitch-black passageway beyond it.

Varis found Darri’s falcon in front of a cluster of bushes, happily ripping apart the corpse of a field mouse. A quick examination told him the falcon hadn’t kil ed the mouse by itself, and from there it was fairly easy to find the entrance to the caves.

Varis let his own falcon go with faint regret, the motion making his injured shoulder clench. That was two birds sacrificed to whatever crazy ruse Darri had dreamed up this time. No mat er how many years they spent in captivity, falcons were never real y tamed. They would go wild in the blink of an eye, as easily and completely as if they had never sat on a man’s arm or had their food given to them in cut-up pieces. Neither of these birds was ever coming back.

He hobbled his horse next to Darri’s and wrenched the torch from the saddle pommel before pushing his way through the bushes. Once his eyes adjusted to the dimness, it took him only a few seconds to make out the faint trail of footprints on the rock floor. He fol owed them to where the cave bent into darkness. Faint glit ering specks were scat ered on the damp rock, barely discernible even when he lit the torch, but good enough. He smiled grimly.

The smile flat ened into a hard line as he fol owed the trail deeper into the dank darkness of stone and earth. Where in this unnatural place was Darri going?

Chapter Thirteen

The farther they walked into the labyrinthine passageways, the more Darri felt the dead gather around her, fil ing the air with sibilant whispers that seemed imagined rather than heard. Her skin crawled, but she kept walking.

It was the hardest thing she had ever done. The death around her was thick enough to choke on; so clearly inhuman, so clearly wrong. Hundreds of human spirits, trapped forever beneath the earth, misshapen and confused by their unnatural confinement. She kept glancing sideways at Cal ie, who complicated what should have been clear. Her younger sister seemed no dif erent. But Cal ie was a part of something twisted and evil, no mat er how badly Darri wanted to forget that.

Invisible fingers stroked against her skin, worming around her ankles and neck. Darri bit back a scream, knowing it was probably only her imagination—which wasn’t helped by the way Clarisse insisted on floating several feet above the ground, body glowing with a faint white light. Darri tried to tel herself it looked sil y, but it was hard to find anything amusing. Final y her unease got the bet er of her.

“Not to interfere with the mood you’re trying to create,” she snapped, “but could you just walk?”

Clarisse looked over her shoulder, hair floating about her face. “Why? Do you find this frightening?”

Darri chose not to answer.

“It’s an easier way to travel,” Clarisse said, “for those who are no longer made of earth.”

“Is that what they’re cal ing it these days?” Cal ie said.

“I should be asking you that, shouldn’t I? You’re more recently dead than I am.”

Cal ie said nothing, and Clarisse moved suddenly back to float beside her. On the other side from Darri, fortunately, or Darri might have either screamed or at acked her. Or both.

“So,” Clarisse said conversational y, “how long have you been dead? And why didn’t you let us know?”

“It was a struggle,” Cal ie said dryly. “You know how I hate keeping things from you.”

“Don’t you think Jano wil be hurt that you’ve kept it from him?”

“He tried to kil my family. We can consider the score set led.”

Cal ie’s voice had an edge that surprised Darri. Even Clarisse shot Cal ie a startled glance before going on, in a marginal y more sober voice, “How do you like it so far?”

Cal ie looked sideways at Darri, then away, too swiftly for Darri to react. “I don’t,” she said.

“You’l become accustomed to it.”

“I don’t intend to have time for that,” Cal ie said.

“One of those, are you?” Clarisse shook her head reprovingly. “That’s not the right at itude.”

“What is the right at itude?” Darri cut in, knowing it wasn’t smart. “To float around making cryptic pronouncements and vague threats, pretending you like being dead?”

“Of course I like it,” Clarisse said, eyes widening. “Death is immortality.” She smiled and ran her hands over her hair. “I thought it would be nice to give it a try.”

“It’s not a try,” Darri said. “There’s no going back from what you are.”

“I don’t want to go back.” When Clarisse let her hands drop, her hair was glowing, adding more light to the dance of shadows along the wal s. “You won’t want to go back either, once you know the secrets of the dead.”

That was directed at Cal ie, who jerked her shoulders and said, “Nobody’s seen fit to let me in on the secrets of the dead.”

“That’s because they don’t know you are dead.” Clarisse came to a stop and swirled slowly in midair to face them, her gown flaring out and set ling against her legs. “But now that I know, I’m happy to complete your education.”

Darri stopped too, so suddenly it threw her of balance; her foot went out from under her and she sat down hard on the slippery ground. The dagger flew out of her hand and clat ered to a stop several yards away. Her face flushed as she scrambled to her feet, but Clarisse was too focused on Cal ie to take time out for mockery.

“Your people say death is freedom, that dead spirits join the wind, no longer human but more free than when they were alive. You say we are the trapped ones. I say you are wrong. What is the value of being part of the wind, just another breath of air among thousands? Of no longer being you?”

Darri’s muscles were clenched so tight they trembled, but Cal ie merely sighed. “Assuming you have a point, could you get to it soon?”

“My point is that you shouldn’t be so ready to throw away your existence. You’re dead now, and truly one of us. You no longer have to think like a Rael ian.”

“Even the Ghostlanders,” Darri snapped, “want vengeance, don’t they? Don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” Clarisse looked at her with such focused fury that Darri fought the urge to step back. Then Clarisse’s face smoothed out, and she smiled. “But I can control it. And when the man who kil ed me dies, it wil become easier to ignore.”

“You know who kil ed you?” Cal ie said. Darri glanced at her. The rapt at ention was gone, and Cal ie was now staring at Clarisse with genuine horror. “You know, and you haven’t done anything about it?”

now staring at Clarisse with genuine horror. “You know, and you haven’t done anything about it?”

“It wasn’t easy,” Clarisse said smugly. “I remained down here for two years, out of sight of my murderer, until the urgency of the desire passed. I devoted myself to serving the Defender, to learning to control the powers of the dead.”

“The reason we have those powers,” Cal ie said, “is to avenge ourselves!”

“You’re such a child.” Clarisse shook her head almost fondly. “Do you truly think al the ghosts in this castle are here because they failed? There are many of us who hold of the desire for vengeance, who fight for our existence. It’s not easy, being dead. But it’s not so easy being alive either. Is it, Cal ie?”

Darri waited for Cal ie’s response. When none came, she looked sideways at her sister, and saw Cal ie’s throat working.

“It’s not the same,” Darri snapped, almost spit ing out the words. “Just because some of you want it, that doesn’t make it right. You shouldn’t exist, not any of you. This was done to you. And if you weren’t lying to yourselves, not one of you would believe your existence is worth it.”

“But we do believe it.” Clarisse slid her fingers through her hair. “Al of us, even those who aren’t strong enough to take what they desire. Tel the truth, Cal ie. What do you real y want—to keep your body and your mind and your daily pleasures, or to cross the line into a darkness you don’t know? Now that you’re dead, are you real y no longer afraid to die?”

There was a moment of silence. When Cal ie final y spoke, her voice was shaky. “Of course I’m afraid. But that’s a weakness. To be control ed by fear.”

It sounded like a question, not a statement. Darri tensed al over, and Clarisse rol ed her shoulders languidly.

“And being control ed by someone else’s reasons for al owing our existence—is that not a weakness?”

Clarisse shrugged. “Do as you wil . But nobody controls me.”

“Nobody?” whispered the darkness around them.

Darri screamed, then felt hot shame wash through her. Even Clarisse looked startled. Cal ie flinched, but recovered swiftly and turned, eyes darting among the shadows. Fol owing her gaze, Darri saw it come to rest on a patch of darkness that seemed somehow deeper and blacker than the rest.

“I know you,” Cal ie said.

The voice came, not from the place she was looking at, but from behind them. “I assure you, you do not.”

Despite firm intentions not to, Darri shrieked again. Cal ie’s face went white, but she spun and said evenly, “I mean that I’ve met you before. You sent me to save my siblings when Clarisse and Jano were trying to kil them.”

Darri could not force herself to face what her sister was talking to. She tried, but the sound of that raspy voice sent an irresistible, uncontrol able fear over her, as if she were stil a child trying to believe there were no monsters hiding in the dark.

She managed to turn her head slightly, but could not bring herself to look over her shoulder; and because of that, she saw Clarisse’s face go slack with shock when Cal ie spoke.

A number of things suddenly became clear. The silver dagger in Jano’s hand, when he at acked them on the hunt. Clarisse, sneering, “What did you think you would achieve by coming here?”

You sent me to save my siblings.

She spun around. In front of them, the blackness was not deeper but rather more blurred, moving and shifting. A moment ago her stomach would have tightened with terror; now her fear was swamped by rage. She saw in front of her, not a monster, not a ghost, but something much simpler. Her sister’s murderer.