Nightspell (11 page)

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.

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