by Leah Cypess
Page 2
Author: Leah Cypess
“They’l be here before daybreak,” Jano said, materializing in the empty chair next to hers. As Cal ie turned to look at him, Jano went solid. “I just heard from one of the scouts. ”
Cal ie smiled, knowing it wouldn’t fool him, and looked down at her plate. So her siblings were riding at night. Day and night were reversed in Ghostland to accommodate the dead, but she wouldn’t have thought Darri and Varis would fol ow that custom until they had to. On the other hand, it was smart that they had given themselves a few days to adjust before reaching the castle. Varis’s idea, probably.
Jano fol owed her gaze. “You’ve barely eaten a bite al night. Aren’t you excited to see your sister?”
She ignored him. He might look like a ten-year-old child, but in truth he was hundreds of years old. Far too old to get away with this type of rudeness.
“The scout said she’s not as ugly as we had feared. ” Jano apparently didn’t notice that he was being ignored.
He grinned at her, looping one leg over the arm of the chair. “She’s wearing breeches, though. And riding astride, like a man. ”
“Al the plains women ride astride,” Cal ie snapped.
“How barbaric. Lucky that you were brought up in a civilized country. ”
A traitorous part of her thought he was right, and was ashamed of her sister in her mannish clothes. Cal ie looked over Jano’s head at Prince Kestin, who was stil scowling at his food as if it had of ended him.
Darri would be seventeen now, only four years younger than Kestin. Did her father real y imagine that would make her a more acceptable bride? True, Cal ie had been too young, but that was only part of the problem. The real issue was that the Ghostlanders didn’t concern themselves with anyone outside their own kingdom. She had spent the last four years in an uncertain status, more an unwelcome guest than a hostage, and in al that time nobody had ever seemed to care why she was there. Even the royalty here married whomever they pleased within their own country, and had never before bothered seeking out foreigners for the sake of al iances.
Not that it was relevant anymore. Not for Prince Kestin.
A commotion erupted near the front of the banquet hal . The Guardian went striding past them, his two swords crossed at his back, the silver one catching the lamplight. The black iron mask on his face gleamed too, not quite as shiny as his sword. Al at once the hal was silent. Prince Kestin looked up from his food, his face bleak and stil .
Oh, burial plots. Cal ie shoved her hands under the folds of her skirt to hide their shaking. “You said before daybreak!”
Jano noticed the motion. His teeth gleamed white as he smiled. “Is it not before daybreak?”
Cal ie bit her tongue to keep from saying something she would regret later. Annoying as Jano was, she couldn’t lose her only real friend at court. And to be fair, most ghosts liked to act as if they were above the pet y concerns of the living. Deadheads, some of the living cal ed them. Usual y behind their backs.
But Cal ie was stil too foreign—would always, she knew, be too foreign—to dare say anything negative about the dead. So she just gave Jano a nasty look before turning to watch the spectacle.
Varis strode in first. Her brother hadn’t changed much: tal and powerful y built, with a blunt, roughly hewn face. To her Rael ian eyes, he looked underdressed without a sword on his hip. To her Ghostland eyes, he looked underdressed period. He had changed from his riding clothes and was wearing a black silk cape and breeches, his hair bound back in a long, tight braid. The silk meant this was finery, but it was ragged and coarse compared to even the simplest garments worn by the Ghostlanders. King Ais, in his velvet-trimmed robe and elaborately embroidered cape, his hair cut neatly at his shoulders, was clearly not sure whether this was the prince or an advance retainer.
Of al the people in the hal , Cal ie was certain that only she could tel Varis was annoyed. He bowed from the waist. “Your Majesty. On behalf of my royal father, we extend our greetings to you and your court. ”
King Ais blinked only once before beginning his formal response—which would certainly be five times as long as Varis’s, though it wouldn’t say anything more. Cal ie didn’t bother paying at ention. She wondered where Darri was.
where Darri was.
People were watching her, she knew. Waiting to see how she would react. Wondering if she had truly been civilized—tamed, a voice in her mind whispered—or if she would revert to type once she was back in touch with her own kind. Her skin felt stretched tight over her face, and she had to dig her fingernails into her palms to keep herself stil .
“Thank you,” Varis said, jerking her at ention back to the throne. “May I present my sister, Princess Darriniaka of Rael ia?”
She had forgot en how fast things moved among her people. How quickly you had to respond among horses and the living. A Ghostlander would have spoken about Darri for at least ten minutes before introducing her.
For a painful moment, Cal ie missed that quickness, and hated herself for being a step behind.
Then Darri walked in, and she banished the thought. That was a weakness she couldn’t af ord.
Darri, too, was dressed in finery; but unlike Varis, who was simply drab, she looked ridiculous. Her pale pink gown was a cacophony of faded fashions, probably cobbled together from traders’ reports of Ghostland dress, and she walked jerkily in the tight underskirt. Her hair flowed down her back like a horse’s mane, and her skin was a sun-baked brown. Kestin leaned against the back of his throne, looking momentarily taken aback; then he composed his face into stif politeness. Cal ie flushed with shame for her sister.
But Darri wasn’t ashamed. She held her head high, her eyes darting back and forth with a hunter’s alertness despite the awkwardness of her gait. No woman of the plains would ever cut or bind up her hair, and pale skin was general y a sign of il ness. To her own people, Darri had always been strikingly at ractive.
For a moment Cal ie saw the court through her sister’s eyes, with its elaborate stone pil ars, painted wal s, and floor lined with layers of carpet. She tried to remember how it had looked to her when she first arrived.
Overdone, probably. Stifling. The women in their many-colored gowns had seemed grotesquely fake, their eyes scarily outlined in black. She hadn’t even known, then, that the outlining was makeup. She had never heard of makeup.
But real y, she hadn’t been thinking about any of that. She had been too focused on the women who were only half-solid, whose gowns she could see right through. She remembered the first time she had seen one of those women wink out of existence, the space she had been standing in suddenly empty. Worse, she remembered the first time she had seen a translucent woman go solid, and realized there was no way to tel who was dead and who was alive. That in this castle, anyone might be a ghost.
She would have given anything, that first year, to hear that Darri was coming. But now she looked down at her gown—violet silk with black lace—and touched her braided hair, and wondered what Darri would think when she saw her.
Darri stopped next to Varis and curtseyed perfunctorily, an obviously unaccustomed gesture. Instead of focusing on her hands and feet, she looked furtively around the court.
Looking for me, Cal ie realized, and shrank back against her chair. Last time she had seen Darri, the two of them had been huddled together in a tent, their hair fal ing over each other’s shoulders, her own hopeless sobs mingling with Darri’s angry weeping. Cal ie remembered clearly her sister’s fierce whispers: “I’l come for you, Cal ie. I won’t let this happen. I swear it. ”
She probably stil intended to keep that promise. A lit le late. Sometimes late real y was worse than never.
Darri had been slim even at thirteen, but the saddle had burned whatever fat she’d had right of her. Now she was so thin she was almost gaunt, cheekbones slashing across her face. She looked . . . dangerous.
A few of the gho
sts had risen into the air so they could see bet er. Cal ie winced, watching Darri’s face pale, and wished the court would be a lit le more tactful. But then Darri saw Cal ie, and her whole face lit up.
Everyone was watching. Cal ie looked away fast, but not fast enough to miss seeing the way Darri’s smile died.
She spent the rest of the formal introductions avoiding her sister’s gaze. A part of her was angry: what did Darri expect, and why couldn’t she control herself in front of the court? A larger part of her felt guilty, and ashamed, and—irrational y—hurt herself.
Darri probably thought she was rescuing Cal ie, giving her the chance to escape back to the life she had grown up in. Once, Cal ie would have been tempted.
But now, al her sister was going to accomplish was to ruin everything.
Chapter Two
Darri made her first social blunder immediately after the welcoming ceremony. King Ais, after a flowery ramble about how much he hoped their countries would be joined in friendship, announced that they would now at end a banquet. An overdressed servant appeared—literal y, appeared—at Varis’s side to escort them to their table.
Varis jerked visibly away, and the servant looked af ronted, so Darri figured it was as good a time as any to be rude. “Where wil we be sit ing?” she asked.
King Ais frowned and looked at his son—Darri’s potential betrothed, the supposed reason for this journey.
So far, Darri had not been required to address Prince Kestin, though she had noticed the strong, clean lines of his face and the directness of his gaze. She couldn’t help noticing. It was that kind of face. And besides, she would be a fool to ignoreanything that might make her sacrifice a lit le bit easier.
“I’d like to sit with my sister,” Darri went on. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. ”
Varis shot her a furious scowl. In the long, frozen silence, Prince Kestin made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh.
“Of course,” King Ais said. “I’l see to it. ”
The banquet hal was a vast room, crammed with tables covered with embroidered linen cloths, and fil ed with so many gold and copper dishes that the ef ect was blinding. Darri had never before seen so many people in such a smal space. But of course, they weren’t al people; some of them were dead spirits in the guise of the living, moving and speaking as if their bodies were whole, trapped by the abhorrent charade.
It wasn’t until they were seated—at a blessedly empty table—that they had enough privacy for Varis to hiss, “You know you were supposed to sit with the prince. What were you thinking?”
“That I’d like to speak to Cal ie,” Darri said.
“Do you real y think it’s a good idea to insult Prince Kestin within two minutes of arriving in his country?”
“Yes,” Darri said, just to see his reaction, “I do. ”
Unfortunately, at that moment a young woman in a yel ow gown took the seat across from them, and Varis’s face smoothed instantly into an expression of bland politeness. The woman tilted her head at them and said, “Guess. ”
“Guess what?” Varis said, fal ing right into what was obviously a trap. Darri resisted the urge to kick him under the table.
The woman smiled. She was plump and pret y, despite her pasty skin, with red-tinged hair arranged in knots and twirls. “Whether I’m alive or dead. ”
Varis flinched, and Darri couldn’t blame him. She tried to think of something cut ing to say. Nothing came to mind.
Darri had once fal en asleep in long grass and woken to find ants crawling al over her body, wriggling into her nostrils and tickling over her tongue. That had been nothing compared to how she felt now, surrounded by dead creatures whose corpses were rot ing below the ground. She kept catching whif s of decomposing flesh, kept imagining the anguished screams of human spirits bound to lifeless bodies. This was a terrible place, beneath the gowns and smiles and glit er.
And she was going to spend the rest of her life here.