Nightspell (20 page)

as wel , or—

“Darkness doesn’t mean much to ghosts, you know,” Kestin said.

—or hadn’t been making any sound in the first place. Varis uncovered his torch just as the prince rounded a

curve in the passage behind him. Despite himself, Varis’s first reaction was not wariness but relief; relief that he was not alone, here in the darkness and silence beneath the earth. “You can see in the dark?”

was not alone, here in the darkness and silence beneath the earth. “You can see in the dark?”

“So it seems.” Kestin smiled. “Every day I discover a new advantage to being dead.”

Varis couldn’t tel if the statement was meant to be bit er or not. He chose to believe it was, because that

was less disturbing. “Your Highness,” he said cool y. “How did you get here?”

“I wanted to find out what your sister was up to, so I had my men bring me in my lit er. And I ordered

everyone else not to fol ow me on pain of death, which gives us perhaps half an hour before they fol ow me

anyhow. So we shouldn’t stand around talking.” Kestin moved closer. The torchlight flickered over him, but he

cast no shadow. “How do you know where to go?”

Varis hesitated, but couldn’t think of a reasonable lie. He gestured at the ground, where flecks of steel

glit ered when the torchlight hit them.

Kestin raised his eyebrows. “Ingenious. The steel is coating silver, I assume?”

“Of course not,” Varis said. “That would be a breach of our agreement.”

“Of course not,” Kestin echoed, without the slightest trace of sarcasm. “Why did you stop walking?”

“The trail ended. Either the metal powder ran out, or she sheathed her dagger.”

“I doubt your sister would do something that stupid. There are ghosts everywhere in these caves.”

Varis looked around nervously, then tried to cover it by drawing his own silver dagger with his left hand. He

had been carrying the torch in his right, despite his injured shoulder, in preparation for doing just that. “But

Darri wouldn’t know about them. Where are they?”

“You won’t see them. These caves are where the older ghosts go when they grow tired of being among the

living. Most of them have forgot en what their bodies look like.”

Varis’s left hand tightened on his dagger, and Kestin said, “They can, however, stil be kil ed; that dagger wil

make them nervous. You should probably put it away before I cal them.”

“Before you what?”

“It’s up to you, though.” Kestin shrugged and, without appreciably raising his voice, said, “Tel me where the

foreigner went.”

A sound like wind rushed past Varis, though there was no wind. Kestin nodded and walked past Varis into

the darkness.

Varis almost turned and went the opposite way. He felt ice cold down to his bones. The wind had stirred

shadows that slid past the wal s, wavering over the curves and cracks in the rocks. He swal owed hard, looked

straight ahead, and fol owed the dead prince. He did not sheathe his dagger.

Kestin didn’t look back, and Varis did not try to move up beside him. They walked in silence down several

turns in the passageway, through a large cavern that seemed ful of malevolent awareness, and final y came to

an open area surrounded by surreal rock formations. There Kestin stopped, and Varis kept moving until he

stood beside the dead prince. His grip on the dagger was so tight his fingers hurt. He would be the happiest

man alive on the day he rode out of this cursed land.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Beneath the castle by now, I suspect.” Kestin sounded distracted. “There are ways to get into these caverns

from the castle. None of the living know that. Even the newly dead aren’t told.”

“Then how do you know?”

“I’m the prince of the dead.” Kestin trailed his hand along an outcropping of rock. “Have you not realized

yet how powerful I am? Do you think any ghost could command the elder dead as I just did?”

A soft sound swirled around them, suggestive of mirthless laughter. Kestin chuckled. “I suppose that explains

why you would come here with me, alone and surrounded by the dead. I thought it foolishly brave. But you

didn’t realize how dangerous it was, did you?”

Varis changed his mind: the day he conquered Ghostland would be the happiest of his life. “I don’t see my

sister.”

“They’re in the shadows.”

“Then why—”

“I’m not sure why. I suspect it’s just your usual flair for the dramatic. Isn’t it, Clarisse?”

Despite what was obviously his best ef ort, his voice choked a lit le on her name. As he said it, Clarisse

stepped out of the shadows, so beautiful she looked unreal. It was a moment before Varis noticed both his

sisters trailing behind her, Darri’s face even more sul en than usual, Cal ie’s eyes red and swol en.

“Hel o, Your Highness,” Clarisse said, slowly sweeping her lashes down. “Imagine meeting you here.”

“I know this is where you’ve been,” Kestin said. “And you must have known I wouldn’t al ow foreigners to

wander through these caves alone.”

“Of course.” She smiled. “But I wasn’t talking to you.”

Awkward silence fil ed the air between them until Varis broke it by turning to Cal ie. He noted that Darri’s

dagger was in its sheath, and wondered what had happened to convince her to put it away. “What are you

doing here?”

His sisters exchanged glances. Cal ie said, “I wanted to talk to Darri without anyone knowing.”

“Anyone,” obviously, meant him. No one else could possibly care that two foreigners were talking to each

other. Varis stepped away from Kestin. “And you had to come al the way down here to do it?”

“That wasn’t their doing, I’m sure,” Kestin almost snarled. Anger radiated from him palpably as he stared at

“That wasn’t their doing, I’m sure,” Kestin almost snarled. Anger radiated from him palpably as he stared at

Clarisse, but Varis doubted it was because of their presence in the caves. “What were you thinking, Clarisse?

You know they shouldn’t be here. They’re alive.”

Clarisse sat on a raised rock outcropping, using one hand to sweep her skirt around her legs and away from

the ground. “Actual y—”

Darri cut her of with no at empt at subtlety, and with a frightened look at Varis. “How did you find us?”

“Your dagger leaks,” Varis said, unable to hide the smugness in his voice. Her eyes narrowed, and he said, “It

was a reasonable precaution. I knew you would do something foolhardy, and apparently I was right. What

were you thinking? Or is it naïve to assume you were thinking at al ?”

“Clarisse,” Darri snapped, “decided we should go looking for the Defender.”

“And we found him,” Cal ie added. At the very end of the sentence, her voice broke. She stepped backward,

toward the edges of the cavern, so that the light didn’t touch her face.

“The Defender,” Varis repeated, and looked sideways at Kestin. The prince didn’t notice. He was staring at

Clarisse with his jaw clenched.

“It was a very informative encounter,” Clarisse murmured, and the timbre of her voice pul ed his gaze back

toward her. She was looking straight at him, as if Kestin didn’t exist; and she was, clearly, enjoying herself.

Varis turned to his sisters, noting the tight grimness of Darri’s face. That expression never boded wel , but for the first time in his life he knew how she felt. Until his own encounter with the Defender, he had thought it

was stupid, the way she kept fighting even when she couldn’t possibly win.

“I think,” he said, “that we should get out of these caves.”

“That would be a good idea,” Clarisse said, crossing her ankles. “Of course, I’m the only one who knows the

way. But perhaps if you ask nicely . . .”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Kestin snapped. “The dead wil show me the way out.”

She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Not if I don’t want them to.”

Kestin stepped back on one foot, as if preparing to draw a sword and lunge. “Why would they listen to

you?”

“At the moment,” Clarisse said, “I am the second most powerful ghost in existence.”

Kestin didn’t lunge. He stood completely stil , staring at her with wide, dark eyes. Her tone was so cool and

uncaring, as if she were talking to a stranger—or an enemy—that Varis couldn’t help a pang of sympathy.

Kestin’s voice was a strangled whisper. “Did you ever love me at al ?”

“Do you stil care?”

“I shouldn’t have to.” His hands knot ed and unknot ed. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She shrugged and looked away, leaving Kestin standing like an abandoned child in the center of the cavern.

Darri took a step toward him, then stopped short. Her throat convulsed.

Varis didn’t like that. He could feel the dead watching them, and he liked that even less.

“Did you know,” Darri said, glaring at Clarisse, “that the Defender was going to kil Prince Kestin?”

The silence was long and frozen. Kestin’s mouth worked for a moment. When he spoke, it was once again to

Clarisse, not Darri. “Is that true?”

“It is,” Clarisse said lightly, but she was speaking to Darri. The tension between the three was tangled

enough to choke on. “He kil ed both of them. Congratulations on figuring that out. Have you figured out why

yet? Or why you’re here?”

Both of who? But Varis knew bet er than to ask. It was an odd feeling, to be excluded from a circle of

knowledge, deemed not important enough to be given information. Darri must feel like this al the time.

“The Guardian,” Cal ie whispered from the shadows, “was the one who brought me here. Not the Defender.”

“But he brought us here for a reason,” Varis said. “And that reason has something to do with the Defender. I

think the two of them are on the verge of war.”

“How perceptive.” Clarisse rested her hands on her knees, stretching her shoulders back. “Except it’s gone a

bit farther than the verge. And it’s not just them who are at war; it’s their fol owers as wel . The peace between the living and the dead is about to be broken.” She laughed softly. “I would bet on the dead, if I were you.”

Kestin drew in a breath, took another step toward her, then turned and strode instead to the other side of the

cave. Just before he reached the shadows, he whirled again. “The peace is strained, yes. But not to the breaking

point. If war was imminent, someone would have told me.”

“Do you real y think so?” Clarisse’s eyes glinted. “You may be the prince of the dead, their long-awaited

hope, but don’t think they trust you completely. You’re too new. You have too many ties to the living.”

“We al have ties to the living.” Kestin sliced his arm downward. “Friends, family, neighbors. The living and

the dead live side by side, interconnected. We have for centuries. That’s not going to change.”

“Kestin,” Darri said, and the familiar way she said his name made Varis’s eyes narrow. But Kestin just looked

at her, his eyes pitch-black against the shadows behind him. “Think about it. If you’re their long-awaited hope,

what is it they’re hoping for? As the first dead king of Ghostland, you are either a large step forward in the

power of the ghosts, or the spark that ignites a conflict between the living and the dead. A conflict the dead

would probably win. Either way, the Defender gains from your death.”

Kestin reached out a hand, touching the rock wal as if to steady himself, though the rest of his body hadn’t

moved. “How could the Defender know my father would insist that I inherit? I didn’t know. . . .”

moved. “How could the Defender know my father would insist that I inherit? I didn’t know. . . .”

“Your father had no choice,” Varis said. “Not with Cerix as second-in-line. Haven’t you ever wondered why

Cerix is stil alive, when so many of the dead must itch to make him one of them? The Defender probably

commanded that he be left alone, just to ensure your father’s choice.”

“Did he?” Kestin asked Clarisse. “Is that why you haven’t—”

“It’s not why,” Clarisse said sharply. “I fol ow orders only when it suits me.” She stood abruptly, her skirt

fal ing in folds against her legs. “But yes, Prince Varis is correct. The Defender commanded the dead to leave

Lord Cerix alive.”

Varis felt an irrational surge of pride; irrational because he shouldn’t care what a dead girl thought, and also

because it wasn’t him, real y, who had figured this out. It was Darri.

Darri, who knew things he did not. And had no real reason to share them with him.

He met his sister’s gaze through the wavering torchlight, and felt again the sense of kinship that had made

him give her the dagger. Wel , the dagger had been partly a trick, but even so. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been

so quick to reject the thought of working with her.

“Why?” It was an anguished whisper; the dead prince was as stil as a statue at the edge of the cave. “Why

me, and why now?”

Clarisse shrugged. “You could always summon him and ask.”

“Would he come?” Kestin said bit erly. “If I’m just a figurehead?”

“An important figurehead,” she said, in a tone that was meant to sound soothing—but, judging by its

mocking edge, not to actual y be soothing. “The Guardian and the Defender both have a nostalgic respect for

monarchy. It’s one of the Defender’s few weaknesses.”

Kestin turned away; just a jerk of his head, but it put his face in shadows. Clarisse watched with her lips

pursed. Varis did not recognize the expression on her face, but he knew it was neither love nor sympathy. She

opened her mouth, and Darri interrupted swiftly, “His weaknesses?”

Clarisse shrugged. “Even immortal creatures have weaknesses.” Her lips flickered upward, briefly and

bit erly. “But yes, Kestin, you could cal him. And he might come. If you ask for his protection, he wil certainly come.”