Nightspell (22 page)

He turned around to find Clarisse standing behind him, pale as—wel . The green eyes that met his were as

large and liquid as ever, but tonight their bril iance seemed both faded and fake.

He stood and bowed to hide his expression, not sure whether it would be pity or triumph. Either way, she

had best not see it. “My lady. I did not expect the honor of your company tonight.”

“Why not?” Her laughter was carefree and forced. “I do enjoy a bal .”

“Why not?” Her laughter was carefree and forced. “I do enjoy a bal .”

She was lying, he thought, and she didn’t even know it. Once, perhaps, she had enjoyed bal s. Now she was

just remembering that enjoyment. She had no idea what she had lost.

He wondered if he should pity her. If she didn’t know, did it mat er?

Clarisse moved closer to him, with a rustle of silk and a waft of spicy perfume. He looked down at her

flirtatiously tilted head and said gently, “Lord Cerix wil be here tonight.”

She went so stil she stopped breathing—stopped for far longer than a living girl could have. Then she said,

“Why are you tel ing me that?”

The scent of her perfume was suddenly overpowering. She had to be doing that on purpose.

Varis’s heart pounded. He wondered why Cerix had kil ed her: a real plot she had been part of, a plot she

had been pretending to take part in, or just because she had taunted him once too often? He supposed it didn’t

mat er. “I thought, rather than stay here and see him, you might be wil ing to meet me in my chambers. The

wine would be bet er, and we could enjoy it in private.”

“The wine is tempting,” Clarisse said. “But I do want to dance.”

“So wil Cerix.”

Her eyes went hard, and for a moment he thought she was going to at ack him. Instead, she smiled. “I can

stay away from him. I have excel ent self-control. But after the first few dances, I would enjoy some wine. . . .”

She lowered her lashes and brushed her fingertips across her lips.

Varis bowed again, and when he straightened she was gone.

Chapter Fifteen

Cal ie, watching her brother walk out of the makeshift theater, didn’t realize Jano was behind her until he

tapped her shoulder. She turned, then went stil when she saw who it was. They stared at each other in silence

for several moments. Jano looked incongruously genteel in a brocade green overcoat, ruf led sleeves, and a

high pleated col ar—like a child playing dress-up.

“Wel ,” Jano said final y. “It seems there’s something you forgot to mention to me.”

So Clarisse had told him. Cal ie drew in her breath and tried to think of something to say. Final y she

whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Jano said, with genuine curiosity.

“For not tel ing you. It’s not . . . it’s not that I didn’t want you to know. I just didn’t want to say it out loud.”

“It wil get bet er, you know.” Jano gestured to a passing serving girl, snatched two pastries of her tray, and

of ered one to Cal ie. “You’l learn to pretend. We do it so wel , here in this castle. We busy ourselves with

parties and hunts so we have no time to think. It’s the only way we can bear being what we are.”

He was smiling at her with calm pity, and suddenly she was angry; a hot anger that dried out the tears. She

took the pastry from him and bit into it savagely, her mouth fil ing with spicy sweetness. Even though she was

dead and shouldn’t be able to taste anything.

“Are the living so dif erent?” she asked.

“No.” Jano popped a pastry into his mouth. Flaky dough trickled from his lips as he spoke. “No, not at al .

But the living don’t have to justify being here. They belong here.”

“So do we,” Cal ie said defiantly, after she had swal owed. “There’s nothing wrong with being a ghost.” She

had never said it before, and the words felt wrong leaving her mouth. She didn’t believe them.

But she had bet er start believing them.

Jano laughed. “Oh, you have been here awhile, haven’t you? Long enough to believe what they al spend so

much energy pretending.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Let me tel you what you wil know, Cal ie,

when you’ve been dead for hundreds of years. Dead is dead. Every second that you’re dead, every second that

you know it, you die al over again. Watching your life escape from your grasp, over and over and over. Parties

and banquets wil only distract you for so long before you have no choice but to face it. And that’s when you

go mad.”

“Which, apparently, you have,” Cal ie snapped.

He laughed even longer this time. “Oh, no. I’m close, but not quite there. When I go mad, Cal ie, you’l

know. I won’t be able to hold onto this human form anymore. I won’t be able to bear the presence of the

living, when I hate them so much for having what I never wil again. I’l disappear, but I won’t be at peace, I

won’t be at rest, I won’t be free. I wil be hiding beneath the earth, with the other ghosts, dying again and again and again.” He stepped so close she could feel his breath on her face; except of course he didn’t have to

breathe, so he was doing that on purpose. “That’s where the spel is, chaining us here no mat er how badly we

want to go. That’s where I’l be, close to the spel , clinging to my chains because they’re al I have left.”

By the time he finished speaking, she was yards away from him, her back pressed against a round table. She

dropped the rest of the pastry to the floor. He didn’t move closer, but he pinned her with his gaze. “Did I ever

tel you how I died, Cal ie?”

Mute, she shook her head.

“My mother did it.”

“Your—”

“I fel of a horse, and the wound got infected. The doctors told her it was too late to save me . . . but she

didn’t want to lose me. So she kil ed me.”

Cal ie tried to step even farther back, and the pastry crunched under her foot. “But . . . if she was the one

who kil ed you, and you knew it, then didn’t you want to . . .”

“Yes.”

So much anguish fil ed that one word that Cal ie felt a surge of pity. She said, very quietly, “Did you refrain

for her sake, or for yours?”

“For hers.” Jano watched another servant go by with a tray of fruit, then turned back to her. “I never asked

her to make me a ghost. But I was al she had. And then when she died, my chance was gone.”

“I’m sor—”

“I should have realized it sooner,” Jano said. “I could have had my vengeance and died in truth, if I hadn’t

clung so tightly to the il usion that I loved her. This is what death is: not having to love anyone.” He grimaced.

“It’s why Clarisse is so glad to be dead. More than anything, she wanted to be free of the people she once

loved. And the living are never free.”

Cal ie’s fingernails dug into her palms. “The dead are?”

He smiled, faintly and bit erly. “Not noticeably.”

After that, they stood in silence until Jano spot ed another tray of pastries and headed after it. Cal ie let out a long, shaky breath. She pressed the back of her hand to her eyes, and when she uncovered them, Jano was

a long, shaky breath. She pressed the back of her hand to her eyes, and when she uncovered them, Jano was

nowhere to be seen.

I won’t be at peace, I won’t be at rest, I won’t be free. Cal ie grabbed a goblet of wine from the table behind

her and downed it in one long swal ow. It didn’t help.

Dying again and again and again.

She would rather he had lied to her. She would rather he had let her become one of the unthinking masses,

believing what everyone else believed. He would have, if he were truly her friend. But he was too long dead to

be anyone’s friend.

He didn’t kil me on the hunt, she reminded herself. But that was when he had thought she was alive, that

she could be kil ed, or saved. He had, she realized suddenly, not turned away because he didn’t want her dead.

He just hadn’t wanted her to become this. What he was. What she was, now.

What she would be forever. And no one, not even Darri, could change it.

It didn’t mat er that Cal ie wouldn’t help her. It was bet er, in fact. Darri had a plan, and it was one that Cal ie wouldn’t like very much.

She watched Kestin, who was standing near the dais smiling graciously, exchanging greetings with the stream

of nobles who came up to him. He looked very regal in gold-trimmed black velvet, his stance as carefree as if

this was just another of the castle’s endless parties. As always, he looked more alive than most of the people

around him, with a glowing vibrancy that made it hard to believe he could no longer walk in sunlight.

Even so, Darri could barely manage to keep her focus on him, to keep from looking around the banquet hal

for Cal ie. She couldn’t wipe from her mind the expression on Varis’s face when Cal ie told him the truth: the

blankness of disbelief, the refusal to recognize something too horrible to be true. She had felt the same way

when she first found out the truth about her sister.

She stil felt the same way.

“My lady Darriniaka,” someone said behind her, and Darri turned to face a lanky man with over-oiled red

hair and a fine sheen of sweat covering his face. “I have long looked forward to meeting you.”

And Darri had long wondered when Cerix would make his move. He could not have chosen a worse time.

“My lord,” she said politely.

He smiled at her, coming far too close and giving Darri an up-close view of several newly erupted pimples.

She resisted the urge to back away, and the even stronger urge to stab him in the stomach. “You are as

beautiful as they say.”

You’ve known what I look like for days, you idiot. Darri suddenly changed her mind about being polite.

This could work for her, if she played it right. “As who says?”

He blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“If there’s someone in this court who thinks I’m beautiful, I’d like to know about it.”

“I think you are beautiful, Lady Darriniaka.” He actual y put one hand over his heart. “The most beautiful

woman I have ever seen.”

“Then there’s a problem with either your memory or your eyes.”

Momentary anger marred his ardent expression. People within earshot were starting to snicker. “Do you not

know who I am, my lady?”

“Of course I know.” Darri copied his moonstruck expression as best she could. “You’re Prince Kestin’s heir.”

The snickers stopped. People were listening more closely now. Darri glanced across the room and saw Varis

scowling at her. Apparently he didn’t approve of her taking sides.

Which was merely a side benefit.

Though if he was that upset now, she would have to make sure to sneak another look at him in a few

minutes.

“Prince Kestin is dead,” Cerix snapped, loud enough to be heard halfway across the hal . “I am his father’s

heir, not his.”

Now many more people than Varis looked angry. It was unfortunate for Cerix’s faction, real y, that they had

to back Cerix. This was why the Rael ian method of confirming new leaders through combat made so much

sense.

“Prince Kestin is not dead,” Darri said, as loudly and stupidly as she could. “He’s standing right there. And I

wish to dance with him.” She turned her back on Cerix and marched across the dance floor to Kestin, whose

dark eyes were fixed on her. Unlike the other people in the hal who were watching her—which was, by now,

most of them—he looked amused.

He also, fortunately, had picked up enough of what was going on to bow and hold out his hand. She took it

without thinking, and it was warm and cal used in hers; warm enough to let her pretend it was a living hand.

Darri fol owed him onto the center of the dance floor and realized abruptly the first flaw in her hastily

conceived plan: she didn’t know how to dance.

Considering what she was about to do, the prospect of looking like an idiot in front of the court shouldn’t

have bothered her. Nevertheless, it did. She considered asking Kestin for help, and realized that looking like an idiot in front of him would bother her even more.

Wel , that was going to be a problem.

She concentrated on moving in more or less the same direction as the prince. That was just about al she

She concentrated on moving in more or less the same direction as the prince. That was just about al she

could manage; the same speed was out of her reach, and moving her feet the way he did was completely

beyond the realm of possibility.

Kestin raised his eyebrows, and she was mortified to feel herself blush. Then he stepped forward and put

one arm around her waist.

That was bet er. She barely had to move at al , with him guiding her so closely. But she was unbearably

tense, and she couldn’t even tel if it was because he was dead or because he felt so alive.

Kestin smiled at her. From mere inches away, his smile was devastating; and Darri’s heart, which seemed to

have forgot en that Kestin was dead, sped up. “Thank you. I was hoping for a dance.”

“With me? Or with Clarisse?” The smile vanished, and Darri bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“You should warn your brother.” Kestin was clearly trying to sound dispassionate, but the words came out

biting. He lifted her into a turn, then set her down on the floor. “Clarisse likes to play games.”

The thought of Varis needing to be warned should have been funny. Instead, it made Darri irritable. “So does

he. And unfortunately, women find my brother irresistible.”

Kestin lifted an eyebrow. “Unfortunately for whom?”

“For the women.”

He laughed, clearly despite himself, and almost missed the next turn. Darri staggered very slightly when he