Nightspell (25 page)

next to a delicate wooden chair. For a moment, Darri thought he was going to sit. Instead, he placed one iron-

gloved hand on the back of the chair and turned again to face them. “Four brothers and two sisters, children of

an ailing king. My brother and I were the youngest, born to a foreign wife—a sorceress from across the sea. She

taught us her magic in secret, and it al owed us to survive when the factions at court chose their champions and

moved with the deadliness that has always been part of our country’s tragic history. Over the course of a year,

my father watched both our brothers and one sister die.”

“Kil ed?” Kestin asked, after a moment.

“We don’t know. There was no way to know, back then. That’s why we did what we did. We cal ed on

dangerous powers and set our spel in stone and earth, so that it could never happen again. So that there

would always be punishment for murder.”

“Seems a bit drastic,” Darri noted.

The empty iron eyes turned on her. “There was no other way to end it. Assassination and treachery had been

our way for hundreds of years. What would you have had us do, Princess—gather the court for an inspirational

speech about why it wasn’t nice?”

Darri opened her mouth, then shut it.

“We gave up more than you can imagine to change the nature of death in our land,” the Guardian said. “The

spel could easily have kil ed us. Instead it keeps us alive, forever. My brother became the first of the dead,

even though there was no one for him to take vengeance on. I remain trapped in life forever, so that the spel

can continue to be channeled through my mind.”

“Channeled?” Darri said.

“Magic is a powerful force, but it requires a living human mind to shape it.” The Guardian’s fingers

tightened on the back of the chair, and Darri heard wood crack. “For every creation of a new ghost, every time

our spel snatches a spirit away from death, it draws upon the magic that runs through me.”

“Was it worth it?” Darri demanded, stepping away from the prince and toward the Guardian. “Was it worth

what you did?”

The Guardian took his hand of the chair. Darri glanced at it swiftly, and saw a jagged crack in the polished

dark wood. “You of al people should know, Princess, what price is worth paying for the end of violence and

bloodshed.”

Any price. It was what Varis had told her, in his tent long ago. Though even Varis hadn’t been thinking of

evil magic that twisted the natural order of life itself.

“But it started going wrong a long time ago.” The Guardian pushed the chair away with a sudden movement,

and it slid a few inches across the marble floor. “The ghosts were supposed to avenge themselves and vanish,

not remain among us for hundreds of years. We had created creatures who were immortal, had great power,

and were almost impossible to imprison or kil .”

“So you became the Guardian,” Kestin said. Darri glanced over her shoulder and saw that the prince was

standing in the center of the room, feet braced wide, hands clasped behind his back. “To protect the living

from the dead. And your brother . . .”

“Insisted that the dead needed protection as wel .” The Guardian inclined his head. “I believed him, for a

very long time; even once it should have been clear to me that his true goal was to increase his own power

until even the living would obey him.”

“Then do what I’m asking,” Darri said. “Stop him.”

“I cannot. I don’t know, after al this time, which of us is more powerful. And besides . . . he is my brother.

Whatever he has become, we did this thing together.”

This thing. He said it with such disgust that al at once, Darri knew what Cal ie had been brought here to do,

and what she had been kil ed to stop.

“You want the spel to end.” She said it almost in a whisper.

The Guardian’s head moved, just a fraction: a movement so smal Darri might not have seen it if she hadn’t

been staring at him so hard. Up, and then down.

Kestin’s voice was barely audible. “Can it end?”

The Guardian kept his iron face turned toward Darri as he replied. “It is a powerful and fragile thing, our

spel , like life itself. Set in stone and earth, but delicate as glass. It can be broken easily enough, if you can get to it.”

“And you can’t get to it?” Kestin demanded.

“Not I, nor my brother, nor any of the dead. No one af ected by the spel can touch it without being

destroyed.” He hesitated for barely a moment. “Only someone who is stil alive can do this.”

Darri leaned forward. “But no one in Ghostland would do it. They would see it as mass murder.” Her fingers

curled inward. “You needed someone foreign. Someone who understands that the ghosts are already dead.

That’s why you convinced King Ais to accept my father’s of er. Not for al iances. For this.” The room blurred.

“And when the Defender figured out what you were doing, he kil ed Cal ie to make sure she wouldn’t end the

spel .”

“I believe so. When I urged King Ais to accept your father’s second of er, I overplayed my hand. My brother

realized what I was after.”

“And you wanted us here because Cal ie was no longer of use to you. Is that it?” Darri’s throat closed up

around her words, grief and hatred intertwined. This—creature—had stolen Cal ie’s life away for his own

around her words, grief and hatred intertwined. This—creature—had stolen Cal ie’s life away for his own

purposes; and then, when it hadn’t worked, had decided to steal Darri’s life as wel . “She was too young, when

she first arrived. And then she was no longer foreign enough. You didn’t think she would do it. That’s why you

advised the king to accept more foreigners into Ghostland.”

The Guardian nodded.

Darri pushed down her fury with an ef ort; she was amazed when her voice emerged cool and composed.

“And then, once we arrived, the Defender tried to kil us, too.”

“He did,” the Guardian agreed. “But I warned him of , and he isn’t ready to at ack me directly. Not yet.”

Darri sucked in her breath. Nothing the Defender had said in the caves was true. He had nothing against

needless kil ing. He hadn’t kil ed Cal ie, even when she begged him, for one simple reason: because as a ghost,

Cal ie gave her siblings a reason not to end the spel .

So he must have thought.

“I’l do it,” she said.

Kestin’s arms dropped to his sides as he turned toward her. The Guardian didn’t move.

“I’l do it,” Darri said again. “I’l do it for my sister. To free her from what your spel has done to her.”

“It’s not quite as simple as that,” the Guardian said. “Ending the spel might not end her existence.”

Darri stepped back and looked at his iron face squarely, trying not to picture the decayed remains of the real

face behind it. “What do you mean? Won’t the ghosts al vanish, when the spel is gone?”

The Guardian’s fingers curled into fists, metal scraping against metal. “Our spel blurred the boundary

between life and death. Where the new boundary would form is impossible to know.”

“What does that mean?” Kestin demanded, striding forward until he stood beside Darri again. Darri didn’t

turn to look at him, even when his hand brushed hers. She stared at the Guardian’s mask.

The voice issuing from behind that mask was slow and reluctant. “It means, Prince Kestin, that the ghosts

might al vanish. Or they might stay as they are.”

Darri, sensing something unsaid, demanded, “Or?”

“Or,” the Guardian said, even more slowly, “they might stay . . . but not as they are.”

Kestin drew back. “They could live again?”

“It’s not probable,” the Guardian said.

Darri could hear her heart pounding in her ears, like distant marching. Kestin whispered, “But you can’t tel

us it’s not possible at al ?”

Darri looked sideways at Kestin; his dark eyes met hers, just for a second, and then they both snapped their

heads around and stared at the Guardian. For a moment, before she remembered what it looked like, Darri

wished she could see the face behind that mask.

“No,” the Guardian said, slowly and regretful y. “I can’t.”

Cal ie. The images flashed through Darri’s mind in a cascade, fever bright. Cal ie laughing, Cal ie twirling in

the grass, Cal ie with the falcon’s claws digging into her arm. Cal ie’s grim dead face in the dark cavern. Cal ie alive again. Riding beside her, sunlight gleaming on her hair.

And if it didn’t work, at least her sister would be free.

“Tel me what to do,” she demanded, stepping forward. “Where—” But even as the word left her mouth, she

realized that she already knew.

The older dead al come here eventual y, to stand guard, Clarisse had said. This was what they were

guarding. “How?” she said instead.

“The spel has its limitations built into it.” The Guardian was so stil he might have been a statue. “The same

things that destroy the ghosts can destroy the spel that created them. Sunlight and silver.” He took a step

toward her. “The spel is in the caves beneath the castle, so sunlight is not an option. But we al know you

have silver.”

Without thinking, Darri drew the coated silver dagger from her boot. Kestin made a smal sound, and she

met his eyes. They were large and dark and shining. She couldn’t tel whether it was with fear or hope.

And she didn’t care.

“Wait,” Kestin said. “You can’t—not alone. That’s not a place the living should go.”

“I hear that a lot,” Darri said dryly. “But the dead aren’t there now, are they? They’l soon be at ending a

rather important coronation.” She flashed a smile at him, and knew from the way his eyes widened that it was

her old smile, reckless and heedless and uncaring.

Because she didn’t care. The danger to her wasn’t important. Only one thing was important, the same thing

that had always been important: saving her sister. She felt as if she had been lost in a storm for days, and could final y see the road ahead of her again.

“Give them a good show,” she told Kestin.

Then she flat out ran through the golden antechamber, down the lamp-lit hal s. Somewhere to the left, she

knew, was the entrance to the caverns, but she didn’t trust her memory of those labyrinthine passageways. She

turned right instead, into a straight, wide hal of polished marble, heading for the stables.

Clusters of people stood in the hal , sipping wine and laughing. They turned in astonishment to watch her

go, and she caught a glimpse of her reflection, wavering in the polished steel that lined the hal . Her face was

set, grim and determined and devoid of hesitation. She recognized the expression: she had seen it on Varis’s

set, grim and determined and devoid of hesitation. She recognized the expression: she had seen it on Varis’s

face, dozens of times, when he set of for bat le. She had seen it that night in his tent, when he told her that

Cal ie was being sent away and there was nothing she could do to save her sister.

She looked straight ahead and ran faster.

Chapter Eighteen

The underground passageways felt dif erent this time, vaster and murkier. They felt, Varis realized as he

fol owed Clarisse past a cluster of bulbous rock outcroppings, empty. Even the long dead had ventured back

among the living tonight, to watch one of their own become king.

It should have made him feel bet er. It did not. There was a ghost with him, after al , leading him farther

and farther into the narrowing passageways, the hem of her violet gown going right through the rocks he kept

stumbling over. The light of his torch cast moving shadows that played tricks on his mind. Curved hands,

elongated arms, and grotesque faces slid past the wal s, wavering over the curves and cracks in the rocks. None

of which was helped by his knowledge that there was another ghost fol owing them through the caves,

watchful and angry.

I know which way to go, to catch his at ention, Clarisse had said as she fil ed a glass flask with wine from

his goblet. He would never let me go into these caves completely alone. He doesn’t trust me.

An example, Varis suspected, that he would do wel to fol ow. Which didn’t make it any more sensible for

him to be fol owing her into the realm of the dead, certain that she hadn’t told him everything.

Fortunately, he hadn’t told her everything either. He was helping her because he was fairly certain that he

knew how to control her. If she had been anyone else, he would have been completely certain.

Clarisse came to a stop, so suddenly that he had to grab her shoulder to keep from col iding with her. Her

shoulder was firm and solid beneath his palm, so he knew she had intended for him to grab her. She half-

turned so that his arm was around her, then looked up into his face, lips half-parted.

Varis knew she was trying to distract him from something, so he dropped his torch at the first crack from

above. Then he turned and ran.

The stalactites fel from the ceiling in a cascade of sharp stone, slamming into the ground in a thunderous

cacophony. One hit his uninjured shoulder, and he hissed and stumbled. But he didn’t have at ention to spare

for the pain. He crouched low and ran, and when the second stone shard grazed his hip, he lunged low and

threw himself as far forward as he could.

A fal ing stone thudded hard against his foot, and then he was rol ing on pebble-strewn ground. The cavern

was suddenly silent, the crash of stone gone, and aside from two painful bruises, he was fine.

An ice-cold hand grabbed him by the back of his tunic and pul ed him to his feet. Al at once the caves were