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"They’l be here before daybreak," Jano said,in the empty chair next to hers As Cal ie turned to look at him, Jano went solid "I just heard fro it wouldn’t fool hi at night Day and night were reversed in Ghostland to accoht Darri and Varis would fol ow that custom until they had to On the other hand, it was siven the 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 hiht look like a ten-year-old child, but in truth he was hundreds of years old Far too old to get aith 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 ar 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, as 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 iine that would make her a , but that was only part of the problem The real issue was that the Ghostlanders didn’t concern thedom She had spent the last four years in an uncertain status, e, 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 halThe Guardian went striding past the the laleamed 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 leamed white as he sue to keep fro as Jano was, she couldn’t lose her only real friend at court And to be fair, hosts liked to act as if they were above the pet y concerns of the living Deadheads, so 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 hly 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 fro a black silk cape and breeches, his hair bound back in a long, tight braid The silk ed and coarse coar 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 s to you and your court"

King Ais blinked only once before beginning his for as Varis’s, though it wouldn’t say anythingat ention She wondered where Darri was

where Darri was

People atching 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 pal her at ention back to the throne "May I present ot en how fast thingshorses and the living A Ghostlander would have spoken about Darri for at least tenher

For a painful moment, Cal iea 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, as sioas 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 ainst 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 asha back and forth with a hunter’s alertness despite the aardness 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 h 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