Page 30 (1/2)

"We should begin the coronation," the prince said, his voice raised to reach the courtiers, his eyes stil on Darri’s face "There is no reason to keep the dead waiting"

"I couldn’t agree rin

Kestin walked into the throne room The courtiers, after a moment of confusion, fol owed him

Darri looked at Cal ie then, and Cal ie realized she was stil holding her sister’s sleeve She dropped it, but Darri stil stood there, looking at her A slow, sick fear swirled through Cal ie as she waited to hear what Darri had to say to her

Darri smiled at her--an open, bril iant sh one of the doorways lining the corridor

The unexpected so after Darri, to--demand? yel ? plead? cry?

She didn’t know, so she fol owed the courtiers She was tired of worrying about what Darri thought and what Darri felt and what Darri was about to do

The throne roo Thick stone pil ars fil ed the vast space betweenthe dais and the king’s golden throne Cal ie, whose father’s proclamations were usual y made from horseback in front of a tent, stil felt awed every time she walked in

By tradition, the floor space was reserved for the living, while ghosts twined about the intricately carved pil ars Cal ie started to float a half inch of the floor, and stepped heavily down on the black and white marble No one else noticed, but the impulse alarmed her

She didn’t want to feel dead Not yet

Kestin walked through the crowd, and the spectators tried to bow, but most of the and dead He stepped onto the , and bowed

There fol ohat see Ais publicly imparted words of wisdom to Kestin, then someone else spoke about Kestin’s virtues, then sos about Ghostland, and final y Kestin -winded vows

When he was done at last, anticipation stil ed the restless courtiers King Ais stepped forward, lifted the crown from his head, and held it out Kestin bowed once, reached over, and took the crown from his father’s hands

hands

Al at once the air was fulCal ie, along with the rest of the crowd, looked up The dead were layered one upon another, fil ing the space above the living, gray and translucent Soe to look away, to avert her eyes frorotesque to bear Yet she couldn’t have said what, exactly, rong with the--and et that muchabove the the space al the way up to the high-arched ceiling

They outnuhosts who stil had the for, at least tenfold

The silence was dreadful Cal ie blurred, her body fading, proving to the dead that she was one of thehosts al bowed their heads to Kestin, who looked at the Ais let his hands fal helplessly to his sides, and the first dead prince of Ghostland lifted the crown and placed it on his head

A sound like wind rushed through the throne roo It was low and unearthly, and it was the only sound in the rooThey stood as if turned to statues, watching the dead who outnumbered them so vastly

And just like that, the coronation was over The crowd around Cal ie began streahosts, or to get to the food and wine stil waiting in the banquet hal , Cal ie couldn’t telShe only knehat she wanted: to escape froray forms as fast as possible She went solid and forced herself toher way between the richly dressed nobles, pausing only when one of the dead refused to h hilares around her Walking through a person was extreerly between the crowd until she e of her panic faded, did she feel the tears at the bot oms of her eyes

That, above her in the throne roooing to develop aches and pains and rough skin and lose her teeth and then die Instead she was going to forget that she was hus, and be one of those things forever Because there was an end to life, but not to death

She had known that for a long tiht--the pain on her sister’s face, the shock on her brother’s, Jano’s hissed warnings, the goblet she had left in Varis’s room--stripped away her defenses, the four years’ layers of sophistication and confusion she had wrapped around herself She felt the spel holding her down, felt the anguish that had torn through her when she first realized she was dead and not gone--an anguish not blunted or faded, but merely buried, over the past weeks

You’l learn to pretend, Jano’s voice echoed in her ear It’s the only e can bear being e are

She would learn to pretend; it was bet er, or at least less frightening, than vanishing into the unknown Than being nothing She would watch how the others did it, and be like them Like Jano, and Clarisseher throat clenched as she reoblet froht she was his sister, no mat er what else she was

Which should have helped, at least a lit le bit But al she could think was, If he can accept it, why can’t she? She knew the answer even before her mind had formed the question Darri couldn’t accept it because Darri cared too h, for Darri, to accept Cal ie; she had to love her And how could anyone love a ghost?

Al at once Cal ie knehat had been bothering her about Darri’s s that had passed between them in the halDarri had met her eyes easily, without the faintest reservation, soht she learned Cal ie was dead As if there was nothing disgusting about Cal ie at al Cal ie final y had exactly what she so desperately wanted For Darri to look at her, even though she was dead, the way she had when Cal ie was alive And now that it had happened

She didn’t believe it

Not so long ago, she herself had been ful y Rael ian, had felt her skin shrink frohost

She knew there was no way Darri could look at her dead sister as if nothing rong Cal ie couldn’t even look at herself as if nothing rong

Darri had just gone back to what she had thought when she first rode into Ghostland, a rider with ashe could fix

Cal ie swore, using a word so filthy that a passing nobleh the hal and into the throne rooht through thehtest hesitation

But there was no one left--not at floor level, anyhow

Prince Kestin stood alone on the old, looked like it belonged on his head It was also in danger of fal ing ofKestin’s head was tilted far back as he watched the gray mass of translucent forms that stil fil ed the air