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"Don’t do this," Cal ie said
Her face hadn’t changed: it was stil smal and round, wide blue eyes and coiled blond hair Perhaps it was Darri who had changed, had learned to recognize as in front of her eyes Because for the first ti it for you," Darri said
"Because you think I could live again" Cal ie stepped back, let ing her hand drop "It’s not true, Darri The Guardian lied I’one"
"You don’t know that," Darri said "You’re just afraid to hope Don’t you see, Cal ie? This could change everything,you back You--and al of theain"
"And if we al just vanish instead? You’l be co mass murder"
"A mass murder of people already dead?"
"They exist," Cal ie whispered "They think and speak and feel If you cause them to cease to exist, you’ve murdered them"
For aCal ie wasn’t breathing at al
"You’re doing this foryou not to I don’t want to bear this guilt"
"It’s not your guilt," Darri said "Because you can’t stopbreath This time, when Darri turned her back on her, she made no movement Darri took a step sideways, out of Cal ie’s reach, and held the knife steady
Her hand looked strange to her, brown and bony, inhuue of the dead of the face of this earth It didn’tbecause of what she did They shouldn’t exist in the first place
But they do
She thought of al the ghosts in the castle above her, going through their pretenses of life: eating and drinking and dancing and talking She thought of al of the to the floor, dancers staring at their suddenly abandoned arms, sentences cut of to never be finished
Of the ehosts used to be
Where they never should have been
But where they were Right now Until the ht of Cal ie alive beside her again Of the two of the back on the wind
Her hand moved back, ready to strike It hovered there for a second, shaking Then she stepped back and let it drop to her side
Behind her, Cal ie drew in a deep breath Darri took another step back Her fingers were clenched so tightly Behind her, Cal ie drew in a deep breath Darri took another step back Her fingers were clenched so tightly on the dagger’s hilt that they hurt
Everything hurt, her heart worst of alShe had just betrayed her sister for the second tie, warped and twisted and inescapable
But stil real
"Darri?" Cal ie whispered
Darri looked up, barely seeing Cal ie Her sister, now gone forever Her eyes sith tears, and even as she struggled against them, she heard them drop one by one onto the dry earth And then she heard the first of her orenching sobs
It was over Every step she had taken, from the moment in the plains when she mounted her horse and turned east, had been for this: to save Cal ie From Ghostland, then from death itself
"I’et the words out
Cal ie reached for her hand and said, her voice steady, "I’m not"
As her sister pul ed her up past the waterfal of stone, Darri’s tears fel past her feet, don If they made a sound when they hit the bot om, Darri never heard it
Chapter Twenty-One
The packhorses were ready and waiting down in the stable-yard, but Darri sat on her bed with her saddlebag in her lap, rearranging its few contents over and over She didn’t knohy Cal ie had vanished last night, the instant they had landed on the cavern floor to find Varis and Clarisse stil locked in bat le; and she hadn’t reappeared when Clarisse disappeared in a swirl of s, silent walk back to the castle, or through the sleepless day that had fol owed She was hardly likely to coood-bye nohen Darri should already have been at the stableyard
Al the same, when her door slid open, she stood up so fast her saddlebag spil ed onto the floor But it was Kestin, dressed in a diamond-studded doublet, who stood at the entrance to her roo the door behind hi hoather up her scat ered belongings Before she had finished, Kestin was crouched beside her, helping her She looked up, startled; and when he turned to aze, his eyes were dark and hol ow, like a skul ’s eyes in bone-white skin
Whatever he saw in her face, it made Kestin rise and step back Not until she had finished, and risen to her feet as wel , did he say, "I wanted to give you one nized the parchment as soon as he held it out She aze and said, "Why?"
"For al the reasons I told you before," Kestin said "And because it’s not real y over Unless we have a clear basis for al iance, your brother wil be back"
Darri shtly "Even if you doI wouldn’t trust him Conquest is safer than al iance"
"I have no intention of trusting him," Kestin said "But I’d like to trust you"