Free Nightspell by Leah Cypess

of her eye, she saw Varis make some sort of movement, but she ignored him; there was
    nothing he could do to stop this charade.
    Kestin’s eyes crinkled at the corners, reminding her that he, too, knew it was a charade. But he merely said,
    “Of course. You must miss her, after al this time.”
    “Yes,” Darri said, and al at once was overwhelmed by how true it was. She missed Cal ie so much it was
    like an ever-growing hole somewhere inside her; and now that Cal ie was so close, it was worse than it had
    ever been. She turned abruptly from the sympathy in Kestin’s eyes, blinking fast to keep herself from tears. The
    wine had been a mistake; she had forgot en it could have ef ects other than lightheartedness.
    They walked out of the banquet hal , turned left down a wide hal way, and walked up a marble spiral
    stairway. At the top of the stairs was a round, lamp-lit chamber, from which a multitude of narrow
    passageways led into the depths of the castle. Kestin turned down one, and Darri fol owed him. It wasn’t until
    they had passed several closed wooden doors, and the silence was becoming thick and oppressive, that she
    stopped walking and turned to face him.
    “Can we talk here?” she asked.
    Kestin stepped back on his heel as he turned, a lithe motion that reminded Darri of Varis. It was the
    instinctive movement of a trained swordsman. “These rooms are al unoccupied, so we’re safe. There’s no one
    who can overhear us.”
    Darri gathered her hair in one hand and slung it behind her back. “No one I can see.”
    “No one you can’t see, either.” Kestin raised an eyebrow. In the lamplight, his hair gleamed blue-black.
    “When ghosts become invisible, their presence can be sensed; ironical y enough, it’s easier for them to hide
    “When ghosts become invisible, their presence can be sensed; ironical y enough, it’s easier for them to hide
    when they’re solid. I’d know if we had any watchers. You’l pick up on the feeling soon enough.”
    Darri hoped she would be gone long before she had to learn that particular skil . . . a brief, forlorn hope,
    but dif icult to let go of now that she had let it in. She took a deep breath, braced herself, and said, “What is the other option?”
    Kestin stepped back to the opposite wal of the hal way and leaned against a red and gray tapestry. This
    time, there was nothing hidden or quick about the assessment in his gaze; he watched her for a long,
    considering moment before he spoke. “I have a second cousin named Cerix. He’s next in line to the throne after
    me, and he’s alive.”
    Slowly Darri said, “I don’t think a second cousin wil seal this particular al iance.”
    “No,” Kestin agreed. “Your father’s armies are too powerful for anything but a royal marriage to stop him.”
    A royal marriage or an army of ghosts, Darri thought; but Kestin must know the stakes as wel as—or bet er
    than—she did. Her father didn’t truly want to test his soldiers by ordering them to invade Ghostland; and King
    Ais, presumably, didn’t want to risk an invasion either. The heart of Ghostland, a three-day ride through
    gnarled forest, was safe enough; but its borderlands, where forest faded or was cut into field, and where a band
    of horsemen could ride in at sunrise and be out by dusk, was dangerously vulnerable. A few wel -timed raids
    could destroy a season’s harvest, which would be felt even in the deepest, darkest chambers of this invulnerable
    castle; and the commoners would die in swathes.
    So both countries needed an al iance, and a marriage to make it stick.
    “I was told,” she said slowly, “that your father considers you his heir.”
    Kestin jerked his shoulders, making the tapestry shift dangerously behind him. “He does,” he said, biting of
    the words. “It is unprecedented, but quite legal.”
    She rubbed the back of her neck. “Then what are we—”
    “But I am not heir yet,” Kestin went on. His eyes narrowed. “Until I agree