I wanted to fix this instantly upon reading it in 2013 or 2014, but I didn't decide to actually write spite ideas down until Shades of Earth, so I knew I'd have to go back and do it. And here I am, at least seven and maybe even eight years later, finally getting it done. The first five paragraphs and a couple other phrases are from the book. A larger version of the cover can be seen on my Tumblr at: tmblr . co/ZrXgjTa6xdwb4a00
She thought of...the empty spaces that would stud the castle, where the ghosts used to be.
Where they never should have been.
But where they were. Right now. Until the moment she swung her dagger.
She thought of Callie alive beside her again. Of the two of them racing across the plains, her sister's joyous laugh floating back on the wind.
Her hand moved back, ready to strike. It hovered there for a second, shaking.
She thought of Callie, golden hair and eyes blue as the cloudless desert sky, locked eternally in a gilded cage of existence that was warped and twisted and inescapable, unable to ever find rest through slaying her killer. Of Kestin, crowned king but not as a living man, also unable to take vengeance. Of all the ghosts, gods both capricious and immortal in this land empty of silver and easily hidden from sunlight, or desperately trying to convince themselves that they were happy to exist forever in a counterfeit of life. Of the humans, entirely defenseless against them. Finally, she thought of Clarisse, vicious and beautiful and conniving and powerful—and most of all, now invulnerable. And she made her choice.
Darri looked at her sister. "I love you," she said simply. "But you shouldn't be here in the first place."
And she brought the dagger down.
Callie screamed, once, and covered her mouth, but she did not move. The crack in the spell spread, reaching past the gray coil and into white, red, and pink ones. Black smoke leaked out from it, and the spell light flickered. Darri struck again, and the crack spread further. Again, and the edges of the crack began to crumble like sand.
As she raised the dagger a fifth time, light exploded from the spell. It lit the cave with an incandescent brightness, throwing sharply-defined shadows on the walls. Darri stepped back, turned around—and saw that her sister was glowing.
"The vengeance," Callie gasped. She held up her hands, dripping with the radiance, and stared at them in wonder. Then she looked at Darri. Her face shone brilliantly, confused and frightened and hopeful all at the same time. "I don't feel it any—"
She vanished.
A moment later, so did the light. It left behind a spell cracked completely in two. One final wisp of smoke drifted into the air, and dissipated into nothingness.
"Ghostset," whispered Darriniaka of Raellia.
She placed the dagger atop the broken rock with a clink of silver on stone, and let herself sink to the ground. Later there would be time to deal with King Ais, and Varis, and the upending of a country. But for now, she buried her face in her knees and gave full way to grief, letting the shattering sobs tear through her.
Callie was gone, to final rest. She would never ride the plains again, golden hair streaming next to black, nor sit with her sister at a king's table. In Raellia or in Ghostland, that space next to Darri would be empty forever.
And yet deep inside, through the raw anguish and wrenching sorrow so strong she could barely breathe, there was a kernel of comfort. She had finally accomplished what she had set out to do. She had come to Ghostland to save Callie, and she had.
Her sister was dead—but free.