Marc and Ruan exchanged a heavy look. Alba had merely confirmed what Branwen and Ruan already knew to be true. What Marc must now suspect: Tristan and Eseult had left the castle of their own accord.
Tannins and acid from the wine rose back up Branwen’s throat. She flattened her lips to stop from vomiting onto her dinner.
“This morning I sent another messenger to King Faramon,” Marc told Alba. “I informed him that you are to be our guest here in Monwiku until Kernyv and Armorica can settle our differences.” The princess visibly swallowed.
“I have no desire to prolong this misunderstanding, Lady Princess.” Alba made a disbelieving noise, and Marc pressed a hand to his heart. “I swear it on my life.”
The princess folded her arms, leaning back in her chair, staring at her untouched food.
“My father didn’t authorize the assault, King Marc. Kahedrin and I … we wanted revenge for Havelin. My eldest brother died a hero, defending our shores against pirates—his death warranted more than diplomacy.” Her eyes remained pinned to her plate. “King Faramon didn’t agree. You may find that my father doesn’t want me back.”
King Marc had called the siege brazen. Apparently it was even more brazen than any of the Kernyveu had realized. Branwen felt a grudging admiration for Alba despite the cost of her actions. Admiration and sympathy. Alba had tried to avenge one brother and lost another. Branwen pushed away the guilt, knowing it would return as sure as the tide.
“Princess Alba, I am confident that you will be sailing home to Karaez in no time,” said the king.
Her mouth pinched. “You don’t know my father.” She blinked and a single tear slid down her cheek. No one spoke. Then Alba inhaled, tilting her head at Marc.
“In Armorica,” she said, “the rites of the dead are performed within seven days to honor the seven Old Ones of Armorica.” The king nodded. “Would you permit me to prepare Kahedrin’s body for the pyre?”
“Of course. You may honor your brother however you wish.”
“Thank you, my Lord King.”
The meal was finished quickly, in silence, and Ruan returned Alba to her luxurious prison. Branwen accompanied Andred to the barracks to help him set one of the guardsmen’s broken arms. When at last she’d retired to her own chamber, she scrubbed her hands and face, muscles aching as she pulled on a nightgown. She’d just slipped into bed when she heard a soft rapping at the door.
With a sigh, Branwen scrambled to her feet. “May I come in?” Ruan asked as she levered open the door. Warm light from the corridor glowed on his weary face.
She stepped aside to let him enter and clicked the door firmly shut behind him. Whatever Ruan wanted to discuss, Branwen was certain she didn’t want them being overheard.
Only a single candle flickered on the bedside table. Before the room had been given to Branwen, King Marc had stored his excess maps and books here—the ones that overflowed from his substantial study. Shadows wavered across shelves upon shelves of weighty tomes that lined the walls.
Ruan canted his head at one of the shelves and plucked a wooden sword, child-size, from atop a collection of Aquilan treatises.
Examining the paltry weapon, he turned to Branwen and said, “I don’t think this blade is terribly sharp.” Teasingly, he brandished it at her.
“My uncle gave it to me when I was a girl,” Branwen explained. “He wanted me to learn to defend myself. He said he wouldn’t always be around to protect me.”
“King Óengus,” Ruan surmised.
“No. Lord Morholt. The King’s Champion.”
“The one who dueled with Tristan?”
Branwen nodded, taking the sword back from Ruan. She twirled its blunt tip against her forefinger. “When Morholt was denounced as a traitor, all of his possessions were destroyed. I couldn’t part with it.”
She drilled the tip harder against the grain of her skin. “It was dishonorable what he did—coating his spear in poison before the Final Combat, and yet—”
“You loved him,” Ruan interjected.
“No.” Morholt had always been a joyless man and Branwen couldn’t honestly say that she’d ever loved him. “My uncle died fighting for what he believed in, even if it was treason and I—I suppose I understand that.”
“Branwen.” Her name was full of yearning. Ruan put a hand on the sword to stop its twirling. “Branwen, I’m sorry I didn’t know what to say … to think last night.”
“And you know now?”
“I’m here because I want to understand.” He pried the sword from her grasp and replaced it on the shelf. His face was half-shrouded by night. “If you say you killed Tutir and Bledros in self-defense, I believe you. I confessed my greatest shame to you. I killed my own father.” The word was brittle. “The man who raised me,” Ruan corrected himself. “And you didn’t spurn me.” He took her right hand in his. She’d removed the bandage for sleep and the scar glimmered midnight in the candlelight.
“I want to understand your magic, Branwen.”
“So do I.”
Her shoulders deflated. She walked over to the bed, smoothing out the velvet coverlet, and perched atop it. Ruan followed, waiting, still standing. She stared at Dhusnos’s mark. The Wise Damsel said she no longer possessed the Hand of Bríga. The proof was tattooed on her skin.
Every letter in the Ivernic language of trees had two meanings. The first was a tree or a plant. The lines imprinted on Branwen’s palm formed the symbol for a fern. A flowerless plant. It was a fitting description of death.
Ruan lowered himself next to her on the bed. “Have you always had magic?” he asked quietly. He stroked her cheek, coaxing, his touch tender.
She shook her head, then, “Perhaps,” Branwen said. “The women in my family have always been healers.” Peering sideways at Ruan, she said, “When Tristan was poisoned at the Champions Tournament only magic could save him. I offered the Old Ones my blood for magic.”
“Why?” The word came from low in Ruan’s throat.
“If Tristan had died in Iveriu, Marc would have had no choice but to invade.”
“True enough.” He sighed. “The bond I’ve always sensed between you and Tristan. Is it because of the magic?”
Branwen couldn’t answer that question. “Magic changes many things,” she said.
“I’m not jealous,” Ruan said. “I’m not. I’m glad you saved Tristan.” She lifted an eyebrow. “If you hadn’t, we’d have never met.”
Her heart warped. She placed her hand above Ruan’s. His beat rapidly too. Branwen would never be able to feed him more than crumbs of truth. To keep Eseult on the throne, to keep the peace, she would always have to lie to the man beside her.
Ruan lifted her hand and kissed her palm. “And the fire?” he whispered against Branwen’s skin.
“We Iverni believe that creation and destruction come from the same source.”
Ruan intertwined their fingers. “Love is both.”
“Love is dangerous.” It had been Branwen’s love of Eseult that brought forth the darker side of her power—that summoned the fire to kill Keane and condemned him to be a Shade. Yet Branwen felt no such love for her cousin now. It was as if all the years they had shared together were behind a pane of glass.
“When Monwiku was attacked,” she continued, “I made my gods another offering. But no power comes without cost.”
He watched her intently. “What kind of cost?”
“Every time I use magic—” She pulled loose a white strand from her plaits. “I die a little.” Spoken so plainly, she understood its full truth. Of course Dhusnos had always been drawn to her, and she to him.
Ruan’s chest expanded as he drew in a long breath. “Please don’t tell the kordweyd,” Branwen begged him. “Otherworld knows what Seer Casek—or your mother—might do. I’m sure they’d consider me unnatural.”
“I’ve never believed in the Horned One, Branwen. I didn’t see any mercy in my father or in his god.” He traced the length of her scar. “I didn�
��t believe in any of the gods until I saw the flame rise from your hand last night.”
As if in response, the candle on the bedside table flickered wildly.
“You have the power to ruin me now, too,” Branwen told him.
“Your secret is safe with me.” Ruan tugged her nearer, kissing her brow so she could feel his breath on her eyelids. “You are safe with me.”
Branwen suppressed a whimper. She didn’t know if he could ever be safe with her. She gripped the bedspread with one hand.
“Then you no longer see me as a threat?” she said.
Ruan laughed. “Oh, you’re definitely a threat. But not to Marc. I’m losing count of how many times you’ve saved his life.” He sobered. “It should have been me to defend him against Kahedrin.”
“You were where the king needed you.”
“And yet Tristan and the queen are still gone.”
Branwen pulled back, scooting a handsbreadth away from him. The wind moaned from the garden. Ruan gazed into her eyes, gliding his thumb along her knuckles.
“Armorica didn’t kidnap your cousin,” he said.
“Alba could be lying.”
“Kridyom.”
“When we find the True Queen, there will be an explanation. The kingdom will be overjoyed at the queen’s return, and the peace will be restored.” Branwen spoke with lethal calm. “We must maintain the peace, Ruan.”
“I wish I were a bard like Tristan so I could compose a love song about Branwen of Iveriu, fierce and true.” He let out a strained laugh, shifting closer along the edge of the bed. “At least I can rhyme.”
“I never asked for a love song.”
“You never ask for anything.” Ruan rested his forehead against hers. “Maybe that’s why I want to give you everything.”
Branwen stroked Ruan’s back and the bristles on his jaw. Desire spread from deep in her body, erasing any drowsiness.
“If it were up to me, Branwen, we would be the only two people in the world.” Ruan dropped a kiss onto the crook of her neck.
“Right here, right now, there’s only us,” Branwen whispered and blew out the candle.
She threw her nightgown over her head and let the moonlight glisten on the scars the Shades had given her aboard the Dragon Rising. The monsters who were once her enemies but were now, if not her friends, then her allies.
What did that make Branwen? If she no longer possessed the Hand of Bríga, what did she possess?
Right now, she didn’t care. Ruan buried his face in her curls, fingers teasing and demanding as they explored her flesh. She undressed him with purpose, a new hunger in her kisses. Craving. She wanted everything that Ruan had to give.
Branwen might be aligned with death, but for the few hours between night and day, she was so, so alive.
WAITING GAME
BRANWEN TOOK HER PLACE AT the King’s Council meeting but she couldn’t shake the feeling of drowning. The room seemed at once too vast and too crowded. Her dreams had plunged her deep beneath the starless tide. Chaos incited the waves. As the heads of the Kernyvak noble Houses filed into the king’s study, Branwen heard her own greetings as if they came from underwater.
She stared down the length of the table, surveying the councillors, their features stark in the vivid sun that streamed from the windows, waiting for King Marc to begin. He stood at the head of the table. This afternoon Ruan occupied his usual place next to the king. Ruan had kissed Branwen with the dawn, but dread oozed beneath her skin for what the day might bring.
“Thank you all for coming,” King Marc said to the room. “We have much to discuss.” He spoke in Aquilan for Branwen’s benefit. Kernyvak was the native tongue of everyone else assembled.
Countess Kensa flicked Branwen a barbed glance. The countess had seated herself opposite her son, at the left hand of the king. Kensa was scarcely more than forty summers, and quite beautiful. The way she carried herself reminded Branwen of a viper poised to strike.
“We are grateful to be here,” said Baron Julyan. “This is a dire moment in the history of our kingdom, but we thank the Horned One to see you hearty and hale, my Lord King.” He drew an X in the air.
The head of House Julyan was the most elderly of the barons. His beard was long and white, his hands liver-spotted, and his bones creaked as he moved. But his affection for his young king was genuine.
“Mormerkti,” Marc replied. “Have there been any reports of raids on your lands?”
The old man shook his head. The territory belonging to House Julyan lay on the southeast coast, closer to Armorica.
“No, sire. And no sightings of the True Queen. Or Tristan.”
The absence of Queen Eseult and her Champion was a crater at the far end of the table that could not be ignored. Even awake, Branwen could barely catch her breath. She eyed Ruan sidelong. Between keeping Branwen safe and doing his duty to Marc, she didn’t know which the King’s Champion would choose.
Marc glanced at Baron Kerdu who sat between Ruan and Baron Julyan. The head of House Kerdu was of Kartagon heritage, like Tristan, and laugh lines creased his dark brown skin.
“Nothing to report, sire.” House Kerdu’s lands were bounded by Meonwara to the east and Ordowik to the north, but it had no sea borders.
King Marc turned to Baron Gwyk and Baron Dynyon, whose territories both lay in the southwest. They also shook their heads. House Dynyon had once controlled most of Liones before the tip of Kernyv was gifted to Tristan’s mother. The mustached baron made no attempt to disguise his longstanding bitterness.
Baron Chyanhal frowned in apology when Marc’s gaze landed on him. His lands lay a day’s ride farther up the north coast from the Morrois Forest. Branwen wasn’t surprised. The Royal Guard had found no evidence of the pair in the forest.
The five great baronies of Kernyv had been carved out by King Katwaladrus to reward the men who had helped him repel the Meonwaran invasion. House Whel was the newest, an upstart, owing its status to mineral wealth. They claimed only a small cape on the south coast, and Countess Kensa was hungry for more land.
“Villa Illogan is secure,” the countess informed King Marc.
Prince Edern had married Kensa for her gold, but the older noble families sneered at the Whels’ origins as wreckers. Ruan had explained that his maternal ancestors first built their fortune luring Aquilan ships onto the rocks, plundering them, and trading their wares with the Aquilan legions whose supply ships had never arrived.
Inhaling a heavy breath, King Marc nodded at his councillors.
“I am gladdened that our losses haven’t extended beyond Monwiku,” he said. “It is some good news among much bad.”
“The temples are sending more kordweyd from across the kingdom to care for the wounded,” Seer Casek announced. He had selected the seat between Countess Kensa and Baron Dynyon. Sunlight winked off the diamond-encrusted antler shard that dangled around his neck, and his pale, shaven head.
“Lady Branwen does an admirable job as Royal Healer,” he continued. He peered across the table at her. “But she is only one woman.” The seer’s smile was full of teeth.
Late Queen Verica had warned Branwen that Casek loved power more than he loved the Horned One, and he saw Branwen as his opponent.
“Sadly the Royal Infirmary does not yet exist,” he added.
King Marc cleared his throat. “The temples are very generous, Seer Casek.”
The king’s support for his queen’s project to build a Royal Infirmary—headed by Branwen—had brought him into direct conflict with the kordweyd. In Kernyv, the temples cared for the sick and they did not train women as healers. But King Marc needed the support of the seers to rule. Now, perhaps, more than ever.
“We do no more than honor the Horned One,” replied Seer Casek, touching the fragment that rested against his chest.
Branwen seethed in silence, not wanting to make Marc’s situation more difficult.
“Has the Royal Guard made no progress in locating the route Queen Eseult
might have taken?” Countess Kensa demanded of her son, and icy-hot waves of fury deluged Branwen. “She couldn’t have simply vanished.”
“No, Countess,” Ruan replied. “Captain Morgawr will establish a naval perimeter along the northern coast, and Captain Bryok will remain positioned near Illogan. If any Armorican ships try to flee with the queen—” He dashed a sidelong glance at Branwen. “They will be stopped.”
Branwen expelled a breath, curving her lips in gratitude. He rubbed a knuckle against his eyebrow, uncomfortable.
“Should we not be sending the Royal Fleet to raze Karaez to the ground?” said Baron Dynyon, puffing out his chest. His fiery mustache twitched as he spoke and he had a tendency to fleck it with spittle. “The Armoricans besieged our capital and took our queen hostage! Or, for all we know, both she and Tristan are dead!”
Baron Dynyon was pugnacious and arrogant by nature, and Branwen liked him not at all. Beside him, the head of House Gwyk grunted in agreement. Baron Gwyk had lost an eye raiding Iveriu, but his glass one was the warmer of the two.
The divisions between the noble Houses were enacted in the seating arrangements, with Barons Kerdu, Julyan, and Chyanhal positioned on Branwen’s side of the table, opposite Kensa and the others. And yet, despite their differences and grievances, all of the barons nodded at Baron Dynyon’s outburst.
“My trusted retainers,” said King Marc. “There is other news.” He waited a beat. “We have captured Princess Alba.” Scattered intakes of breath were heard from around the table. Countess Kensa glared at her son, undoubtedly angered that he hadn’t told her in advance.
“I intend to sue King Faramon for peace, for a ransom and reparations,” the king announced.
“Ah, that changes the situation,” said Baron Julyan.
“Does it?” Baron Chyanhal said. He was a slim but well-muscled man with tawny-brown skin, younger than the other barons. “A direct attack on our court cannot go unanswered.”
Branwen pulled at her bandage. The head of House Chyanhal was usually prone to caution, but even he wanted blood.
“We agreed to support one last diplomatic mission,” said Baron Kerdu to King Marc. “But that was before the Armoricans sailed warships into Monwiku. Has there been any word from Captain Manduca?”
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