Bright Raven Skies

by Kristina Perez

  Endelyn’s smile was fixed, her blue eyes apprehensive.

  “I was looking for your brother,” Branwen replied, as calmly as she could manage.

  “I haven’t seen him this afternoon.”

  “No?” She took another step forward. “Andred said he was here.”

  Endelyn’s smile faltered. “He’s mistaken.”

  Gesturing at the half dozen guards, Branwen said, “Why are there so many guardsmen?”

  “King Marc’s orders. To protect the True Queen.”

  Ruan had mentioned no such increase in protection to Branwen. “Where’s Tristan?” she asked. She leaned into Endelyn and the other woman’s face pinched.

  Endelyn wasn’t nearly as practiced a liar as her mother.

  “No matter,” said Branwen. “There’s something else I need to discuss with my cousin.” She reached for the door latch, and Endelyn grabbed her wrist.

  “The True Queen said she’s not to be disturbed.”

  Branwen’s temples throbbed as she ripped her wrist from the princess’s grasp.

  “No! You can’t!” Endelyn shouted from behind her, pitch high and frantic, as Branwen swung open the door.

  She stopped on the threshold and relived her nightmare.

  Tristan embraced Eseult as she wept. They perched together at the edge of the canopy bed, Eseult half on his lap, her head on his shoulder. He stroked her flaxen hair.

  Branwen seemed condemned to relive her pain, her humiliation again and again. Except this time, she wasn’t the only witness.

  Peering over Branwen’s shoulder, Endelyn gasped.

  Tristan shot to his feet. “This isn’t what you think.” His gaze skipped from Branwen to Endelyn, who followed her into the bedchamber.

  “Unfortunately, cousin, it’s exactly what Lady Branwen thinks,” said Ruan as he emerged from the space between the walls. The secret chamber designed for the queen to hide in during an attack. Where Branwen had waited to take her cousin’s place on the wedding night.

  Rage flashed through Branwen, white and blinding. Her lover was a liar, and now everything was coming undone.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Tristan spat at Ruan. “Spying on the queen!”

  The King’s Champion strode toward the bed, which was located in the middle of the room, but his eyes were locked on Branwen’s.

  “The queen sent Tutir and Bledros to kill you,” he told her.

  Branwen stiffened. “I did not!” Eseult protested. She rushed from the bed toward Branwen, grabbing her forearms and shaking her. “By the Old Ones,” the queen said in Ivernic. “I swear I didn’t!”

  “It wasn’t a random attack,” Ruan said, speaking directly to Branwen. “I have proof!”

  Proof? She stared at him, stunned. What proof? Then she realized, “Tutir’s wife.” Ruan nodded. Her lover said Tutir’s wife didn’t pose a threat to Branwen. He’d said nothing about the queen.

  All-encompassing rage burned through Branwen until she was nothing but a husk.

  “When you found the message on your pillow,” Endelyn said to Eseult, “you immediately sent me to fetch Tristan.” She stepped in closer to her queen.

  Eseult released her hold on Branwen, whirling on her heel, jabbing her lady’s maid in the chest with her forefinger.

  “You? You sent the note? You two-faced—”

  “It was me,” said Ruan.

  Finding her voice again, Branwen asked, “What note?” The words were hard, and the look she gave her lover was harder still.

  Tristan was the one to answer her. “Blackmail. A message that accused the queen of trying to have you killed because…” He swallowed. “It also accused the queen of having an affair—with me.” His eyes pleaded with Branwen. “The note said to dismiss me as Queen’s Champion or suffer the consequences.”

  “And what did she do?” said Ruan, callous and mocking. “She called you to her side, said you were the only one in Kernyv who cared for her, and lamented that Branwen would never believe her lies. She admitted it!”

  “You’re twisting the queen’s words,” Tristan growled. “Threatening, entrapping, and spying on the queen is treason, cousin!” His chest heaved, trembled with fury.

  “We’ll see who the king believes, cousin. I have other evidence. Other witnesses.”

  Panic sliced Branwen deep. Other witnesses besides Tutir’s wife?

  Ruan walked confidently toward Eseult.

  “By my authority as King’s Champion, I am placing you under arrest on charges of adultery, treason, and conspiracy to commit murder. Please come with me, Lady Queen.”

  “Tristan!” she screeched.

  The starless tide deluged the bedchamber. Branwen could taste it. The tang was familiar. She was drowning in it. The call of a Death-Teller traveled beneath the waves.

  Tristan unsheathed his sword. “Don’t touch the queen.” He sheared the space between Ruan and Eseult with his blade.

  “Do not touch the queen,” he repeated, each word a thrust.

  The King’s Champion stepped back, and drew his own sword. The Sea of the Dead was everywhere, Branwen realized, as Ruan laid his blade flat atop Tristan’s. Branwen was part of it, would never be free of it.

  Tristan threw off Ruan’s sword and the cousins began to fight in earnest.

  Instinct, or habit, propelled Branwen to grab Eseult by the shoulders and thrust her out of the way. The moment Branwen had sacrificed so much to avoid had finally arrived. The sunless part of her heart was relieved.

  The Old Ones had warned Branwen with the vision of Eseult tied to a pyre the night she’d removed Uncle Morholt’s finger from his corpse. The air had been steadily squeezed from her lungs for months.

  Steel rang against steel. The cousins clashed swords, their footwork quick, dancing around the furniture.

  “Stay back!” Ruan hollered at the guardsmen filling the doorframe. The King’s Champion wanted to best his cousin. Grunts accompanied the thrusts and parries.

  The table by the window crashed onto its side. One of the armchairs sailed toward the hearth.

  “Marc loves you most of all,” Ruan said with disgust, crossing Tristan’s sword. “And you betrayed him!”

  He backed Tristan against one of the pillars of the canopy bed. “You ran off with his wife!” Ruan angled the tip of his blade against Tristan’s jugular. “You want his crown!”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m not.” He nicked the skin of Tristan’s throat. Blood welled to the surface.

  “Ruan, don’t!” Endelyn screamed. She ran over to her brother, pulling back on the shoulder of his sword hand. She might believe Tristan to be a traitor, but Branwen could read the yearning on the other woman’s face.

  Ruan glanced back at his sister, and his momentary distraction was the opening Tristan needed.

  He kicked his cousin’s ankle, an underhanded move, and Ruan’s body swayed to the left. With a shout, Ruan swiped at Tristan. Tristan twirled on the spot.

  His blade arced through the air with tremendous force.

  “No!” cried Endelyn. She pushed Ruan to the floor.

  Tristan’s sword bit deep into flesh. The squelching sound was like nothing else.

  Eseult screamed.

  Blood began to gush from a line across Endelyn’s stomach.

  The world grew eerily still. Branwen would have sworn that even the waves outside had ceased to churn.

  Tristan threw down his sword. Metal clanged against stone. He lunged toward Endelyn, catching the princess as she began to fall.

  “Branwen!” he shouted, hoarse, jolting her back from outside herself.

  Ruan released a roar that wasn’t even close to human. He targeted his sword once more at Tristan, his entire body quaking.

  With his arms around Endelyn, Tristan lowered himself to the floor. He cradled her like a babe, with her back pressed to his chest. “What did I do?” Revulsion contorted his features. “Help me!” he yelled again at Branwen.

&n
bsp; “Curse you, Tristan!” Ruan shouted at his cousin. He lowered his weapon and crawled over to his sister on his hands and knees.

  Endelyn’s eyelids fluttered. She was in too much shock to scream. All color had leached from her face.

  The marigold bodice of her gown was soaked crimson, a horrifying sunset spreading from her middle.

  Branwen crouched beside the princess knowing there was no medicine that could heal her. She would be dead before Branwen could even fetch her satchel.

  She shook her head at Tristan. Tears streamed down his face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Ruan tore at his hair. “Branwen?” he croaked. Eseult had started kneeling beside them, and the King’s Champion snarled at her like a rabid dog.

  “Seize the queen!” he shouted at the guardsmen. Instantly, they sprang into action. Two burly men clamped a hand on either of the queen’s arms.

  “Tristan,” Endelyn murmured, gazing up at him, affection unguarded. Blood leaked from her mouth.

  “Help her,” Tristan begged Branwen. “Please—like on the ship.”

  “I can’t,” she whispered. Branwen didn’t know what would happen if she tried.

  Endelyn lifted her arm to Tristan’s cheek. He intertwined their hands.

  “Stay with us,” he said, a ragged request.

  “It was always you,” Endelyn told him. She coughed, spraying him with blood. “But you never saw me.”

  “Please,” Tristan groaned. Piercing Branwen with his gaze, he said, “Do whatever you want with me, just save her!”

  Branwen looked from Tristan to Ruan. Ruan’s eyes were bloodshot. He loved Branwen. He’d lied to her. He’d already killed his father to protect Endelyn.

  She lowered her gaze back to the mark of Dhusnos. Endelyn was on the brink of death. Branwen didn’t think she could wound her any further.

  “Order the guards to leave,” she told Ruan.

  A question on his face, he commanded the guards holding Eseult, “Take the queen to the King’s Tower—and shut the door behind you!”

  The True Queen began to sob as they dragged her from the room. Endelyn’s breathing slowed, scarcely a rattle. The door slammed closed.

  Branwen ripped the fabric of Endelyn’s dress to reveal her abdomen. The sword had cut deeply enough to expose her intestines, which poked through the flesh. Tristan made a retching sound and swallowed back his vomit.

  Ruan took his sister’s other hand, and began whispering to her in Kernyvak. Tears dripped from his cheeks to hers as he leaned over her.

  “Give me space,” Branwen said, pity muting her anger.

  She closed her eyes and summoned her fire. She recalled the Wise Damsel’s lessons about control.

  An obsidian flame appeared above her palm as her eyes opened. She pressed her hand to Endelyn’s stomach as she’d done with Eseult on the Dragon Rising, with Talorc at the mining disaster. Blood spread between Branwen’s fingers.

  Sparks of night made contact with Endelyn’s flesh, but the flesh did not stitch itself back together. Everywhere the sparks landed, the skin began to darken. To die.

  Decay spread through Endelyn’s bloodstream. The stench was putrid.

  Branwen whipped her hand back, horror surging through her together with a wintry euphoria.

  Ruan’s name was on Endelyn’s lips as she drew her last breath.

  Trembling, “I-I’m sorry,” Branwen stuttered. To Ruan she said, “I’m so sorry. She’s gone. Your sister is beyond the reach of my magic.”

  Tristan looked at Branwen with disbelief, and fear.

  “Guards!” Ruan shouted. The door opened immediately. “Take Prince Tristan to the dungeon.”

  Tristan laid Endelyn’s body gently on the floor and rose to standing.

  “Shackle him!” Ruan said. “Don’t trust anything he says.”

  Tristan let himself be arrested without a fight. He let his hands be bound in silence.

  When Ruan and Branwen were alone, sobs racked Ruan’s body. He closed Endelyn’s eyes and kissed the lids.

  “Why did you do it?” Branwen asked.

  “To protect you, Branwen. To protect the people I love from a murderous queen!”

  She stared down at her palm. Her healing magic was gone. All that remained was written on Branwen’s flesh.

  “Maybe we have the queen we deserve.”

  NOTHING BUT CINDERS

  BRANWEN COULDN’T SLEEP. IN A few short hours, the fate of Iveriu would be decided. Countess Kensa and the other barons were assembling for the trial of Tristan and Eseult.

  The chimes in the trees answered the waves as Branwen wandered the gardens. A half-moon lit her path. Not all of the flower beds had been destroyed in the assault. The sturdier plants survived. Moonglow on the white bushes made Branwen shiver.

  She skimmed her hand over the blossoms and pricked her finger on a thorn. Her blood looked the same as everyone else’s, but it wasn’t. When she’d first been imbued with the Hand of Bríga, Branwen had feared it would make her less human. Now there was no doubt she was part monster.

  Alba had been sleeping for the better part of the past two days. Sapped of strength, she hadn’t roused when Branwen visited. How much of her life had Branwen thieved—a month? A year? All she knew was that the scars she’d received from the Shades aboard the Dragon Rising were gone. Her skin was unblemished.

  The Crown Princess of Armorica wasn’t the only royalty sleeping under armed guard. Queen Eseult had been sequestered in Ruan’s quarters. The King’s Champion didn’t trust the queen to be alone in her own tower, although Branwen knew her cousin wasn’t as capable of an escape attempt as Alba had been. Tristan remained locked in the dungeon beneath the Royal Guard’s barracks. Both of them were forbidden visitors.

  A rabbit darted out from beneath the rosebushes. It stared at Branwen, twitching its whiskers. She thought of Arthek, Eseult’s ugly mutt. Branwen had brought the dog to Andred to look after, hoping to cheer him. The boy was inconsolable at the loss of his sister, although Lowenek was trying her best.

  Branwen meandered toward the secluded part of the garden where she’d spied on Tristan and Eseult kissing the night of Queen Verica’s funeral. How many times had she saved the lovers? Would she save them again? Could she?

  A lone figure rested on the bench in the predawn, half shrouded in shadows.

  “Sister,” said King Marc as she neared. His visage was paler than the moonlight. “Sit with me?”

  Branwen smoothed her hands over her skirt. She hadn’t seen the king since the arrests. Joining him on the stone bench, her pulse grew erratic.

  “Neither of us sleeps well,” she said.

  “No.” Marc’s shoulders were hunched, his head bowed. He was the portrait of a man defeated. “Even I hadn’t anticipated another funeral so soon.”

  Scarcely more than two weeks had passed since they’d burned Prince Kahedrin’s body. This evening, Branwen had prepared Endelyn to be viewed by her family. She’d stitched up the mortal wound and rubbed lavender oil into the dark, necrotic flesh. She couldn’t completely disguise the odor. Then Branwen dressed Endelyn’s body in a clean gown embroidered with ivy leaves that the princess had favored.

  Slanting his gaze at Branwen, the king said, “I’m sorry you’ve been unable to see your cousin.”

  “I-I understand.”

  “A king shouldn’t miss his mother.” Marc gave a sad laugh. “But I wish Queen Verica were here to tell me what to do.”

  Branwen laid her left hand atop his. “In this moment, you can just be a man.”

  He shuddered a breath. Quiet and starlight filled the space between them.

  Finally, Marc said, “I broke my promise to my sister. As Gwynedd lay dying, I swore I’d always protect Tristan.” Grief shaded his voice. “And tomorrow, I have to decide his fate. What if I love him more than my kingdom?”

  Sorrow welled inside Branwen. She had conjured the Loving Cup because she’d once loved Eseult more than Iveriu. When
she reached for that love, however, she tasted nothing but cinders.

  “You haven’t failed,” Branwen said, gripping the king’s hand.

  “If your cousin loves Tristan, perhaps it is because my own heart wasn’t sufficiently open.” Marc’s tortured whisper affected Branwen deeply. It wasn’t his love for Xandru that had led Tristan and Eseult into treason.

  She had never wanted to tell Marc the truth about the Loving Cup more than she did right now. Except the truth wouldn’t change the outcome of the trial. Revealing that Iveriu had intended to bespell the king would only guarantee a war. All Branwen could do was keep lying.

  “Brother,” she said. “I don’t believe the charges against the queen.”

  “She would never harm you,” Marc agreed, and Branwen swallowed. “But Ruan has sufficient evidence to be heard by the King’s Council. And Tristan admitted to drawing his sword first against Ruan.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t save Endelyn,” she said in a weighted hush. And she was. Since the Armorican attack, Branwen had seen a different facet of the princess, and Endelyn had loved her brother enough to take the sword meant for him. She had loved Tristan, too, in silence, and now she would never get the chance to be loved by someone in return.

  “I’m afraid not even my magic was enough,” Branwen said.

  Marc leaned back, meeting her eyes. “When the Horned One calls for us, we must go. You did everything you could.”

  “You know I don’t believe in the Horned One.”

  The king pulled the antler shard from beneath his tunic. “It gives me comfort, sister.” He sighed. “It gives me comfort to believe in order.”

  “I’m glad.” Branwen had seen too much, knew too much about the whims of the gods to still believe in order.

  “Your magic—” Marc pointed at her right hand; she turned the palm upward, revealing the scar. “Will you tell me about it?”

  A knot formed in her chest. The king waited.

  “The women in my family have always practiced the Old Ways. I—” Branwen hesitated. “I asked the Old Ones for power to protect Iveriu.”

  On Whitethorn Mound, she’d offered herself in exchange for Tristan. When Keane had threatened to expose Eseult, she’d beseeched them for help.