King Marc entreated all of the wedding guests to dance as the musicians began to play. Branwen remained seated, feeling as if she were already spinning. A smile pulled at her lips when she spotted Lowenek dancing with Andred. He was cautious at first, but he soon forgot his self-consciousness as the girl beamed at him.
Eseult wandered back to Branwen’s side, leaving the king on the dance floor to make conversation with a young Armorican lord who had been sent by King Faramon to witness the marriage.
“You don’t fancy dancing?” said her cousin, taking a seat.
“Not tonight.”
Twisting her mouth into a sly smile, Eseult said, “Diarmuid tells me that Treva sent you elderberry wine. We could escape to drink it in secret like we used to?”
“Doesn’t it taste better when it’s been pilfered from the kitchens?”
Eseult laughed. “Probably.” She worried the antler shard.
Eyeing the pendant, Branwen said, “Did King Marc gift that to you?” Something stirred in her core, something that wanted a fight.
“Seer Ogrin.”
“So you’re a follower of the Horned One now?”
“I don’t know, Branny,” her cousin replied, not reacting to Branwen’s vinegar tone. “The craftsmen are carving a statue of Matrona for the portico. Seer Ogrin has been telling me about her.” Her voice drifted off.
Carnonos was the name of the Horned One before he became a god, and Matrona had been his mother. Queen Verica had been a great devotee, and since she’d provided the financing for the Royal Infirmary she requested that it be dedicated to Matrona. Although the seers barred women from the Mysteries of the New Religion, in some places in Albion there were temples and shrines devoted to the worship of the Horned One’s mother.
Branwen refilled her goblet with spiced wine.
Fidgeting with the pendant, Eseult said, “I like the idea of Matrona, of her love for her son. A mother for us all.”
“Your mother loves you,” Branwen countered.
“She’s loved me as best she could.” Her cousin’s eyes glinted. “She always had to be my queen first.”
Branwen’s eyes caught on Tristan as he twirled Alba, and he was laughing. Alba was a graceful dancer, which was unsurprising given how talented a fighter she was. Branwen took a gulp of wine.
“I know how hard this must be for you,” said Eseult, following her line of sight. “My love for Tristan feels as distant as if it happened to someone else.” She spoke in a whisper, yet Branwen shot her a panicked look. “It wasn’t real. I understand that now, I—I feel it. But the love you shared with Tristan … that was earned.”
Branwen was at a loss for words. She still didn’t understand how the spell had been broken. Unless it was similar to the binding spell her aunt had used to trap Lord Morholt’s soul in his body. Queen Eseult couldn’t retrieve the traitor’s finger because if she touched his body the spell would be undone.
“I’ve rebuilt my heart without Tristan,” Branwen told the queen, daring her to contradict her. “I’ve already let him go.”
Eseult glanced at her with skepticism. “Have you heard from Ruan?” she asked. “If he’s in your heart now, then I … I want you to be happy.”
“I was never able to let him in,” she said, and she knew it to be the truth.
The Wise Damsel had told Branwen that we all build the houses we live in, but Branwen had built hers without any doors.
The queen nodded, sadness rinsing her face.
“I never let Diarmuid in, either. Not really.” She drew down a long breath. “Seeing him today, it—I was surprised by how little I feel. I didn’t love him. I loved the idea of freedom.”
“I understand that,” Branwen admitted. She laid her hand palm up on the table. “The symbol you’ve been drawing. What is its meaning?”
Eseult’s eyes rounded. “You really don’t remember, do you?” Branwen shook her head. “How is that possible?”
“I worked a spell,” she said. “I wanted to take away your pain—over Tristan, over the baby.” Branwen licked her lips, which tasted of spice. “But I had to trade a memory to the Old Ones. I didn’t know which they would take.”
“The Old Ones do as they please.” Eseult gripped the antler shard.
“Maybe they do.” Branwen sighed. “Why should they be any different from us?”
Her cousin traced the first stroke, featherlight. “Honeysuckle,” she said. “Remember when Master Bécc taught us the language of trees?”
“I remember the letters. Nothing else.”
Frowning, Eseult added the second mark. “Hazel,” she said. “The honeysuckle vine wraps itself around the hazel tree, and if one is separated from the other, they both wither.” Her cousin paused, voice growing hoarse. “We made the vow on Belotnia Eve, when you were twelve, and carved our names into the hazel tree beneath the South Tower: Not you without me, not me without you.”
It was a lovely story. “I’m sorry I don’t remember,” said Branwen.
“I am, too, Branny. But I will remember for both of us.”
King Marc approached the table with Xandru. “The two most beautiful women at the feast should be dancing,” said the king. He extended a hand to Eseult. It was paramount that the entire court of Kernyv and the visiting Armorican nobility see King Marc and Queen Eseult enjoying each other’s company.
Xandru tilted his chin at Branwen. “May I have the pleasure?”
From the corner of her eye, she spied Tristan and Alba holding hands, exiting through a side door of the hall.
“Another time. After the battle.” Branwen stood. “I want to ready my surgical tools and supplies. I’ll see you at the dock.”
“After the battle,” said Xandru with one of his facile smiles.
Branwen fled in the direction of the gardens, afraid that she might run into Tristan and Alba headed to the West Tower. Whether they consummated their marriage tonight or a year from tonight, Branwen didn’t want to know—had no right to know. She trailed her gloved hand over a bush of fragrant lilacs and watched them wither in the starlight.
“I knew if I waited here long enough, you’d find me.”
Ruan stepped out from the cover of a spear-leafed tree. “You hate crowds,” he went on. “And polite conversation.” He stepped closer. “You can’t make it through an entire feast without needing to run away.”
Branwen froze. “I know you, karid,” Ruan told her.
“Are you drunk?”
“I’ve never been more sober.”
“What are you doing here?” She scowled.
Ruan showed her his fake, roguish smile. “I was invited. I may have been dishonored, but the rest of the world still thinks I’m a prince.” The squeaking of the lantern overhead underscored his bitter laugh. “Are you glad I’m not dead, Branwen?”
Fury ignited inside her. “You know I am, Ruan.”
“Do I?” They stared at each other, breathing hard. “We buried Endelyn next to our father. Our real father. I wanted you there,” he said. “But I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I would have come if you’d asked,” she said, softening her tone.
“You could have revealed my lineage at the trial, discredited my mother’s claims for a blood price. You could have ruined me.”
“I never wanted to ruin you.”
“No,” he said sadly. “I did that.” Strains of music carried from the Great Hall on the sultry breeze. “Dance with me,” Ruan said.
“Here?”
“As I remember, you have a fondness for gardens.”
Branwen flushed. Low in her body desire awoke, like a dragon. “Everything is broken between us,” she said.
“I know,” Ruan replied, and slipped his arm around her waist, drawing her in close. They joined hands. “But it’s our tradition. We always dance at weddings.”
He pressed a cheek to hers. Tiny bristles that she hadn’t noticed in the dim light tickled her skin.
“I don’t regret choos
ing you as my first lover,” Branwen told him as they swayed. He twirled her in the moonlight. When she spun back against Ruan’s chest, he said, “Since it couldn’t be Tristan?”
Outrage shot through her and before she realized what she was doing, her left palm had connected with his cheek.
Rubbing his jaw, Ruan said, “Having you train with Alba was a mistake.”
Branwen didn’t apologize, although he wasn’t wrong. She had dreamed of her First Night being with Tristan—or Emer had dreamed of it with Tantris. Alba would, she suspected, know Tristan in a way Branwen never could. Love wasn’t needed between lovers, and Tristan was an easy man to desire.
Branwen plunged her hands through Ruan’s long, untamed hair and dragged his mouth to hers. She bit him and she kissed him, and his hands roamed her body. Ruan’s caresses were frantic, impassioned. She lost herself in his need, in her own.
She pushed him off the path, behind the lilac bush. She forced him to his knees, and he kissed the bodice of her gown, just below her belly button. Branwen dropped down into the grass, pushing Ruan onto his back, tugging at the waistband of his breeches.
“I’m just using you,” she told him.
“You always were. But I don’t care.”
Branwen pulled away. She crawled backward in the grass.
“You should care, Ruan.”
He sat up, reaching for her. “I’ll take what you give me,” he said.
She glanced at her gloved hand. She had taken too much from Ruan already. It would be so simple for Branwen to become a Shade herself.
“You deserve more.”
Ruan cocked his head. “You still believe that?” He stared in disbelief. As Branwen lifted herself from the ground, he retied the drawstring of his trousers. “Well, I’ll see you in Marghas.”
“You’re coming on the raid?”
“The countess doesn’t want me to,” he said, chagrined. “After Marc stripped me of my position at court, she tried to forbid me like I’m still a child.” He laughed. “But I will always protect the king. Marc has asked me to act as translator for the Ivernic ships.”
Ruan rose to his feet as well. “I love my kingdom, Branwen. Everything I did was in service to the crown.”
“That’s why I believe you deserve better than me,” Branwen said.
“At least tomorrow we’ll be fighting on the same side.”
Perhaps for the first time. “Nosmatis, Ruan.”
TRUTH TO TELL
THE MORNING WAS BRIGHT AND unforgiving.
Dawn tasted acrid and Branwen had slept scarcely more than an hour. She left the letter from the Queen of Iveriu under her pillow, still unread. If she survived the campaign against the pirates, she would read her aunt’s admonishments. Not before. Better to die without knowing.
Her cousin, never an early riser, had surprised Branwen by meeting her at the stables as she readied Senara for the ride to Marghas.
“Branny,” she had said. “I still love you more than any kingdom—even if I haven’t shown it. Please come back, and I promise you I will do better.”
Branwen had embraced her cousin, holding her tight. She smelled like honeysuckle. But Branwen had made no promises of her own.
Her magic was desperate for release, for an enemy she could fight head on. And if she burned herself out in service of peace, so be it.
Now she stood on the dock where she’d taken her first steps onto Kernyvak soil.
“Dymatis, Lady Branwen,” said Captain Morgawr. She smiled at the captain whom she now regarded as an old friend, although they’d known each other less than a year.
He tugged at his bushy mustache, sun warming his dark brown skin, and pointed at the Dragon Rising. “The old girl is ready for another battle,” he said.
The sail that Branwen had once repaired with one of Eseult’s dresses had been replaced, as had the mast that snapped in two during the battle with the Shades.
“Why is it that sailors insist ships are women, Captain?” she said.
“Because they’re stronger and more stalwart than men.” He winked, but he meant what he said. Branwen laughed. “The Dragon Rising will lead the assault. I’d feel better with you aboard my ship.”
Morgawr gave her a knowing look. He’d seen her fire magic burn the Shades from the inside out. Would her magic still work against them, she wondered, now that she was also tethered to Dhusnos?
“The king has assigned me to the Mawort,” Branwen informed Captain Morgawr. At the end of the dock, King Marc was performing a blessing, asking the Horned One to watch over the Royal Fleet by tossing several pairs of antlers into the surf. Branwen couldn’t stop her nose from twisting as she noticed Seer Casek’s silhouette beside the king’s.
“Just as well,” said the veteran captain. “If we run into any trouble, we’ll need a healer. Better to have you farther behind in the convoy.”
The journey to the Veneti Isles would take nearly a full day’s sail and many dangers lay in the open sea, both natural and supernatural. Thirty ships were setting out from the Port of Marghas with the aim of seizing the former Aquilan fortress that the pirates used as a stronghold.
“I’ll ask my gods to watch over you,” Branwen told Morgawr.
“And mine you.” He kissed his antler shard and cut the air with two fingers. “See you once we’ve taken the fort.”
Captain Morgawr strode toward the Dragon Rising, and Branwen meandered toward the Mawort, catching a glimpse of Ruan at the helm of Lord Diarmuid’s ship. She nodded in acknowledgment and kept walking. A year ago, the notion that those two men would be sailing into battle together would have been inconceivable.
Fate was unpredictable, sometimes wondrous, and could not be controlled. Even though Branwen had traded her heart, and perhaps her soul, in trying to control it.
The ships began to cast off.
King Marc lingered at the end of the Mawort’s gangway, alone, waiting for Branwen.
“Sister,” he said. His voice was leaden. He clasped both of her shoulders. “Thank you for taking part in this raid.”
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
He nodded. “Your mother would be proud of the woman you’ve become.”
“I hope so,” Branwen said, emotion swelling, sharp and unexpected. She didn’t dare hope the same of her aunt.
“I must beg a favor,” the king said. She waited. “Stay close to Xandru.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Marc’s eyes dropped to Branwen’s gloved hand. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
Oh. Oh. He wanted Branwen to protect his karid.
In an ominous voice he said, “I have not forgotten that someone tried to murder you, sister. Neither has Tristan. There is more than one mission taking place.” Marc glanced around them. “Please, stay with Xandru. You will need each other.”
“You have my word,” she said, giving him a confused look.
“Good.” He kissed her forehead. “I won’t lose another sister.”
* * *
The cliffs seemed to rise higher the farther south along the coast they sailed.
The Mawort was a sleek vessel, narrower and lighter in the water than the ships of any of the royal fleets. Xandru had explained that the Manduca mercantile dynasty was so successful because they had the fastest ships in the known world—the design of which was a closely guarded secret.
The waters surrounding the Veneti Isles were treacherous, requiring a special skill to navigate, especially at night, which was why the fleets had waited for a full moon to attack. Xandru had also mentioned, in his habitual nonchalant manner, that he had made further improvements and modifications to the design of the Mawort. His vessel, he claimed, could navigate the islands with ease under any conditions.
Belying the captain’s characteristic indifference, the genuine enthusiasm that lit Xandru’s eyes as he spoke about engineering reminded Branwen of Andred and his flowering box experiments. Because the hull of the Mawort was shallower, h
owever, it was impossible to stand up belowdecks without stooping. Branwen found a wooden crate on the bow to use as a stool instead. She scanned the clouds for any sign of kretarvs and circumspectly observed the mercurial captain interacting with his crew.
The men were all handpicked by Xandru, mostly from the Melita Isles, some from the Kingdom of Míl, and they’d been sailing together for years. Xandru was fluent in at least four languages by Branwen’s count, a useful skill for a spy, and his crew followed his orders immediately and efficiently. Though his manner was mild, he brooked no compromise. Branwen began to see more readily what might have drawn Marc to the captain.
When they reached Liones, Xandru pointed out Castle Wragh. It was impressive even at a distance, constructed from pearlescent stone. The lands that Tristan had gifted to Branwen lay nearby, although the castle itself had been forfeited to Countess Kensa together with Liones.
Would Ruan take up residence at Castle Wragh if he survived the coming battle? she wondered idly. Everything that had come before Branwen stepped aboard the Mawort, and everything that would come after the battle, seemed at a very far remove.
Twilight seeped through the sky, a maelstrom of fiery pinks. It might be the last sunset she’d ever see. Branwen had lived her whole life with the threat of violence, constantly vigilant against raids, swift and barbaric, that came without warning. This was different. A strange sort of anticipation.
No one knew precisely where the Veil between this world and the Otherworld lay in the sea, but Branwen sensed the Sea of the Dead. She heard the Dark One’s whispers. Or maybe it was only the whitecaps frothing.
Xandru dragged another crate beside Branwen’s, sitting down and offering her a waterskin and strips of salted pork.
“It’s hard to eat before a raid,” he said. “But you should.”
Branwen accepted the waterskin, throat suddenly parched. When the Wise Damsel was teaching her to scry, Branwen had asked the Old Ones who was the greatest threat to peace. They’d sent her a vision of herself aboard a ship, pirates pursuing, her hands covered with blood.
Bright Raven Skies Page 18