As Diarmuid’s rowboat reached the shallows, she saw Ruan sitting beside him. Her stomach clenched, although she was relieved to see he was unharmed. Six other men dressed in uniforms bearing the lion standard filled out the benches of the boat.
Diarmuid hopped out into the surf first. Morning light gleamed on his shorn head, the blue eye patch cutting across his face like a shadow.
He strode across the beach to meet the crew of Mawort, filled with purpose. He was utterly unrecognizable as the egotistical lord who had filched kisses from Branwen’s cousin behind his king’s back.
“Why did you follow us?” Xandru asked in crisp Aquilan, like a serrated blade.
Diarmuid raised an eyebrow at the interrogation. “Your reputation as a navigator precedes you, Captain Manduca,” he said. “We need to get to the chain tower and lower it. I presumed you would find a safe place to drop anchor—and I was right.”
His gaze skipped to Alba, then Branwen. His lips pursed at the swords in their hands.
“Shouldn’t you wait for the wounded on the ship?” he appealed to Branwen in Ivernic.
“Lady Branwen fights quite well,” Ruan said, coming shoulder to shoulder with Diarmuid. Glancing at Alba, he switched to Aquilan and noted, “Unless I’m very lost, this isn’t Armorica. Shouldn’t you be on your way there with your husband?”
Alba snorted. “I must have boarded the wrong ship.”
Xandru’s men pressed in closer as the Ivermen surrounded Diarmuid and Ruan.
“Follow the coast, perhaps half an hour down the beach, and you’ll see the chain tower,” Xandru told Diarmuid.
“Where will you be going, Captain?” asked Ruan, glancing between Xandru and Branwen. He worried his knuckle against his lower lip.
“On an errand for your king.”
Screams could be heard from the direction of the harbor. Diarmuid nodded at his men. There was no time to lose. People were dying. Every second mattered.
“Good luck, Captain Manduca,” said Diarmuid, and he took off running.
Ruan held Branwen with his eyes. She saw fear—fear for her—in his amber gaze. Stepping into her, he said, “Battle lust suits you, Branwen,” with a smile that spoke of other kinds of lust.
“Try not to get yourself killed,” she replied hotly.
“Comnaide.” Always.
He sprinted down the shore after the Ivermen.
Branwen touched her mother’s brooch, praying for their safekeeping—all of them. Fighting their way into the chain tower was a suicide mission, but the only chance to change the tide of the battle. Otherwise the war for peace would be over before it began.
“We go,” said Xandru. He nudged Otho into the lead.
Alba and Branwen followed immediately behind the captain and the turncoat, the four Mawort crewmembers at their backs. Branwen shared Alba’s misgivings about following a pirate, who was also a traitor to his king, into a fortress teeming with cutthroats.
The eight of them moved like a pack inland, up the beach.
“They can see us coming,” Alba muttered to Xandru.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “We were supposed to use the chaos of our own attack on the harbor as cover.” He gave an elegant shrug. “Adapt or die.”
Branwen tightened her grip on her kladiwos, relieved it wasn’t her only weapon.
Alba caught her eye. “Tristan would miss you if you died,” she said. She gave Branwen a smile that was half snarl, brandishing her sword. “Let’s avoid that.”
A LIFE IN A MOMENT
THUNDER REVERBERATED AROUND BRANWEN AND the others, except it wasn’t thunder.
Otho led the hunting party, for that is what they were, through dune grasses up a hill from the beach into a small wood. Branwen licked a salty bead of sweat from her upper lip; her leather trousers started to cling to her thighs, and she envied Alba her short hair as the temperature continued to rise.
The pirate was taking them on an indirect route, climbing the promontory on which the fortress was built, using the branches of alder and blackthorn trees as camouflage. Their nondescript clothing shouldn’t mark them as foreigners when they reached their destination. Hopefully.
Branwen listened attentively for the shriek of a Death-Teller, but she only heard the song of a lark. Alba marked several trees with her sword.
“We may need to find our own way back,” she said quietly to Branwen. Branwen gave a single nod.
Twigs crunched underfoot. This side of the island was strangely serene save for the booms of the fireballs raining down on the royal forces. Branwen watched as a coral-winged butterfly drifted from wildflower to wildflower, almost disoriented. Her magic fizzed in her veins, suspense mounting until it became unbearable.
“Eseult is your given name,” Branwen said to Alba. “Kahedrin told me you didn’t like it.”
Alba pitched her a quizzical stare. “I have more given names than are worth counting, like most princesses,” she said. “Eseult never fit. Alba did.”
“No, I can’t see you as an Eseult,” Branwen agreed. Alba was as different from her cousin as a person could be.
“Although I imagine the court gossips across the southern continent will delight in the knowledge that Tristan was accused of an affair with one Eseult, and ended up married to another.” Her laugh was brittle as she slashed the trunk of an alder.
“You danced well together at your wedding feast.”
“He’s quick on his feet.” She smirked. “Just not as quick as me.”
The trees thinned before them. A road stretched up the hillside to the fort, the impressions of wagon wheels well-trodden in the grass.
“Are we planning to knock on the front door?” Alba demanded to know. Xandru’s posture was taut, ready to pounce.
“Otho will get us inside, little cousin,” he said.
The hill grew steeper as they followed the road. A sharp drop on one side revealed a quarry. Granite had been in high demand at the peak of the Aquilan Empire and the pirates’ ancestors had been sentenced to hard labor in the Veneti Isles. Men had been exiled from across Albion, as well as the southern continent. The prisoners must have quarried the stone to build the fortress themselves.
Sunlight glittered on the rectangular structure. Branwen spied four gatehouses, each in the center of the walls surrounding the fort to the north, south, east, and west. Clouds scudded above a further four watchtowers that loomed at the corners where the walls met. Master Bécc had always praised Aquilan architecture while lamenting their emperors.
A network of ramshackle dwellings extended outward from the shadows of the fortress. Some made of brick; others not much more than tents. It reminded Branwen of a rabbit warren.
“Who lives there?” she asked.
“The pirates have long since outgrown the fort,” Xandru replied. “There are more and more families every year.”
Branwen exhaled shortly. Families. The pirates had inhabited the Veneti Isles for a century. Of course there would be families. Still, her palms grew sweaty.
Xandru and Otho exchanged a few words. The pirate seemed to speak a version of Aquilan that Branwen could only half understand.
Pointing at the eastern gatehouse, Xandru said, “The man at the gate has been bribed. The catapults are mounted on the southern ramparts—most of the fighting men will be there.”
“Won’t the king be with them?” said Alba.
“Otho says no, he’ll be in the old warden’s villa.”
“He could be leading us straight into a trap.”
“Which is why I told you not to come. No more questions,” Xandru commanded.
“Follow my lead and I won’t have to explain your death to Queen Yedra.” With a glance at Branwen, he told Alba, “Translate when I speak in Melitan.”
She shrugged at Branwen. “I speak my mother’s language.”
Otho directed them through the encampment beyond the wall, and Branwen caught the scent of frying meat. Someone was cooking. A goat tied up outsid
e a wooden hut bleated. Branwen hadn’t expected to encounter signs of normalcy as a battle raged.
“Don’t let your mind wander,” Alba said, watching her from the corner of her eye. “Focus on your next breath.”
A trench had been dug around the fortress but the moat was dry. The shouts of men rose from behind the walls.
Xandru turned to the four Mawort crewmembers, giving an order. The men fanned out around Branwen and Alba as they approached the east gatehouse.
A gangly boy, around Andred’s age, but exceptionally tall, nodded at Otho. He had light brown hair and blue eyes.
The boy opened a small door cut into the gate to let them pass without raising the gate itself.
“Now the fun begins,” said Xandru.
Inside, tens of dozens of men hurried back and forth, frenzied, running across an enormous open space, carrying supplies to the pirates on the battlements. Like Monwiku, the fortress was a small city, and the north and south sides were further divided into a grid pattern. Otho led the hunting party past a granary, stables, and many other buildings made from brick, including what looked like an Aquilan temple.
From above, Branwen heard cheers. Her stomach roiled. Not quite an hour had passed since Diarmuid and Ruan had headed in search of the chain tower. Yet the chain must still be in place.
Xandru raised his voice, speaking in Melitan. “The villa where the pirate king lives is located in the north quadrant,” Alba translated for Branwen.
Two main thoroughfares—one running from the east gate to the west, the other from north to south—bisected the huge quadrangle, delineated by white cobblestones. They walked with purpose, but they didn’t jog, trying not to draw attention to themselves, turning right where the avenues intersected. Branwen spotted women scattered amidst the men hauling supplies to the south-facing ramparts. Some wore trousers, some skirts. Neither she nor Alba looked out of place.
“Do you think all the women were pillaged in raids?” Branwen whispered.
“Some, probably,” said Alba. “Some of the men, too. Others were doubtless born here.”
The idea was chilling. “Then why don’t they leave?”
“Maybe they have nowhere to go.”
A portico supported by granite pillars surrounded the square villa; its roof of terracotta tiles glowed in the morning sun, the color of Mílesian spirits. Dotting the roof were painted statues of Aquilan gods. Branwen recognized Jana, the huntress with her bow and arrow.
As they passed through a rounded arch to the internal courtyard of the villa, Branwen’s eyes brushed the mosaic at her feet: a three-headed dog with a snake for a tail. When the warden lived here he must have wanted to inspire fear in his prisoners. The pirate king must desire the same. How sadistic was he that Otho would risk his life to deliver the man to his enemies?
In the middle of the courtyard was a rectangular, sunken pool. For bathing, perhaps, although Branwen had never seen anything like it. The bottom was tiled with another mosaic of a woman emerging naked from a conch shell. Branwen was awed by the wealth of an empire that would construct something so lavish at a prison.
“Otho!” someone called out. A thickly muscled man, a head taller than Branwen, strode toward them. His face was a combination of hard lines, his skin tanned and leathery.
Otho didn’t stop. Xandru followed their guide, and the rest of the party followed their captain. Next to Branwen, Alba tightened her grip on her kladiwos. “I should have given you more fighting lessons,” she said from one side of her mouth. Infiltrating the fortress had thus far been too easy.
The other man broke into a sprint. He headed them off in front of the bathing pool.
Otho showed him an edgy grin. The two men traded what appeared to be pleasantries, again speaking a dialect of Aquilan that Branwen couldn’t quite follow. She breathed in and out through her nose, jamming her lips into a line. She shifted her gaze to the Mílesian crewmember at her side. His eyes were pinned on this new friend of Otho’s.
The smile slipped from the second pirate’s face as he tipped his chin at Xandru.
Branwen held her breath as Xandru extended a hand, as if in friendship. Before she could exhale, the hard-faced man had started to shake Xandru’s hand and Xandru pulled him in close. The pirate’s eyes bulged.
Xandru spun on his heel, like he was dancing with the other man, and withdrew his dagger as he pushed him into the pool.
There was a splash and then a blossom of blood exploded in the water.
The pirate was dead before he could scream. Iron coated Branwen’s tongue.
Someone else screamed.
Xandru cursed. Two more men launched themselves from another rounded archway, running toward them at a diagonal.
“Dwardu! Cherles!” Xandru shouted. The Mílesian and one of the Melitan Islanders ran straight for the pirates, raising their swords. A muscle flickered in Xandru’s neck. “We find the king,” he said in Aquilan.
Branwen jogged beside Alba, following Xandru and Otho into a second courtyard that contained an overgrown garden. The garden was lined with pillars in another portico. A man’s grunt came very close to Branwen’s ear, and her heart leapt into her mouth.
Steel clashed against steel as a crewmember Xandru called Iermu swung his sword toward the pirate who had drawn first blood. The fragrance of sweetbriar roses teased Branwen’s nose, lush and incongruous.
“In there!” Otho yelled, the words simple enough for Branwen and Alba to comprehend. He pointed at an archway at the far end of the garden.
Otho sprinted ahead, lifting his sword, which was short and thick. The last crewmember of the Mawort, a man with a hawkish nose named Spiru, kept pace with the pirate. Xandru ran shoulder to shoulder with Branwen, Alba just behind.
“If there’s any truth to the rumors about how Monwiku was saved,” Xandru said as they neared the archway, “now is the time for a demonstration.”
The air strained in Branwen’s lungs. There was no way to call the Shades on land.
Xandru passed beneath the archway first. Branwen was halfway across the threshold when she head Alba cry out.
She whipped around. A female pirate with orange hair had grabbed the back of Alba’s tunic. Branwen blinked. For less than a heartbeat, she saw Kahedrin dueling with King Marc in the castle gardens.
Alba turned on her heel like a whirlwind, leaving the other woman holding a scrap of fabric. Branwen watched the women fight, torn between her promise to Marc to keep Xandru safe and her need to balance the scales.
The orange-haired pirate wielded a curved sword, closer in shape to a fálkr. She swiped at Alba’s thigh, landing a blow. Alba hissed. She charged the pirate woman, slashing at her forearm.
Branwen ran back to Alba as Alba shouted, “Go! Help Xandru!”
Branwen’s appearance momentarily distracted the pirate and Alba sliced the meaty part of the other woman’s shoulder. Rushing from the opposite direction of the garden, the male pirate who had attacked Iermu crashed through the rosebushes. There was no sign of Iermu.
Alba roared as the orange-haired pirate took another swipe at her midsection but failed to land the blow. She twirled around, kicking out the other woman’s ankle. The woman fell to the tile, hitting her head. Her eyes rolled back in her skull.
The man who had bested Iermu was bald, and blood smeared both his lips and teeth. He let out a battle cry as he ran at them headlong, a broadsword above his head.
Branwen didn’t make a decision. She let impulse guide her.
She switched her kladiwos to her left hand. A small black flame erupted along the mark of Dhusnos, burning through the lace covering her palm.
The wail of a Death-Teller echoed in Branwen’s mind. Alba shoved her to one side, showing the pirate a vicious smile. She taunted him with her weapon.
Branwen launched herself at their attacker, running toward him at an angle. She lashed out at him with her flaming hand, managing to make contact with his spine just before he could bring the sword down
on Alba’s neck.
The bullish man seized. He stumbled backward.
Euphoria swept through Branwen. The pirate’s grip on his sword loosened as he staggered to his knees. His complexion grew whiter than a sail.
“Stay back!” Alba hollered at Branwen, rushing toward the pirate, her kladiwos aloft. Branwen ignored her. Panting, she took two steps toward the pirate from behind, placing her right hand on his shoulder.
Fire surged through Branwen. She laughed as memories coursed through her. Memories of a life she hadn’t lived. A scared boy hiding in the loft of a barn. A callous man who derided the women he used for sex.
Alba’s eyes shone with horror. She clasped the medallion of Ankou.
When Branwen removed her hand, the big man fell flat on his face.
His cheeks were sunken and he looked as if he’d been dead for weeks. Branwen felt as if she were floating. She’d consumed his life in a moment. She’d savored it.
Cherles, one of the Melitan Islanders, loped into the garden from the first courtyard. Dwardu wasn’t with him. He looked from Branwen to Alba.
Branwen pointed toward the archway. Cherles nodded. He gave the pirate facedown on the stone only the briefest of glances. If somehow they all managed to make it out of the fortress alive, Branwen and Alba would have to have a very uncomfortable conversation.
The princess clutched her kladiwos and stabbed the orange-haired pirate in the gut for good measure as she and Branwen ran after Cherles.
Masculine voices in even tones could be heard from inside the room where Otho had led Xandru.
Cherles stalked in first. Alba and Branwen entered together. Alba maintained several handsbreadth of distance between herself and Branwen.
Just inside the doorway, the hawk-nosed Melitan Islander, Spiru, stood with a knife at his throat.
A pirate with one eye lay dead at the feet of a man who lounged on a reclining chair carved from marble that resembled a bed. Otho brandished his short sword at the man.
Xandru maintained his own sword aloft, though he managed to make it seem casual. A stocky man holding a battle-ax had positioned himself between Xandru and the lounging man.
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