King Óengus was making the Kernyvmen feel his dominion, the panic that came from knowing your enemy held your life in his hands. Branwen didn’t want to feel a lick of sympathy for the captives—not an hour ago they were undoubtedly raping and murdering her countrypeople—but picturing Tantris beneath a hood, pity stirred inside her.
If one of them was Tantris, could she beg for mercy on his behalf? Would the king grant clemency if she asked him for it? But how could Branwen possibly explain? How could Essy or the queen see her as anything but a traitor if they knew the truth. Would it matter that he was a poet and not a pirate? Before she had met Tantris, she wouldn’t have seen the distinction.
She sagged against Dubthach, trying to keep her wits about her.
“Don’t worry, Lady Branwen,” he whispered in her ear. “These Kernyvak bastards can’t hurt you now. They won’t hurt any Ivermen ever again.” Dubthach lobbed a globule of spit at the prisoners and pumped a fist in the air. The zeal with which he spoke was petrifying.
Branwen’s countrymen were crying out for Kernyvak blood. What would happen if King Óengus appeased his lesser lords with an invasion of Kernyv?
Essy caught her eye from where she stood behind Keane. Queen Eseult was seated at the right hand of the king, Fintan poised half a step between her and the prisoners, stance wary. The queen was right: Essy’s impending nuptials might be the only way to prevent further innocence from being lost. Somehow, Branwen had to make her cousin understand what was at stake.
Morholt bowed before King Óengus, and he presented the captured raiders with a wave. Everything about her uncle smacked of arrogance, which Branwen supposed was only natural as the King’s Champion. Even so, she’d never seen him show any grief over the death of Lady Alana, his youngest sister, and part of her had always hated him for it. He never marked the anniversary of his sister’s death in any way.
The princess beckoned Branwen forward. Her stomach rioted but she obeyed. She had no choice. Her place was next to Essy.
The Kernyvmen were positioned in an uneven semicircle before the throne. Branwen skirted its edge as she hurried to her cousin’s side, her pulse accelerating. She scoured the forms of the prisoners but they were all bloody and sand-stained, seawater clinging to their tunics. Some were larger than others, but it was impossible to tell them apart—to know if one of them was Tantris.
Keane frowned as Branwen sidled up next to Essy, the concern in his eyes genuine. His fingers hovered on the hilt of his sword like he was restraining himself from reaching for her. The queen spared her niece a questioning glance.
Branwen couldn’t quite force an apologetic smile.
“I looked for you everywhere,” Essy said in a harsh whisper. “You scared me out of my senses!”
The princess folded Branwen’s hand into her own and held it tight.
Branwen traced her apology on Essy’s palm.
Had she betrayed her family by trying to save Tantris? Her heart was torn between Kernyv and Iveriu—something she never could have imagined. But then, she never could have imagined Tantris.
“It’s all right, Branny. Just don’t frighten me like that again,” the princess said, fierceness behind her beseeching. “Not you without me, remember?”
“You know I do.”
“So, where were you? You’ve made a habit of disappearing lately.”
Branwen was terror-struck once more. Did Essy know? Did she suspect?
Not daring to lift her eyes, she told the princess, “Off having my mad affair with Dubthach, of course! Where else?”
Her cousin let out a giggle, then covered her mouth. Essy trusted her. Why wouldn’t she? Before Tantris washed up on her beach, Branwen had never had anything to lie about.
Cool relief tingled on her brow. “I went to fetch herbs for the queen and when I heard the fighting, I hid,” said Branwen, despising how effortlessly she could deceive those who trusted her.
Essy screwed up her lips. “Mother shouldn’t have sent you. You’re my lady’s maid,” she said, and Branwen felt a pinch in her gut. The princess rarely called her that, true as it was.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Her cousin nodded, her expression still troubled. “The raiders have never been within reach of Castle Rigani before.”
Branwen squeezed her hand. “I know,” she said. Managing Essy’s moods required more energy than she possessed in this moment.
Morholt raised his broadsword in the air, rattling it a few times to silence the crowd. A tense hush fell over the throne room. When he was satisfied, Morholt turned toward the king and said, “My Lord King, we have slain more than forty men on the cliffs today. The Kernyveu grow even more confident.”
He thrust his sword at one of the prisoners, jabbing the tip into his neck. Branwen saw a new trickle of blood leak from beneath his hood. “We have taken these ones alive so that you might question them. Still more escaped across the sea, serpents among the waves.”
Lord Rónán stepped forward from the clump of Royal Guards watching over the captives with Diarmuid at his heels. “My Lord King,” he began, “I believe these raiders had a more particular purpose than usual.”
The king’s face was expressionless. He raised one interested eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Yes, my Lord King,” Morholt answered before Lord Rónán had the chance. They were both trying to curry favor with King Óengus.
“Tell me what you know.”
Now it was Lord Diarmuid who jumped in. “Let the captives tell us.” He received death-promising glares from both his father and the King’s Champion.
Essy leaned into Branwen. “Isn’t he bold?”
“Who?” she asked under her breath.
“Diarmuid.”
Too bold to be wise, she thought. “Mmm,” was her response. During his stay at the castle, the nobleman had grown on Branwen like a fungus.
Unconsciously, the princess twirled her fingers through her plaits, pulling at the roots.
Diarmuid ripped the hood shrouding the face of the first prisoner. Branwen’s entire body went as taut as a harp string. The crowd hissed and booed as his face was unmasked. She released into a sigh when she saw the captive wasn’t Tantris.
This Kernyvman had several newly healed scars on his cheeks, the same golden-brown skin as the poet, and he jutted his chin out defiantly. Still, Branwen spied dread behind his eyes.
Morholt raised his sword again and the din quickly dissipated.
“Tell us why you attacked Castle Rigani this day?” he demanded of the prisoner. Her uncle’s eyes blazed, and she thought she would surely confess to anything if he looked at her like that.
Diarmuid gave the captive a vicious kick to the back. He groaned as his face hit the stone. Branwen winced. The young northern lord smiled triumphantly and sought the princess’s eyes to bask in his own reflected glory.
Branwen didn’t think there was anything laudable about kicking a man already on the ground whose hands were tied. She angled her head toward Keane whose gaze drilled into the back of her neck. Breaking protocol, he leaned forward, whispering, “No need to feel compassion for the man, Lady Branwen. He isn’t like us.” Keane meant to reassure her, but he only frightened Branwen more.
The sickening crunch of bone being crushed and the clank of metal on stone tore through the throne room. Lord Diarmuid’s broadsword smashed into the ground at the same moment the Kernyvman’s head began to roll.
He hadn’t said a word.
Branwen swayed on her feet. She imagined that the head belonged to Tantris, and she couldn’t fight the sharp sting of tears.
The crowd cheered and Lord Rónán unveiled the next prisoner. He clapped his son on the back for a job well done. The spectators roared in approval.
It wasn’t Tantris. Thank the Old Ones it wasn’t Tantris.
The eyes of the second Kernyvman went wide as he took in the severed head of his comrade. The first prisoner’s body was still twitching.
Branwen felt sick as she realized her uncle intended to play this beheading game with all ten captives. Her nerves were shredded; she didn’t think she could watch.
Essy kissed her cheek, where a tear was streaming down. “You really are so tenderhearted, Branny.”
She didn’t know if that was so, but she evidently wasn’t as hard-hearted as she would have liked to believe. Not even concerning her enemies. Branwen tried to tell herself these men were the kinsmen of her family’s murderers and that she shouldn’t care. But a little voice in her head insisted they were Tantris’s kinsmen, too. If Morholt could play with their lives in this way, how were the Iverni any nobler than the Kernyveu?
The second captive appeared less defiant, more haunted. His face was paler than a killing frost.
“I’ll repeat the question, in case you didn’t understand,” Morholt said cavalierly. “Tell us why you dared attack Castle Rigani. For your own sake, I hope you speak better Ivernic than your fellow pirate.”
Her uncle took a jaunty step toward the disarticulated head and gave it a kick. It spun toward one of the pillars, resounding with a dull thump as it collided. The Ivermen throughout the throne room brayed, including Keane.
The captive wet his lips. He looked from Morholt to King Óengus. “Y-you’ve p-poached something of ours,” he started in Ivernic, his teeth chattering.
“Shut your trap!” hollered one of the still-hooded prisoners. The man spoke in Kernyvak but Branwen understood enough. As did the other Ivermen.
Diarmuid rushed toward the raucous, surly voice and exposed the speaker’s visage. This Kernyvman was older than the other two. His orange hair burned like a firestorm. Again, Branwen’s heart had leapt into her throat in the moment before the captive’s face was revealed.
Three of the Kernyvmen weren’t Tantris. Only seven left. She thought she would burst apart at the seams.
The older Kernyvman spat a gob of blood onto the floor. Diarmuid bashed the top of his head with the hilt of his broadsword.
Morholt returned his attention to the pirate who had spoken and whose entire body now quaked. “You were saying,” he said coldly.
The king waited silently for the answer, his fingers drumming lightly on his thigh.
“Don’t keep the High King of Iveriu waiting,” Morholt roared in a sudden burst of anger.
“I … I…” His teeth clacked together so violently that Branwen could hear it from where she was standing.
“Don’t you dare open your bone-box!” the older Kernyvman shouted.
Morholt and Diarmuid exchanged a glance. Then the edge of Diarmuid’s blade bit into the defiant Kernyvman’s neck. But the northern lord had been standing too close to the prisoner. He didn’t get enough momentum for a clean strike. It took three more agonizing blows to hack off the captive’s head.
Blood sprayed Diarmuid’s tunic. This time Essy made no comment about his boldness. The gore was a revolting red.
Branwen’s uncle turned to the young prisoner at his feet.
“So sorry for the interruption.” Morholt wore a teasing smile. “What was it you wanted to add?” he asked, no mercy in his eyes.
The quaking Kernyvman looked sideways at the heads to his left and to his right. Staring at the floor, he said, “Iveriu will know no peace from King Marc so long as you hold his nephew captive.”
King Óengus’s eyebrows shot up. He glanced at Morholt, who gave his head one firm shake. The king folded his arms across his chest.
“You are misinformed,” he said neutrally. “We have no princes of Kernyv here.”
Morholt grabbed the prisoner by the hair and yanked his head up. “Show our king his due respect.”
Maybe the Kernyvman sensed his end was near, because he met the king’s gaze and told him, “King Marc is the only king I bow before. We will keep coming for his Champion until he is found. Ivermen are honorless liars.”
Those were the last words he spoke. King Óengus had learned what he needed to know. Morholt slit the Kernyvman’s throat and cut out his tongue before lopping off his head.
Branwen turned to her cousin, who was now even whiter than she was. What of the other captives? she wanted to ask. Then she got her answer.
The king signaled the Royal Guardsmen flanking the prisoners. Morholt, Diarmuid, and Lord Rónán took a prisoner apiece. As did Keane, and Fintan, and two other saffron-sashed men. Keane looked like he relished the order.
Branwen had to force herself not to close her eyes. She didn’t want to see this. She didn’t want to see her friend Keane as a murderer. She didn’t want to see Tantris murdered.
“Let the justice of the Land, of Goddess Ériu, be done,” declared King Óengus. Queen Eseult echoed him. She had sat stoically at his side throughout the entire spectacle. That was what it meant to be queen.
With terrifying synchronicity, the seven Ivermen raised their steel to the sky, and the heads of the seven Kernyvmen tumbled to the floor. Branwen couldn’t breathe. They hadn’t unsheathed the faces. Did one belong to her beautiful stranger?
Cheers and yowls erupted in the hall.
“Get the pikes,” Queen Eseult instructed Fintan.
Unable to contain her nerves any further, Branwen rushed out a side exit and vomited in a darkened crevice of the hallway. She would have to search for Tantris’s head among the pikes mounted on the ramparts. Air scorched her lungs as she dry heaved; vitriol ate at her throat. Her heart was cut to ribbons.
Rallying all the strength she had left, Branwen straightened up. She wouldn’t curl in on herself. She wouldn’t crumble. If Tantris was dead, she needed to know and she needed to honor him.
She needed to honor him because even though it went against everything Branwen had always believed—Tantris brought something alive inside her. Something that couldn’t be contained.
True love was more powerful than death or dishonor.
Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, Branwen walked toward the main gate, where the Royal Guard was raising the pikes. Each footfall, each heartbeat, was a prayer that she would not see the poet’s face. That she would never see his face again—except in her dreams. She was certain she would always see him there.
Branwen reached the main gate. The Royal Guard stood aloft, Keane and Fintan among them. They removed the shrouds. Her breath hitched.
Seven heads. Seven moments of death. She felt each one.
But Tantris wasn’t there. Tantris wasn’t there.
Branwen fell to her knees, and she wept.
PART II
ACROSS THE VEIL
THE ROCK ROAD
BRANWEN SAT UNEASILY ON HER MOUNT. She longed to gather her horse’s mane between her hands, letting the wind weave its fingers through her own loosened plaits, and gallop toward the horizon. But this was a solemn occasion. She was accompanying the princess as she visited the villages destroyed by the Kernyveu, bringing food and clothing. Although she was there in body, Branwen’s mind was back at the cave.
As soon as she could after the raiders were executed, she’d returned to retrieve her mother’s harp. Tantris was gone. The only sign he’d ever existed were a few scratches in green rock: ODAI ETI AMA. Branwen slinked away whenever possible to trace her finger in the grooves, although the cold stone could never compare to the poet’s warmth, his smile … his kiss.
“Lady Branwen?” Keane said, disturbing her thoughts. “How do you fare?”
Startled, Branwen jerked back too fast on the reins and her palfrey faltered. The mare blew out an annoyed breath through her nostrils, pinning her ears back, and shot the interloper an accusatory glare. Branwen leaned forward, patting the horse’s neck while planting a soft kiss behind her ear.
“Lucky horse,” Keane commented. His eyes fastened on Branwen’s face, lingering on her lips. He sidled his mount closer to hers and his calf brushed briefly against her skirts.
Keane was an imposing man, taller than Tantris, with a broader frame that guardsmen training kept weighted with muscle. Branwen swallowed.
Guilt seeped under her skin that she enjoyed the other man’s flirtation. Just a little.
Essy’s laughter rang out across the cliffs. Bright, like a bell.
Keane whipped his head toward the sound, breaking the charged moment. Thank you, Essy, thought Branwen. When the princess felt the bodyguard’s gaze land on her, she shot him a challenging look and kicked her mount into a canter. Lord Diarmuid followed suit, pursuing Essy on his stallion. Essy winked at Branwen over her shoulder. The Festival of Lovers was drawing near, and her cousin was counting the days until Diarmuid proposed, as she was sure he would.
Keane heaved a small sigh. “If you stop chasing, she’ll stop running,” Branwen informed him with a laugh. “My cousin doesn’t like to lose.” Essy didn’t realize Branwen had been letting her win their races for years.
“It’s nice to hear you laughing, Lady Branwen. I—” Keane paused, his eyes combing her face; they gleamed midnight blue. “I wish you hadn’t witnessed me dispatching the Kernyvmen.”
Alarm prickled along her spine. It seemed a horribly sanitizing euphemism for what he had done. She gripped the reins, and her palfrey snorted in complaint.
“You carried out your duty to protect our kingdom.”
Tentatively, he touched her elbow. “I did.” He inhaled a heavy breath. “But you haven’t looked at me the same way since.”
There was no use claiming otherwise. Every time Branwen looked at Keane, she saw the headless captives. Even if there were no Tantris, she had been privy to a side of her friend that she would rather not have glimpsed. Her gaze skipped along the ancient Rock Road, strewn with the withering petals of spring and newly fallen rain, which traversed the coast. Keane allowed his forefinger to venture the distance from Branwen’s elbow to her shoulder.
His touch wasn’t unpleasant but he wasn’t Tantris. By the Old Ones, what she wouldn’t give to feel the poet’s fingers tangle in her hair—just once more.
Sweet Black Waves Page 9