Sweet Black Waves

by Kristina Perez

  Jabbing Essy’s chest, Branwen shrieked, “How could you?”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “I—I don’t know,” she said, bottom lip quivering.

  “You don’t know!” Branwen yelled in her face. “Do you have any idea how much—how many people have sacrificed for you? For peace?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Branny.” Essy’s fists curled around the sheet even as she began to sob, her apology tempered by defiance.

  Deep within, Branwen felt the rumble of Dhusnos’s laughter. She would have given her life for peace. Her mission was a failure. All because of her cousin’s selfish heart. But, wasn’t that Branwen’s fault, too? She had always allowed her to be selfish.

  Her cousin’s chin trembled. “I didn’t mean to fall in love.”

  “Love?” Branwen waved at the bloodied sheet. “You think one night of … You think that is love? You jeopardized peace and for what?”

  Whether or not Branwen agreed with the laws, King Marc would expect a virgin on his wedding night. A bride whose heirs he could be certain were his. Branwen had already killed to protect her cousin’s reputation.

  “You did it for nothing!” Branwen shouted.

  Through her tears, Essy’s eyes hardened. “I chose, Branwen. I am more than my body and I made a choice. I only regret hurting you. I didn’t intend … I did it for love.”

  Two minutes ago, Branwen had made the same choice and it had felt so right. But a queen didn’t have that luxury.

  “The only person you’ve ever loved is yourself, Essy.”

  “Don’t blame Eseult.” Tristan’s voice came from behind Branwen. Taut. Low.

  Eseult. He had called the princess by the name she would be known by as Queen of Kernyv. She was Essy no longer. She was Branwen’s Essy no more. Not after today.

  Branwen craned her neck at Tristan, searching his face for the man with whom she’d fallen in love. The man who was honorable and right and true. He pushed to his feet and, as their gazes intertwined, the hazel flecks of his eyes dimmed. He shifted his focus to Eseult and Branwen recognized the look on his face: desire, hunger, craving. The smoldering look he gave Emer before he kissed her on the beach—as if nothing else mattered.

  Blood and bone, forged by fire, we beseech you for the truest of desires.

  Dread froze Branwen from within. There was only one way Tristan would betray his king. His family. His people.

  Magic.

  Branwen clutched at her chest as if she’d been struck by a club. She expected—hoped—to feel the familiar curve of the dainty vial.

  Nothing.

  She patted her chest more frantically. “Branwen?” said Tristan.

  No. Just no. This couldn’t be. Dhusnos’s laughter intensified. Branwen hadn’t let the Loving Cup out of her sight since Essy had discovered it. She circled her gaze around the cabin like the burning torch in a lighthouse. There. Gold winked at her. On the floor beside the bed. She dropped to her knees, snatching it from the warped wood, heedless of splinters. Branwen weighed it.

  Empty.

  Rushing toward the princess, she waved the vial in jagged motions.

  “You stole it, didn’t you?”

  The widening of her eyes was all the confirmation Branwen needed. “Why?” she cried. “Tell me why? When you knew it was mine to keep safe?”

  Confusion creased her cousin’s forehead. “I found it in the bed. I couldn’t sleep. I thought it would calm my nerves—after my ordeal.” Her ordeal? “What does it matter?”

  In the shadowed recesses of Branwen’s mind, Keane gloated. To the princess, the wedding toast was nothing but another of Treva’s fortified spirits. How could she have known that one petty act of rebellion could destroy two kingdoms? But then, she had never cared for consequences.

  Branwen pressed her hands over her ears but she couldn’t drown out Dhusnos’s cackling. He had known what would happen. Of course he had. He was a god. Branwen had spent her whole life trying to protect her younger cousin from the world. Perhaps it was the world that needed protecting from her cousin.

  “Branwen.” Firm, warm hands seized her elbows. Hands whose touch she had wanted to know—everywhere. Hands that knew the feel of her cousin instead.

  She shook Tristan off. “Did you drink the wedding toast, too?” Branwen charged, and part of her wanted it to be true, wanted to believe only magic would make Tristan stray from her. “The toast Princess Eseult was supposed to share with your uncle—your king? You’ve committed treason!”

  Shame deluged his features.

  Branwen couldn’t look at the lovers a minute more. And she couldn’t tell them they were under a spell. Directing her fury at her cousin, she said, “You’ve broken my heart,” and tore from the room, knuckles white around the vial.

  “Branwen!” Eseult called wretchedly.

  Tears ate at her face as she raced down the passageway and up the stairs. The sun was suddenly too bright. Branwen had risked everything for her cousin’s happiness. She hadn’t been willing to sacrifice Essy’s heart for the rest of the Iverni. She’d wanted peace and love. She’d wanted it all. She’d been just as selfish as her cousin and now she would be left with nothing.

  But not only her. So many lives hung in the balance.

  Dashing toward the stern of the ship, Branwen’s stomach somersaulted over and over. If the Kernyveu discovered their future queen had committed treason against the crown—if they punished her with death, Iveriu would have no choice but to invade.

  The vision she’d had of Eseult being marched toward a pyre crackled behind her eyes. The night she retrieved the traitor’s finger, Branwen thought the Old Ones had been testing her resolve.

  They were warning me.

  Leaning over the hull, Branwen stared at the waves, and hurled the Loving Cup into their depths with all her strength. Should she dive in as well? Let Dhusnos have her?

  Her fingers skimmed the writing on the underside of her brooch.

  The right fight. What did that mean now? Branwen had endangered two kingdoms, and she didn’t dare believe she’d be spared retribution—she didn’t want to be spared.

  A firm hand pulled her back up. Branwen recoiled.

  Tristan stood before her, half dressed. The love-knots she’d sewn over his heart taunted her. Consumed by rage, her open palm connected with his cheek. He didn’t move a muscle.

  Shuddering, Branwen held up her hand. “Is this why? Do I scare you?”

  “No, Branwen. No.” The compassion in his voice was unbearable.

  “But you could never love a murderer, is that it? Never be handfasted to—whatever I am?”

  Darkness rinsed his face. “I love you. If Keane numbers among the Shades, then he deserved whatever you did to him.” He reached for Branwen’s right hand as if he truly was unafraid. “That’s how you were injured the night before we left.”

  She didn’t want his sympathy, his understanding. Not now.

  “You love me?” she spat instead. “You love me so much you deflowered my cousin!”

  Tristan pulled Branwen against his naked chest. “Forgive me. I don’t know what happened,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Passion overtook me. I couldn’t control it.”

  The truest of desires: That was the spell that Branwen and the queen had cast. Her aunt wanted the princess to produce heirs for Iveriu and Kernyv. Bitter laughter flung from Branwen’s mouth. She cursed herself for not asking Queen Eseult the precise nature of the spell. She’d eagerly agreed to anything not to watch her cousin waste away in a loveless marriage. But was the Loving Cup truly worthy of its name?

  Who could say where the line was drawn between love and desire?

  “Eseult came to my quarters. I should have sent her away, but she was so shaken,” Tristan confessed in a torrent of words. “She didn’t want to disturb you, so she asked me to share a drink with her. I didn’t see the harm … I didn’t—”

  “I don’t want to hear—”

  “Please,” he cut her off. “
Branwen, please.” Tristan was begging now. “I returned to the land of my enemies to find you—you. Something possessed me last night that was beyond reason.”

  Branwen struggled in Tristan’s arms like she was suffocating.

  “Keane threatened the peace—and I killed him,” she informed him, fury simmering beneath her skin. “Should I kill you, too?” She could never tell Tristan that she knew exactly what had happened. And yet, a part of Branwen still hated him for his weakness—because his love hadn’t been stronger than her magic.

  “I will accept any punishment you deem fit.” Tristan rested his chin on her head, forcing her to still. “What happened between me and Eseult—it was a moment of madness.” Branwen sucked her teeth. It would be easier to stop loving him if she revolted him. “One night doesn’t change everything else between us, Branwen.”

  There was real grit in Tristan’s voice, but he had called the princess Eseult. The princess was something more to him now. She would always be something more than his queen or his uncle’s wife.

  One night did change everything.

  Branwen beat his chest and Tristan tilted her head toward him, crushing her with a kiss. It was fueled by shame and regret. This wasn’t the way kisses were supposed to taste. Her hate bubbled and Branwen thrust him away so vehemently that he couldn’t resist. She hated herself most of all.

  “We can still be Tantris and Emer,” he pleaded.

  She wished she didn’t love the small scar above his eye, or his messy curls, or all of the details about him. She burned with the desire not to want him. She loved him, but she wouldn’t share him.

  Branwen kissed him deeply. One last time. “You were never Tantris,” she said against his mouth. “And I was never Emer.”

  Branwen pushed Tristan away, holding up her hand. It was full of flames.

  She tore the tricolor bracelet from her other wrist. “This is what I think of your promises.”

  Holding his gaze, she fed the bracelet to the fire—her fire. It frayed and turned to ash.

  Tristan lurched backward as if she’d dealt him a body blow.

  “I won’t forget the dream we dreamed together, Branwen,” he protested through clenched teeth. “It was your will, not mine, that has brought us peace. I won’t give up on it. I will die for it.”

  Branwen turned a cruelly rational gaze upon him.

  “You will do no such thing, Prince Tristan. You will leave the princess to me—I am her Champion now. Her only Champion,” she instructed, cool and clear. Like the fox, she was a messenger, and a protector. She would preserve the illusion of the princess’s honor as fiercely from this day forward as when they’d departed Iveriu.

  “You’re not as strong as I believed you to be, Tristan,” said Branwen. “You are not the man I believed you to be.”

  He hung his head, expression bleak. “And you could never love this man?” There was just the smallest shred of hope in his voice.

  Tristan’s name was stitched into her heart as surely as Branwen had embroidered the love-knots above his. But, for the sake of her own sanity, she had to kill that hope.

  “No, my prince.”

  Branwen couldn’t love Tristan and the Land at the same time. She chose the Land.

  “You’re wrong, Branwen. You’re wrong.” His fists shook at his sides. “I will win back your love if it’s the last thing I do.”

  The world fell away as they stared at each other: enemies turned lovers turned adversaries. An hour ago, Branwen would have given her honor to know all of Tristan. She could no longer afford surrender. She was committed to leaving the world better than how she’d found it. For Cadan. For Gráinne. For her parents.

  “Peace above all,” she whispered.

  Time moved like honey as Branwen walked away from the first man she had ever loved. She focused her eyes on the rocky cliffs of Kernyv. She had been hollowed out, reforged by fire. Only one path through the waves stretched before her.

  Branwen would prevent the chaos of the Loving Cup from being unleashed—the chaos she had created. No matter the cost. She would lie, cheat, and connive to carry out her mission for Iveriu. And, from now on, that included putting the needs of the Ivernic people above their princess.

  Eseult would be the queen Iveriu and Kernyv needed—whether she liked it or not.

  The lovers who had burned in Branwen’s mind for so many, many years weren’t people, she realized. They were the spirits of both kingdoms. And her destiny lay between them. The two lovers for whom she would trade her heart.

  The right fight. She wiped away a solitary tear.

  The pale late-autumn sun hit the water just right and the waves turned black. She rubbed her palm and closed her eyes. No one would sing songs of Branwen’s lost love.

  Odai eti ama. She would sing them for herself.

  I hate and I love.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, I’d like to thank you, the reader, for embarking on Branwen’s journey with me. Putting this book in your hands has been quite the adventure, with heartbreak and magic along the way, and I am forever indebted to two extraordinary women for having made it thus far: Rhoda Belleza, my incredibly insightful editor who believed in Branwen from the start, and challenged me to paint her story on an even broader canvas; and Sara Crowe, my formidable agent, who has stuck by me through thick and thin—I couldn’t ask for a better champion.

  I also consider myself hugely fortunate to have found a home at Imprint. Thank you to Erin Stein for taking a chance on me, and to Nicole Otto for your keen second pair of eyes and thoughtful suggestions. Kerry Johnson, thanks for being my grammar maven. Ilana Worrell, for your production prowess. Ellen Duda, for the marvelous cover. Brittany Pearlman, Johanna Kirby, and Kristin Dulaney, for your tireless efforts to get SBW out into the world. Also huge thanks to the team at BookSparks.

  Professor Sarah Kay, thank you for sharing your expertise with me once again and for being such a generous mentor all of these years.

  Dr. Geraldine Parsons, thank you for answering my calls for help with Old Irish since 1998 and for being one of my dearest friends. ASNaCs forever!

  A shout-out to my sister-in-law and Flesh-Stripping Expert, Magdalen Wind-Mozley. It’s good to have a forensic scientist in the family when your characters need to dig up corpses!

  My first readers for all of my projects are always my oldest friends: Georgina Cullman, Brooke Edwards-Plant, Ame Igharo, Rhoda Manook, and Deborah McCandless. I wouldn’t have made it through my teens without you, and I’m very lucky our friendship has endured across the miles and years. I am also grateful to Kathleen Ortiz and the MediaBistro workshop where I began Branwen’s story way back in 2012. Thank you to my first CPs: Amy Carol Reeves, Rhiann Wynn-Nolet, Susan Francino, and Teresa Yea.

  One of the best parts of being a debut author is becoming friends with other wonderful, talented, and supportive authors. Kamilla Benko, I didn’t know I could have a bookish soulmate until I met you. Vic James, my fellow lapsed academic and lover of G&Ts who gives me sage counsel. Rebecca Barrow, Ali Standish, Katie Webber, Carlie Sorosiak, Alice Broadway, Natalie C. Anderson, Akemi Dawn Bowman, Lisa Lueddecke, Ruth Lauren, and Rebecca Denton—it’s always a party on this side of the Pond. Thank you to Dhonielle Clayton, Heidi Heilig, Stacey Lee, Annie Stone, Karen M. McManus, Linsey Miller, Somaiya Daud, Zoraida Córdova, Misa Sugiura, Elsie Chapman, Sona Charaipotra, Caroline Richmond, Kaitlyn Sage Patterson, Melanie Conklin, Samantha Shannon, and Rachel Lynn Solomon for your wit and wisdom. I am obliged to everyone in the Class of 2K18, the Electric 18s, Kidlit AOC, and the 2017 Debuts for being so welcoming. There are many other writers who have let me vent and/or made me smile at my computer—thank you, you know who you are (#FightMeClub).

  Many thanks to my parents for not blinking when I told them I wanted to be a medievalist, then a journalist, and, finally, a novelist.

  Last but not least, my deepest gratitude goes to my husband, Jack Mozley. More than a decade ago we had Ne vus san
z mei, ne mei sanz vus inscribed on our wedding rings. Not you without me, not me without you—it still holds true and this book wouldn’t be here without your unflagging love and support. Je t’aime.

  GLOSSARY

  A NOTE ON LANGUAGES AND NAMES

  The languages used in Sweet Black Waves are based, fairly loosely, on ancient and medieval languages. As I have adapted the Tristan legends for my retelling, Ireland has become Iveriu, Cornwall has become Kernyv, and the Roman Empire has become the Aquilan Empire. I have taken liberties with history and linguistic accuracy while trying to postulate how the political realities of my world might influence the development of its languages.

  Today, nearly half the world’s population speaks what are known as Indo-European languages. This group includes English, most of the European languages, but also Sanskrit and Persian. One branch is the Celtic languages, which are now spoken primarily in northwestern Europe: Ireland, Cornwall, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, and the Isle of Man (as well as small diaspora communities), but during the first millennium BCE these languages were spoken as far afield as the Iberian Peninsula, the Black Sea, and Asia Minor. The Celtic languages are further divided into two groups: the Goidelic (Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic) and the Brittonic (Cornish, Welsh, and Breton).

  Since the nineteenth century, scholars have been working to re-create the Proto-Indo-European language—the hypothesized common ancestor to all Indo-European languages. Celtic linguists have also made significant headway in the reconstruction of Proto-Celtic, the language from which all Celtic languages derive.

  Therefore, my fabricated Ivernic language is based on Old Irish and Proto-Celtic, whereas my Kernyvak language is based on Proto-Celtic and the Brittonic languages. For the Aquilan language words I have looked to Proto-Italic—the forbearer of Latin—for inspiration. Given that the Aquilan Empire occupied the island of Albion for hundreds of years before Branwen’s story begins, I have also allowed for there to be some linguistic influence of the Aquilan language on Kernyvak. Since the Aquilan Empire never invaded Iveriu, their languages would have remained quite separate. Although, of course, Branwen and the rest of the Ivernic nobility speak Aquilan as a second language.