“Branny!” The princess gasped when she saw Branwen’s assorted injuries. “You said you were unhurt.”
Branwen’s hand drifted across her naked torso, examining the marks left by the Shade’s cruel beak.
“They’re from last night.”
Eseult’s fair complexion had gone green. “All day I’ve been trying to convince myself that they were just men. Just pirates. But I thought I saw Keane—as one of those … those things. I don’t know how that could be.”
Branwen shuddered thinking about the night she fed Keane to the waves. To protect her cousin’s honor, she had killed the former bodyguard, condemned him to an eternity as a Shade. But Branwen hadn’t burdened her cousin with the knowledge. And during the attack on the Dragon Rising, the Hand of Bríga had ended his afterlife.
Eseult pinched the bridge of her nose. “My memory from last night is so patchy.” Branwen skewered her with a glance. “I—I mean, I remember … that,” the princess said. “Branny, what happened with Tristan, I—”
“Don’t.”
“But we need to talk about—”
“No. We don’t. There’s nothing to discuss. You will become Queen of Kernyv as the Old Ones have ordained. If you don’t remember all of the horrors that took place, consider it a blessing.” Branwen herself considered it a blessing that the princess hadn’t witnessed her using her magic against the Shades.
Tears welled in Eseult’s eyes. Without another word, Branwen stepped into the tub. The bathwater was pleasantly warm. She hissed as it splashed her wounds. Sinking into the tub, Branwen felt older than Kerwindos, the Mother of Creation, herself.
She dunked her head beneath the surface of the water.
The princess washed Branwen’s hair and dabbed a soapy cloth around her injured flesh. Eseult’s touch was loving, gentle, and the familiarity made Branwen sigh despite herself.
Her heart had been rent into a thousand shards.
She soaked until the water turned brown with grime.
Eseult wrapped Branwen in a linen blanket, drying her limbs as if she were a babe. Branwen tore the blanket from her cousin’s grasp and tucked it securely beneath her arms. “Has my trunk been delivered?” she asked. “I need my salves.”
The princess drummed her fingers on her chin. “I’ll check.” She scurried through a side door and into an adjoining room. Branwen clutched the covering, gaze wandering toward the waves breaking against the rocks below.
“Here. Here—” Eseult rushed back. Her voice warbled.
Branwen took a small, intricately carved wooden box from her cousin’s hands. She had filled it with remedies from Queen Eseult’s infirmary at Castle Rigani. The supplies were running low after treating the princess’s injury during the sea voyage.
Branwen selected a paste made of ground birch bark to prevent infection. It burned as she applied it to her open wounds. She clenched her jaw, eyes stinging as well. She struggled to reach one in the center of her back.
“Let me—” Eseult started, extending a hand. Sullenly, Branwen passed her the small ceramic jar. “A little goes a long way,” she admonished.
“I remember Mother’s advice.”
“Do you?” Branwen said. Her cousin had abandoned the healing arts years ago. She hissed as the princess applied the salve.
“I’m sorry, Branny. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Eseult spoke to her back. “I’m so sorry.” Branwen refused to turn around and let her cousin see the tears beading her own lashes.
When Eseult was finished, she handed Branwen a nightgown. “There’s only one bed,” she said, indicating the tastefully appointed canopy bed. Curtains could be drawn on all sides for privacy. “I told the king we’re used to sharing.”
“I think you’ve had your bed warmed quite enough,” Branwen said. “You don’t need me.”
Eseult pulled a strand of hair taut around her forefinger. “But I do, Branny. I need you more than ever.” Her voice began to rise, eyes shining. “You ran away from me the minute we were off the ship—I was afraid you wouldn’t come back.” A few blond hairs wafted to the floor.
“Believe me, I thought about it!” Branwen roared, losing her patience. She flattened her right hand against her thigh. It itched. Her power simmered.
“Please, Branny. Don’t abandon me.”
“You abandoned me. You abandoned peace. Duty. Honor.”
Eseult buried her face in her hands and began to weep.
Branwen walked over to the bed and plucked a plump pillow from atop the quilt, which was lavishly embroidered with golden thread. A skilled weaver had decorated the thick silk with an intertwined sea-wolf and lion: the royal standard of Iveriu. This was a bed fit for a queen. Hugging the pillow to her chest, Branwen walked methodically around the apartment and blew out each candle. The princess continued to cry.
“You are to be my queen,” Branwen told Eseult before she extinguished the last candle. “And I will serve you as such.” The flame fizzled on the wick. “But that is all you are to me.” Smoke rose upward in the darkened room.
Eseult stood in place, bewildered.
Branwen placed the pillow on the floor beside the bed and lay down on the stone. The floor was nippy, yet she felt feverish. A sliver of moonlight tickled her nose.
When she closed her eyes, she sensed the Dark One more keenly.
A few moments later, she heard feet padding toward her. The princess lay down beside Branwen, resting her head on her pillow, and took Branwen’s hand.
“Not you without me,” Eseult said stubbornly. “Not me without you.”
The princess traced the symbol for hazel on the back of Branwen’s hand as she had done since they were children. “I love you, Branny.” And yet her cousin’s love hadn’t been stronger than her desire. Branwen shook her off with a grunt.
The princess’s body trembled beside her as she wept; Branwen kept her back turned. Eventually, the princess cried herself to sleep.
Branwen stared out the window as the hours passed. The wild moon is high, my love, come away with me. Her mother sang to her in the back of her mind. Could her parents still watch over her from the Otherworld now that she was in Kernyv?
Branwen fought the spell of night as long as she could. The last time she’d allowed herself to rest, she had woken to find her world on fire.
Finally, Branwen’s body once more betrayed her, and she plunged into a void filled with wild, savage stars.
RED-HOT ASHES
THE PRINCESS WAS SNORING LIGHTLY when the first rays of dawn disturbed Branwen from her dreamscape. She tried and failed to cling to the balmy strands of sleep as disquiet pricked each of her nerves awake.
Drawing in a shallow breath, Branwen raised herself into a sitting position. The stone floor had not been kind to her sore muscles. She stretched her arms above her head and stifled a groan. She didn’t want to wake her cousin.
A few wisps of blond hair rose and fell as the princess continued to snore.
The princess hadn’t changed from her traveling dress or detangled her plaits before crawling next to Branwen. As lady’s maid, Branwen should have done that for her.
Watching her cousin sleep, dawn touching her brow, she could almost make herself believe that this was any other morning. That Eseult had stolen into Branwen’s bed at Castle Rigani like she’d done so many times when she was lonesome or had a nightmare. That nothing could ever come between them.
Longing sliced her deep. Longing for a closeness she had never experienced with anyone else, not even Tristan. Without her cousin to chase away her dark moods, Branwen didn’t know who she would become.
She pushed silently to her feet. Plucking a knitted blanket trimmed with lace from the end of the bed, she laid it atop the princess, who didn’t stir.
Dressing herself promptly, Branwen braided her hair and rushed down the stairs of the Queen’s Tower. Her shawl was filthy, so she’d selected a cerulean cloak, pinning it closed with her mother’s brooch. The inner bailey was deserted.<
br />
She turned in a circle, admiring the five towers and the sculpted wolf heads that decorated the crenellations.
She glimpsed an alleyway on the other side of the courtyard and decided to explore. The passage opened up into several levels of manicured gardens. Yesterday, when Branwen had spotted the island of Monwiku from the coast, the greenery sprawling up from the bedrock had seemed chaotic, unruly.
On this side of the castle, looking out toward the Dreaming Sea, someone had imposed order. A steep set of granite steps took Branwen to the first of the terraced gardens. Trees with long, slender trunks and leaves like spikes lined either side of the staircase. She didn’t know what they were called.
Her eyes roved across the neatly arranged rows of blooms of bright pink amaranthine, opalescent teals, and rain-flecked sage, as well as shrubs bursting with every other color Branwen could imagine. Tristan had told her that Kernyv possessed flowers that she’d never seen, nurtured by a southerly wind from the Mílesian Peninsula. He was right. And like so much else here, they were a mystery.
Wind chimes dangled from many of the spear-leafed trees, their silence unsettling.
Branwen crouched down to press her nose into an enormous dark purple blossom. The scent was almost smoky. It made Branwen think of mornings sitting beside the hearth in the kitchens at Castle Rigani, drinking tea with Treva and Dubthach, waiting to rouse the princess for the day.
“Childhood’s end.”
Branwen jumped up, bashing her head against someone’s chin.
“Forgive me—” King Marc rubbed his jaw, grimacing ever so slightly. “For startling you, Lady Branwen.” His eyes were as serious as they had been the day before.
“My Lord King.” Branwen curtsied. “I’m so sorry.” Without stopping to consider what she was doing, she placed two fingers beneath the king’s chin to inspect the damage. The bristles of his beard were softer than they looked, the brown interspersed with sorrel. Branwen exhaled, assuring herself that she hadn’t broken the skin.
“I’ll live?” King Marc said, and for the first time Branwen spied mischief in his countenance.
“You’ll live.” She dropped her hand as mortification began to set in.
“And your head?” the king asked.
“I’ve been told it’s hard.”
Marc laughed heartily, and it resounded through the garden. “Mine, too.” He stroked his beard again. Pointing at the purple blossom, he said, “It’s called childhood’s end.”
The petals were layered like a crown. “It’s beautiful,” Branwen said. “Is it common in Kernyv?”
The king shook his head. “I know a merchant—he’s a friend…” His face smoothed in a faraway look. “He travels throughout the southern continent, across all of the known seas. He sends me the seeds.” A small smile. “He says the garden is my only indulgence.”
Branwen let her gaze skip down the cascading levels of bright plants and trees toward the sea. This was not the indulgence she would have envisaged from the king of a land of pirates. She fingered her mother’s brooch. Lowering her nose to the bloom once more, Branwen struggled at how to describe it.
“The scent, it’s…”
“It makes me think of campfires,” said King Marc. “When my father would take me hunting in the Morrois Forest.”
A vise twisted Branwen’s stomach. King Merchion had only died four years ago—he’d been responsible for sending Kernyvak raiders to Iveriu for most of Branwen’s life.
“Red-hot ashes are easily rekindled,” she muttered.
“What’s that?”
She straightened up. “Oh, nothing. Just an Ivernic saying.”
“I fear you’re right, Lady Branwen.” Marc’s expression darkened as he pinched one of the petals between his fingers. “Tristan’s mother and I used to play in these gardens,” he said. “He has her smile. I wish he’d known her.”
Quiet stretched between them. Branwen’s uncle had also slain Tristan’s father on the night of his birth. Their families had taken much from each other, left so many embers, so many potential sparks of hatred.
“At the mine yesterday,” King Marc began again. “Ruan says you helped many of the wounded.”
She shifted her gaze from the sea to the king. “I’ve never seen such a disaster,” Branwen blurted. “And I’ve treated many of the war victims.” She paused. “I helped those I could.”
Marc’s eyes dimmed. “I am grateful to you, my lady, for using your skill to help my people,” he said.
“And my people,” she said, with unthinking boldness. “The Iverni captured in raids.”
“The Kernyveu and Iverni are to become one people. There will be no more raids.”
Branwen nodded, bunching her skirts between her fingers. “No, no more raids,” she said in a muted tone. That had been the entire purpose of the Loving Cup—to unite the kingdoms, forge an unbreakable bond. “I would like to check on my patients as soon as possible,” Branwen told the king. Then she added, “With your permission, of course.”
“Granted, with thanks.”
“Mormerkti.”
Marc observed Branwen in the same canny way he had at the port.
“Tristan told me how your parents died.”
She held his gaze, blood pounding. Did King Marc know he’d watched them die? Or had he killed so many since then that their faces had faded from his mind?
“I want you to know, Lady Branwen,” he said, “that I am not my father. I loved him, but I don’t want to be the same kind of ruler as he was.”
Branwen bit her bottom lip to stop it from trembling. Marc plucked the purple flower and presented it to her.
“There has been too much bloodshed,” he said. “I don’t want my legacy to be one of violence. When Tristan proposed entering the Champions Tournament, he had my full support.”
The Iverni believed that the man chosen by the Land as king must possess the Truth of the Ruler. He must be selfless and honorable. Would the Old Ones have selected a murderer to protect Iveriu?
“I want to make something grow,” King Marc told Branwen. “Like this garden.”
She showed the king an open palm and he placed the flower atop her scar. The petals were both soothing and ticklish on her skin.
“You come here when you can’t sleep,” she said.
He glanced at the sun still perched on the horizon. “Is it that obvious?”
“I couldn’t sleep, either.”
“I have many regrets, my lady.” The king ran his hand along the inside of his forearm, which was covered by a dark green tunic.
“We all do.”
A breeze came off the sea, almost a moan, and the wind chimes tinkled all around them. The sound was haunting. Branwen shivered, and Marc noticed.
“In Kernyv, we believe the laments of the sea must be answered,” the king told her. “Otherwise the water will get lonely and overwhelm the land.”
She let out a short laugh. The Dark One was hungry for souls to join the Sea of the Dead, but Branwen didn’t think he was lonely.
“It’s true,” Marc said. “Well, perhaps not. But it’s said that the Veneti Isles were once connected to Liones until the land in between was claimed by a lonely sea.” The king shrugged. “Why take the chance?”
“Why indeed,” she agreed.
“I would beg a favor,” King Marc said, after a moment.
“Of course. You’re my king now.” The blossom in her palm felt instantly heavy.
“Not as your king. As a new friend—if you’d have me?”
Branwen hesitated. Part of her wanted to accept his friendship. A part that made her feel like a traitor to her parents, despite her mission of peace.
“What’s the favor?” she asked.
“I hear that you’re a master of Little Soldiers,” said Marc, showing her a rare grin. “And my regular partner has recently left court. Since we’re both restless sleepers, perhaps you might play with me?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “We call the g
ame fidkwelsa in Iveriu,” Branwen told him.
“Fidkwelsa,” he repeated. The grin spread across his face. “Do we have a deal?”
Strangely, she found herself returning his smile. “We do.”
“Excellent.” The chimes jangled again. “Oh, there will be a feast next week to celebrate the Seal of Alliance,” King Marc said. “I wanted to ask, does Princess Eseult have a favorite flower? I would like her to feel welcome in her new home.”
Branwen raised the childhood’s end to her nose and inhaled. It was as melancholy as the laments of the sea. Whenever she smelled it, she would think of this morning.
“Honeysuckle,” she told the king. “My cousin loves honeysuckle.”
“Mormerkti, Lady Branwen. I will do my best to make her happy.”
“I’d better go see if the princess needs me,” Branwen said, fleeing back up the stairs toward the Queen’s Tower without begging her leave.
If King Marc ever found out what she had done for her cousin’s happiness, he would never have cause to thank Branwen again.
A TRUE QUEEN
BRANWEN HELD HER BREATH AS she entered the Great Hall of Monwiku Castle for the first time. Tonight was the official introduction of the Princess of Iveriu to King Marc’s court. Endelyn had informed Branwen and Eseult that all of the prominent Kernyvak noble families would be in attendance. She had spoken of little else all week.
The Kernyvak princess had also insisted on dressing her future queen for the feast. Her cousin’s mournful looks notwithstanding, Branwen had been happy to be relieved of her duties as lady’s maid. She did grant Eseult’s request that she be the one to treat the new scabs on her cousin’s scalp with juniper ointment, however. The princess didn’t want Endelyn to see the marks left from the hair pulling that quelled her nerves. Branwen had applied the ointment in silence; she grimaced when her cousin hissed at the sting, pained by her distress, but she didn’t have the will to console her.
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