When the glasses had been distributed, King Marc raised his and said, “To all the gods.”
“To all the gods,” murmured everyone in response.
Seer Casek took a sip and lowered his goblet. “Of course, we must ensure that the Mantle of Maidenhood is observed.” He spoke directly to Marc, and it seemed far too close to a threat for Branwen’s liking. “The temple must be satisfied that the maiden’s sacrifice has taken place.”
The king’s eyes took on a pewter cast, the skin of his neck reddening. He stared into the bottom of his glass. Queen Verica pursed her lips.
“What is the Mantle of Maidenhood?” Eseult asked.
“Lady Princess, the Cult of the Horned One is built on a foundation of sacrifice and self-denial. The most glorious service is to die protecting another,” Seer Casek said. “Because women were not created for battle, they cannot perform this service, and therefore do not take part in our Mysteries.”
The princess bristled. “There are many Ivernic queens who led their warriors into battle, Seer Casek.”
Proceeding as if she hadn’t spoken, Casek said, “Women are meant to refrain from knowing the touch of a man so that they may present their maidenhood as a sacrifice to their husband on their wedding night. The morning after the consummation of the marriage, the kordweyd will inspect the bedclothes to determine whether the bride’s sacrifice was pure.”
An acrid taste filled Branwen’s mouth together with the too sweet Mílesian spirits. In Iveriu, they believed that the joining of the Land and her chosen Consort was a sacred marriage. A union. The Goddess Ériu bestowed kingship on her Champion—and she could take it away if he was deemed an unfit ruler. She was the kingmaker.
What Seer Casek described was akin to submission. Violation. Forcing a goddess to her knees.
Branwen wouldn’t stand for it. “You would abuse the True Queen’s privacy?” she said, outraged. She aimed a terrified look at Tristan. His face drained of all emotion.
The love-tossed sheets in Tristan’s cabin on the Dragon Rising tormented Branwen’s mind. The sheets stained crimson like a vengeful dawn.
“It is no abuse, Lady Branwen,” retorted Seer Casek. “The blood symbolizes the blood that the Horned One shed for his father. It is sacred. It is the only Mystery women can know.”
Branwen’s own blood boiled and went cold. Her right palm tingled.
She glanced at King Marc, who raised no objection, and the desire to tear up all of his precious flower beds rushed through her.
The arrival of a True Queen—an Ivernic queen—threatened not only the Kernyvak nobility, but the kordweyd as well, and Seer Casek in particular. He could see his own influence on the king fading, and Branwen had no doubt he would undermine Eseult at every turn. The power inside her began to hum, seductive—demanding.
“After the Mantle of Maidenhood has been presented to the kordweyd, the union will be sanctified, and you will be a True Queen, Lady Princess,” Casek told Eseult. He turned to Queen Verica, and then Marc. “Not before.”
THE INTOXICATING ONE
AFTER DINNER, WHICH BRANWEN COULD barely keep down, she hurried back to the Queen’s Tower, her skin itching, fire swirling in her veins. She’d had no idea when she left Iveriu just how entrenched the Cult of the Horned One already was in Kernyv, or how powerful. The future of her kingdom lay in the hands of a man she trusted less than a destiny snake.
Nearing the door to Eseult’s apartment, Branwen heard barking and the sound of nails against wood. She frowned. Why was there barking? She opened the door without knocking, and the ugly puppy jumped up to Branwen’s knees. She hardly noticed.
Her eyes were fixed on the princess—who was embracing Tristan, sobbing into his shoulder. He soothed her, stroking her flaxen hair.
“By the Old Ones, what do you think you’re doing?” Branwen roared. Tristan’s head snapped up, and his arms fell from around the princess. Branwen flung the door closed behind her with a bang. Barking, the puppy scurried toward Eseult.
She stalked toward the couple, her heart an open flame. “Are you so eager to betray your treason?” Branwen reproached them.
Tristan’s jaw dropped. “Branwen.” He spoke her name sternly. “I’m comforting your cousin. Nothing more.”
Eseult peered up at Branwen, eyes red, cheeks splotchy. She looked desolate—and in that moment Branwen hated her for it. She hated the magic she saw between the princess and her Champion—Branwen’s magic.
“It’s your comforting of my cousin that’s brought us to the brink of war,” she hissed, and shoved Tristan backward, away from the princess, with her full force.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Branwen thrust her right hand in the air, accusing. “The princess left her Mantle of Maidenhood in your bed, Tristan!”
Queen Eseult had told Branwen she’d been gifted the Hand of Bríga to guide mortal affairs, but she could burn down Monwiku Castle with her magic. With her rage. Part of her yearned, begged her to do it.
“I didn’t know!” Tristan shouted back. “Branwen, I didn’t know!”
“How could you not know?” She matched his volume.
He exhaled, raking a hand through his curls. “Only followers of the Horned One normally adhere to that ritual. I had no idea the kordweyd would ask it of a non-believer—an Ivernic princess, no less!” Tristan cursed in his native tongue. Eseult moaned, burying her face in her hands. The puppy pawed at the princess’s hem as she wept.
“Seer Casek scorns our gods. He’ll take any excuse to prevent Eseult from becoming the True Queen of Kernyv. Can’t you see that?” Branwen exclaimed.
Tristan’s shoulders heaved. “I’ll go to the king,” he said. “I’ll explain it’s my … fault. I dishonored him. I’ll accept any punishment.”
“No,” Branwen and Eseult said at the same time. Their eyes met in surprise.
“Tristan, no,” said the princess. “He’ll execute you. And I don’t … I won’t let you say you did something heinous, turn what happened … between us … into horror.”
Branwen glanced from her cousin to Tristan, ice in her eyes.
“There’s more than your honor at stake, Prince Tristan,” Branwen cut in. “Would you condemn both of our peoples to endless war?”
King Marc could have overruled Seer Casek—he was the king, after all—but he hadn’t. He must believe the Mantle of Maidenhood to be necessary. Under no circumstances could he learn the truth. Especially not when the kordweyd believed he was already making too many concessions to the Iverni.
Tristan retreated a pace from Branwen’s glare. “Then what would you have me do?” he asked her.
“Nothing.” The princess—the peace—was caught like a fly in the laws of men. “I will be my cousin’s Champion in this.” If the noblemen and seers discovered Eseult was no longer a virgin, it would annul the Seal of Alliance and result in more bloodshed.
“Please leave us, Prince Tristan,” said Branwen. “I need to speak with my cousin alone.”
Confusion crinkled his brow. He looked to Eseult for permission, and Branwen’s heart kicked. True, he was her Champion. She needed to dismiss him. But Branwen saw the emotion in his eyes.
“My life is yours,” Tristan whispered to Branwen, leaning in close as he walked toward the door. “Do with it what you will.”
Tristan would gladly die for the peace, Branwen knew. It was harder to live with his own dishonor. Uncle Morholt had made the same choice during the Final Combat.
The dog barked as the door closed behind Tristan. Yaps filled the bedchamber as the cousins stared at each other. “Hush, Arthek,” Eseult chided the creature, sniffling.
Some of the rage bled from Branwen. She saw her cousin as a girl again, stealing milk from the kitchens at Castle Rigani to nurse an orphaned kitten that she’d hidden under her bed.
Pointing at the puppy’s rumpled face, Branwen said, “How did this happen?”
The princess sighed. “Seer Ogrin gave him to me. He said the Lord of W
ild Things wanted me to have a companion.” She crouched down, and the dog ran into her arms, licking her wet cheeks. She scratched him between the ears. “Arthek means ‘bear’ in Kernyvak. The seer said he got his name because he barks so loudly he must think that’s what he is.”
Eseult gave a small laugh that dissolved into a whimper. The wind rattled the windows in sympathy.
Branwen peered down at her cousin as sobs racked her body.
“It’s ruined … it’s…” The princess’s teeth started to chatter. “I’m ruined…”
Branwen crossed toward Eseult and sank onto the floor in front of her. “Shh,” she said, pushing the hair from her cousin’s eyes.
“You should go, Branny. Escape back to Iveriu before the wedding, while there’s still time.” Eseult’s eyes shone. She clutched Branwen’s hand tightly in hers. “You’ve always been my other half. Let me die knowing you’re safe.”
“Oh, Essy.” Her anger broke like a storm at sea. Branwen gathered the princess onto her lap. In her heartache, Branwen had forgotten how deep Eseult’s love ran.
“Today, at the temple,” her cousin said, “our people looked at me like a hero. They’re free because of the alliance.” She leaned back on her heels. “I’d decided to be brave.” Looking Branwen in the eye, she said, “But now I can’t even do that.”
“You can.” She stroked her cousin’s forehead, the skin almost feverishly hot.
Eseult shook her head, tearing out a strand of hair. “I can’t. It’s over.” She clutched at another strand.
“Stop. Essy, stop,” Branwen said, wrapping her hands around her cousin’s wrists and pulling them down to her sides.
After a moment, Eseult’s rib cage hitched in a ragged breath. “What will King Marc do to our people when he finds out?” Terror frayed her whisper.
Branwen shut her eyes and saw the faces of her parents. She felt the brutality the Land had shown her bubbling beneath the sea: the starless tide threatening to drown her beautiful island once more. The same poison she had drained from Tristan.
Her aunt had once told Branwen that natural healers could heal kingdoms. That the magic of the Land flowed through her. But she had set this chain of events in motion. She had ruined the peace.
A numbing resolve began to spread through Branwen’s veins as a plan took form. A terrible plan.
“He won’t find out,” she told her cousin, opening her eyes again. “King Marc will know a maiden on your First Night, Essy.”
“How?”
Branwen’s gaze dropped to the scar on her palm. Aboard the Dragon Rising, she would have sacrificed her life to save the princess. To save the peace. She wouldn’t let any other children’s parents be taken from them. There was still one way to stop the violence.
Branwen locked eyes with her cousin: the same green as her own mother’s, as the hills of Iveriu. “The kordweyd want a sacrifice. Blood. I will give them mine.”
Wonder turned to disbelief as realization dawned on the princess’s face.
“No,” said Eseult.
“I have never known a man.”
“No. I won’t let you do this for me.”
“It’s not just for you. Our people need this peace. Our people need you to become the True Queen.” She grabbed the princess’s hand. “Not just the Iverni here. Saoirse and Dubthach at home deserve to start a family without risk of capture.” Branwen’s words grew more urgent. “Graínne should grow up without fear of being murdered by the same raiders who murdered her parents.”
“Of course she should.” Eseult’s lower lip trembled. “But not this way.”
“There is no other way,” Branwen said, voice rising, convincing herself. Arthek barked. If the Old Ones saw another way to save Iveriu, they weren’t sharing it.
“I don’t want this for you, Branny.”
“I don’t want this, either.” The words turned to dust in her mouth as the reality of what she was proposing deluged her. Her chest hitched.
Branwen would lay her naked body down before a man she barely knew. A man who might have ambushed her parents. She would open herself to him as she never had to the man she had loved.
Goose bumps broke out across her flesh; sourness coated her tongue. This was the reality the princess had always faced. Branwen had conjured the Loving Cup because she had thought she understood the depth of the sacrifice. She had thought she could make it easier.
Now she felt Eseult’s plight in her bones. Visceral. Her cousin pressed a hand to Branwen’s cheek. The tenderness made her shiver.
The peace would be made with her flesh and blood.
When the Goddess Ériu took her chosen king to her bed, she renewed the Land, made it lush and fertile. Those were the Old Ways.
Tristan was able to drink from the Chalice of Sovereignty at the Champions Tournament on King Marc’s behalf because they shared the same blood. Branwen and Eseult, too, were of the same line. When Branwen consummated the marriage with King Marc, she had to pray the Old Ones would be satisfied. That she would be enough.
“What I shared with Tristan—”
“Don’t you dare talk to me about that,” Branwen warned.
“It was beautiful because it was a choice.”
Branwen gritted her teeth against a wail. A lie. It was a lie.
“I won’t take that choice away from you, Branny.” Her cousin’s voice was raw. “I love you, and I won’t let you do this.”
Eseult was as stubborn as ever. She meant what she said. She would let the peace collapse rather than ask Branwen to take her place in Marc’s bed.
“One person—one choice isn’t worth the lives of so many innocents.”
And Branwen was far from innocent. She would make the sacrifice asked of her cousin because her magic had already taken away Eseult’s choice. She would redeem herself to the Old Ones. To the Land.
It was all she had left.
Eseult wiped a tear from Branwen’s cheek. She hadn’t noticed she was crying.
“Branny,” she said, tone pacifying, as if trying to reason with a child. “We don’t look anything alike. I think King Marc would notice it’s not me in his First Night bed.”
“Medhua’s tears,” she murmured.
A small breath escaped Eseult. “I didn’t think it was real.”
Queen Medhua had been the last woman to possess the Hand of Bríga. She was also known as the Intoxicating One. On the night that Branwen and Queen Eseult cast the Loving Cup, her aunt had doctored a draught known as Queen Medhua’s tears to disguise their absence. It made whoever drank it highly suggestible—enough that King Marc might not know which woman came to his bed.
“It’s real.” Sir Fintan, the queen’s bodyguard, had no recollection of helping to dispose of Keane’s body or of drinking his Final Toast. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was the only chance they had.
Branwen rubbed her scar. Deceiving King Marc in this way would be a far graver betrayal than what Queen Eseult had done to Fintan. Could she do something so completely dishonorable to save her cousin’s life—to save her kingdom?
Eseult brushed away another of Branwen’s tears. Marc knew the princess no better than he knew Branwen. He was marrying her for peace, but he was also allowing his seers to demand her blood.
“It’s too dangerous, Branny,” cautioned her cousin. “If you’re found out, you’ll be charged with treason.”
“If I do nothing, it will be you, Essy,” Branwen said. “Not you without me.” King Marc had made his choice tonight. He was the king. He held his future wife’s life in his hands, and he had chosen to give the kordweyd what they wanted.
Death was easier than peace, but peace was what her people needed.
Branwen gripped Essy’s shoulders. “If my plan succeeds, you must promise me something in return.” The princess inclined her head. “You must never again look at Tristan as anything but your husband’s nephew.”
“I don’t know how to stop what I feel.” Misery weighted her words. “I wish
I did.”
“It doesn’t matter how you feel, Essy. It only matters what you do.”
Eseult took Branwen’s hand in hers. She sketched the symbol for hazel.
“I loved you first, Branny. Not me without you.”
“Peace above all.” Branwen added the honeysuckle.
Tears watered the vine.
THE WHITE MOOR
THREE WEEKS HAD PASSED AND the mornings remained dark as Long Night approached. Branwen started up the stairwell toward Andred’s room, which was located in the King’s Tower on the same level as the king’s study.
Branwen had nearly everything she needed to concoct Queen Medhua’s tears. Nearly. She couldn’t allow herself to think ahead to the wedding night itself. Whenever she did, she became a ship lost at sea, its mast snapped, waves rocking her to and fro.
Branwen focused on the ingredients. The measurements. The things she could control. She regretted turning her apprentice into her accomplice, but there was little choice.
Sucking down the wintry air, Branwen knocked on Andred’s door. She tapped her mother’s brooch as she waited for him to answer. The silver was cold to the touch.
“Lady Branwen?” The door squeaked open on its hinges. “Were we supposed to meet?” Andred asked, tugging at one of his curls.
“No, no. Don’t worry. You’re not remiss in your apprentice duties.” She showed him a playful smile. “I wanted—” Branwen broke off her words as her eyes caught on something glittering behind him. “What’s that?”
The boy turned to follow her gaze. Set atop a table by the window was a rectangular box made from translucent stone. The stone twinkled in the brightening day. It was as if a thousand tiny stars had been caught and trapped within it.
Andred’s eyes sparked to a similar brightness. “It’s my flowering box,” he said. “Come see.” Branwen followed him toward the window. She ran a finger along the luminous stone: strangely hot.
“Careful,” Andred said, grinning. He leaned his hip against the table, letting it take some of his weight. “The plant needs a very warm climate to thrive. It’s Aquilan technology. Xandru brought me the box from the southern continent on his last visit. And the seeds.”
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