Sweet Black Waves

by Kristina Perez

  Branwen made a noncommittal noise. Surveying the cave, nothing seemed disturbed. They were safe. She exhaled.

  “This is what you believe?” she said, shoulders relaxing, as she started a small fire. She handed Tantris dried sausage from her satchel, which he dutifully began to eat, seating himself on a boulder. The fire crackled between them.

  “The Horned One is growing more popular all across the island of Albion,” said Tantris as he chewed, “but I don’t see a reason to choose.”

  Branwen peeked up from the sparking twigs. “Why is he named the Horned One?”

  Taking another bite, Tantris replied, “The animals of the forest were also moved by Carnonos’s sacrifice. When he was reborn, they granted him a crown of antlers.”

  “A man with antlers?” she said, unconvinced, and Tantris nodded. “Hmph.” That seemed a strange god indeed. Satisfied that her patient had managed to eat, Branwen looked over her healing supplies, grateful she’d left them at the cave.

  “Undress,” she told him.

  “With pleasure.”

  “Just the tunic,” she clarified.

  Smirking, Tantris whipped it quickly over his head but was unable to stifle a groan. Branwen scooted closer to examine the damage. Three popped stitches. “You must be more vigilant,” she said crossly. “No more heroics.”

  “I don’t regret it.”

  She traced her forefinger along the newly torn flesh and he hissed. Who was this mysterious Kernyvman who would risk his life to help an animal?

  “Carnonos is also called the Lord of Wild Things,” said Tantris.

  “And are you a wild thing?” The question just slipped out of Branwen. She’d never sounded so brazen in her life.

  A crafty grin. “Sometimes.”

  Coughing like she had a wasting sickness, Branwen pulled loose another couple threads from her hem. Wetting them, she threaded a needle.

  “Do you have any more of that dust?” Tantris asked.

  “I’m afraid not.” She lowered the tip of the needle into the fire.

  “Then tell me something about you, Emer. I’m sure it will be equally intoxicating.” He winked. Branwen couldn’t help laughing.

  “What do you want to know?” she said. She should have been more disconcerted that his Kernyvak charm was wearing down her defenses.

  “Anything. How about your family? I’ve told you about mine.”

  She stiffened. She couldn’t tell Tantris the truth, and for some reason, she didn’t want to lie. Well, she could tell him a version of the truth.

  “I live with my cousin,” she said, hesitant. The end of the needle began to glow. “She drives me mad, especially at the moment. We’re opposites in many ways, too. Yet nobody knows me better.” She thought about the lullaby Essy made up last night. “I drive her mad as well, I’m sure, but she—” Branwen lifted the needle from the embers. “She loves me as I am.”

  “I can understand why,” Tantris said. Branwen’s heart hiccupped.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” she told him, shifting her attention to his wound. He inhaled a shallow breath.

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  Before he could say anything else, Branwen punctured his flesh with her needle, fingers moving nimbly. Tantris gripped either side of the boulder with white knuckles. To distract him, she admitted, “You’re the first Kernyvman I’ve met—who wasn’t a prisoner, that is.” Another stitch. “I was wrong earlier. When I said I know everything I need to. There’s obviously a lot I don’t know about … you.”

  “Emer.” He said her name with rough sweetness. “Ask me anything you want to know about the Kernyveu. Or me.”

  So she did. She asked as she stitched and he answered, and hours melted away. She always had more questions. Maybe that made her a traitor. Maybe … she couldn’t help it.

  Branwen wanted to know, needed to know—everything.

  THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER

  OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, she returned to the cave every afternoon as the light began to thin. With spring blossoming, Essy was so preoccupied with Lord Diarmuid—whose family was still at Castle Rigani—that, thankfully, she barely noticed Branwen’s prolonged absences. Distance grew between the cousins with every excuse Branwen made, and it pained her, but the Old Ones had put Tantris’s life in her hands.

  Although, if she were being entirely honest, she also enjoyed hearing the Kernyvman recount the folktales of his people, tell her of their festivals. Gradually, the Kernyveu were becoming less of a faceless monster. More real.

  As Branwen ducked to enter the cave this particular dusk, some of the flowering thorns caught in her hair, jerking her head backward. She felt foolish, graceless. Tantris hurried to her side.

  “Watch your head.” His grin was boyish. Now that the cuts had faded and the swelling had abated, his angular cheekbones were all the more eye-catching.

  Tantris began pulling the thorns from Branwen’s hair.

  “I think I may well have just caught a wolf by the tail,” he said. She felt his eyes rove her face and she averted her gaze. So many years of disappearing into the background at court served Branwen well when she needed to disguise her emotions. The touch of his fingers on her scalp, however, threading between her plaits, was undeniably thrilling. When she sensed Tantris lingering longer than was strictly necessary, she stepped away.

  After she gained a little breathing room, she trailed her gaze over his tunic. For once, it wasn’t soiled with fresh blood.

  “You look well,” she said. Better than well. Tantris’s golden-brown complexion was no longer wan in the least. He seemed healthy, strong—strong enough to make the journey home, perhaps. An unwanted hollowness spread through Branwen at the thought.

  Taking a step toward her, Tantris declared, “Only because my healer has worked her magic” with an open smile.

  Branwen did wonder if it had been magic. Bríga’s healing fire. “I don’t think I can take all the credit,” she told him, thinking of the fox. Saoirse still languished in the twilight of fever. If even Queen Eseult’s expertise hadn’t been enough for the woman to make a full recovery, Branwen doubted she could have healed Tantris on her own.

  His expression grew inscrutable. She followed his eyeline to the harp peeking out from beneath her burgundy capelet and, when their gazes collided, Tantris grimaced.

  “This is a test,” he said.

  It was a test, but Branwen hadn’t intended for it to seem that way. A recalcitrant part of her needed to know that Tantris was who he said he was, needed to understand why the Old Ones had shown him their favor. Even if she couldn’t reveal herself to him.

  “I thought you trusted me, Emer.”

  The disappointment in his voice made Branwen feel as if the thorns caught in her hair were piercing her heart instead. She hated how much his rebuke affected her. And she hated that she had offended him.

  Her swirling emotions coalesced into something more familiar—indignation—and she prickled. “I thought you were a bard?” Taking in his stricken expression, she tried to play it off. “I’d like to hear a song from your homeland, Tantris.”

  “I’m a fine bard, indeed.” Fire flickered in his voice. He closed the space between them with unsettling speed. Grabbing the harp from her hands, he rasped in Branwen’s ear, “Odai eti ama.”

  Nervous energy flooded her entire body. Then Tantris retreated a few paces, seating himself on a large rock. Plucking the harp, he tested the strings, tuning them in turn. “Do you have any particular requests?” The edge to his voice had dulled somewhat.

  “It’s a krotto—you know how to play it?”

  “An Ivernic harp is not so very different from a Kernyvak one. Nor is an Iverman so very different from a Kernyvman.”

  She wouldn’t have believed that before she met Tantris. Now, on the other hand … Branwen didn’t know what expression she displayed, but his softened. Suddenly it was he who was apologetic. “Please sit, Emer. You’re making me anxious,” he said jokily
. “Like you’re about to run off and leave me.”

  A blush bit into her cheeks but she did as she was told. She sat on another medium-sized Rigani stone, wrestling her hands in her lap.

  “Do you play?” Tantris asked.

  “Only a little. And not well. It was my mother’s harp, she—” Branwen broke off her own words. Why had she divulged that? These past few weeks, she’d managed to keep references to her family extremely vague.

  His eyes grew infinitely tender. Tantris stroked the curve of the golden wood like she imagined he might caress a lover. Just for a moment, Branwen envied the harp with her entire being.

  “Laiginztir,” he murmured.

  “What?” Terror shot through her.

  “A golden harp with silver strings is the symbol of Laiginztir.” Tantris roamed her face with his eyes. “That’s where you’re from, isn’t it, Emer? Before you came to work at Castle Rigani?”

  The poet was frustratingly perceptive. Branwen ground the toe of her lambskin boot into the rocky floor of the cave. “How would you know that?” she demanded, a petulance in her voice that reminded her of the princess.

  “I’ve traveled to all the provinces of your kingdom with a song in my heart: Conaktir, Mumhanztir, Uladztir, Rigani, and Laiginztir.”

  “Singing for your supper?”

  “After a fashion,” said Tantris, strumming his fingers across the strings in a running scale; the notes tinkled, reverberating in the confined space of the cave.

  The music stirred something deep inside Branwen. A snatch of a long-forgotten memory. She used to sit at her mother’s knee, listening to her play as her honeyed contralto told of battles fought and love lost. How had such a beautiful image faded from Branwen’s mind?

  She hid her face in her hands, unable to keep the tears at bay. She heard Tantris set down the harp, and then his warm body pressed against hers. She didn’t dare look up.

  “Oh, Emer,” he said. “Please tell me what I’ve done to upset you.”

  Branwen turned her face from side to side, still masking her eyes with her hands.

  “Never mind.”

  “No.” Tantris circled her wrists and tugged them away from her face with a gentle but deliberate motion. “Is your mother still in Laiginztir?” There was something so guttural about how he asked his question that it was almost a growl. Branwen suspected he already knew the answer.

  Tantris wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye as she told him, “She and my father are both in the Otherworld.”

  “How did it happen?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

  Branwen’s bottom lip quivered. “Kernyvak raiders.” The five syllables were coated with rage—but not nearly as much venom as there used to be.

  “I’m sorry, Emer. Now I know why you see me as your enemy.” Tantris heaved a deep, exhausted breath. It was like the gasp of resignation at the end of a long argument. “And yet you risked yourself to save your enemy—repeatedly,” he said, marveling.

  “I don’t—” she started, surprising herself. “I don’t see you as my enemy anymore.”

  Branwen heard with increasing distress the rumors flying around the castle that King Óengus’s war council was considering an invasion of Kernyv. A full-scale attack had always been deemed impossible because Kernyv possessed superior ships and superior numbers. Her uncle Morholt, however, agreed with the lesser lords that the Iverni should bring the fight to the raiders’ homeland. They might be right: Branwen didn’t know the strategies of war—but she could think only of the families that would be butchered.

  She lifted her gaze back to Tantris, half afraid he could read her thoughts. She remained a loyal Iverwoman; she wouldn’t dream of betraying her kingdom by warning Kernyv. Yet she didn’t want to send Tantris home to slaughter, either. He held her gaze but he didn’t appear to detect her warring impulses. No, his face was brightening, slowly, like the sun rising above the Ivernic Sea.

  “Emer, if that’s true, it’s the best news I’ve had in a long, long time.” He took her hand in his and dashed a too-brief kiss along her knuckles.

  Exhaling a shaky breath, Branwen changed the subject. “You must miss your parents, back in Kernyv,” she said. Then she was struck by a troubling thought. “Or, your wife?”

  The night they’d met, Tantris had asked if Branwen had a husband; he’d failed to volunteer the same information about himself. Of course! He looked a year or two older than her, and someone as captivating as Tantris must have a wife. Why should she have hoped otherwise? She was as bad as Essy.

  “No wife,” he said with a soft laugh, not releasing her hand. “No parents, either,” he added. She tasted the loneliness of that statement. “It’s just me and my uncle.”

  Branwen shifted toward Tantris, angling one shoulder against his. “How?”

  Grief shaded his features. “Ivernic raiders.” His voice went cold as death. “My mother died having me the night my father was killed. Lord Morholt—the brother of Queen Eseult—was gathering villagers as tribute. Children. My father defended them, like the proud Kartagon warrior he was.”

  Branwen wanted to run away. Shame coursed through her. Her family had been destroyed, but so had his. And countless others. Tantris had never even known his parents. Her own uncle had been the instrument of that destruction.

  “You’re not usually at a loss for words, Emer.”

  In that moment, Branwen very nearly told him her true name. But then Tantris would know that her aunt was the queen and that her family was responsible for watering the fields of Kernyv with blood.

  And Tantris would hate her. She couldn’t stomach the idea of him hating her.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she muttered, not knowing where to look, either.

  His shoulders hunched in a sigh. “Our countrymen have dealt as much death as each other. They have wrought equal destruction.” Gingerly, Tantris tipped her head back. Flames licked the rich brown of his eyes and she was enthralled.

  “I hope I have made a friend of an enemy,” she said hoarsely.

  “You’ve made more than that, but I could never be your enemy.”

  Her pulse galloped in her ears. She believed him. She believed him yet she should pull away—she knew she should.

  “Emer.” Tantris spoke her name so close to her lips that it took form, and cut her.

  She didn’t want him to utter a false name before he kissed her. She didn’t want him to kiss Emer. She wanted Tantris to kiss her—Branwen—and she recoiled.

  “Forgive me,” he said, jumping to his feet. “I forgot myself for a moment.” He raked a hand through his dark curls, tearing at them a little, furious with himself.

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Branwen assured him, because there wasn’t. If anything, she was the one lying to him. She was the one who needed forgiving. With a slightly awkward smile, she said, “How about that song?”

  All of his features slackened with relief. “Truly,” Tantris said, “you have the noblest of hearts.”

  Or the most selfish, she thought.

  He clapped his hands together as an idea came to him. “I know just the ballad. One for your namesake,” he said, retaking his seat. A bit of the rogue returned to his voice. “‘The Only Jealousy of Emer’!”

  Branwen laughed as he began to tease the strings. She had chosen Emer as her identity that day on the beach because she was the most forthright of Ivernic heroines. “How is it you speak my language so well, Tantris? And know our stories?”

  “I told you—I love poetry. And Ivernic poetry is beautiful.” He caught her eye. “Like Iverwomen.” Branwen dropped her gaze to her boots. He began to sing.

  The Hound of Uladztir bites and hisses,

  Longing for Lady Emer’s sweet kisses.

  The wooing of Emer by the Hound of Uladztir, the fiercest of Ivernic warriors, was celebrated across the kingdom. The Hound was returning from training with the warrior woman Skathak when he came across Emer and was instantly thunderstruck.r />
  Hair like a raven’s wing,

  Only for her does he sing.

  Branwen dashed Tantris a questioning look. In the stories, Emer was always blond. He answered with an artful smile. He had changed the words just for her. Essy would appreciate his talent, thought Branwen, but, of course, they could never meet. Tantris could never truly be part of Branwen’s world.

  Singing of how the Hound won Emer away from the man to whom she’d been promised, the poet’s dexterous fingers danced over the strings. Branwen couldn’t help but notice how elegantly tapered they were. His strumming grew to a crescendo as he reached her favorite part of the story: The goddess Fand seduces the Hound, luring him into the Otherworld—and Emer fights back, threatening the goddess with a silver blade.

  At the same moment in the song that Emer rescued the Hound from the Otherworld, a shiver of foreboding shot down Branwen’s spine.

  Something was wrong. She launched to her feet, putting her finger to her lips. Hastily, Tantris ceased his playing.

  She couldn’t explain it, but she knew they were in danger. The shiver had been a warning. She motioned for Tantris to get back. He shook his head. Fear scorched each one of Branwen’s nerves. She jabbed her forefinger toward the darkest, farthest reaches of the cave.

  Please, Branwen mouthed. After their eyes battled for several more moments, Tantris’s chest deflated and he slipped into the darkness.

  Steeling herself, Branwen strode toward the cave opening, stooping to avoid the shroud of thorns.

  “Keane!” Her voice was pitched too high. Try not to be suspicious, Branwen. Drawing in a breath, she said, “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.” He held a torch in one hand, illuminating his stern expression. Then he smiled, almost shyly. She forced herself to return it.

  “I asked you first.”

  “Princess Eseult was trying to find you.”

  “Oh,” Branwen began, tone breezy. “You do realize she most likely sent you after me just so she could get Diarmuid alone?”