Sweet Black Waves

by Kristina Perez

  His posture tensed. “You’re more like Marc than you know. Duty before love,” he said, and it didn’t sound like a compliment. Irritation itched at the back of Branwen’s throat. Tristan had no reason to suspect that Essy’s injury might have been self-inflicted—and Branwen didn’t want to compromise her cousin by sharing her fears.

  “Didn’t you tell me that the Kernyvak barons see you as a threat to your uncle’s reign?” Branwen reminded him instead. “How would it look if you returned from Iveriu with a bride of your own?”

  Tristan made a disgruntled noise. “You’re very skilled at inventing reasons why we shouldn’t be together.”

  “I’m not inventing anything,” she protested, temper ignited. He scoffed again. “Tristan.” Their eyes met and the sadness in his chastised her more than words ever could have. “Tristan,” she said more gently. “I do want a life with you.” She stared down at the bracelet, at the constancy it represented. “I just need more time. There are things I need to do first. Let Essy settle into her marriage. Iveriu and Kernyv need a stable union. Why should we rush?”

  “Why rush?” Her head snapped up at the crisp edge to Tristan’s words. “The rush is I can feel this”—he gestured at the space between them—“growing vaster every day. Sometimes you feel farther away than when you were across the sea. And I don’t know why. Maybe if we’re handfasted, you’ll trust me enough to let me in?”

  Instinctively, she touched the Loving Cup. So small, and yet its weight was crushing.

  “That’s not a wise reason to ask me to be your wife,” she said.

  “No. It’s not.” A storm gathered in Tristan’s eyes, his breathing ragged. “Tell me something true, Branwen. Trust me.” He turned over her right hand to expose the scar. The skin was newly inflamed. “Tell me the truth about this.” He traced the length of it and his touch was like a balm.

  “It’s just us here,” he said. Shadows capered on the wall as the ship rocked. “Like at the cave.”

  She wanted to go back. So much. She wanted to go back to the day they met, and she wanted to go forward—to the future she’d been shown in the in-between. Branwen could do neither. She only had now.

  “It started with you,” she admitted. “Everything started with you, Tristan.”

  He ran his tongue along his lips. “Everything started for me with you, too. Everything good.”

  Remorse swept through Branwen. She wished it was only good things that began with Tristan. Speaking to their joined hands, Branwen told him about her mother, the Old Ones, and the trade she had offered on Whitethorn Mound: blood for magic.

  “After the Champions Tournament, things began to change,” she said. “For me. Queen Eseult says it’s a gift from the Goddess Bríga.”

  Tristan edged closer and lifted Branwen’s hand to his lips, tender against her wound. It was a thrilling sensation. She echoed the rumbling sigh that escaped him. Telling the truth gave Branwen an airy feeling. It was too tempting to tell him everything.

  He lowered her hand to his lap. “There’s a cost, though.” Tristan twisted a pinkie around one of Branwen’s curls. Her eyes widened: The strand was white.

  “The healing drains you,” he said.

  She nodded. There was a cost—magic had cost Keane his life. Tristan gazed at her with adoration. He saw only the good. If Branwen told him the full truth of her powers, how could he ever look at her the same way?

  “You don’t need to save everyone all the time.” He slid an arm around her shoulders, pulled her head against his chest. “Let me help you.”

  She listened to the rhythm of his heart. Tristan meant what he said, she knew, but there were some things only Branwen could do.

  “Please don’t tell anyone,” she whispered.

  Gazing down at her, he said, “What are you afraid of?”

  Myself. “Queen Eseult told me women aren’t allowed to take part in the Mysteries of the New Religion. Is that true?”

  His embrace grew more rigid. “Only some people feel that way.”

  “Even so, Iveriu is depending on me to help secure the alliance. I need to be accepted at court.”

  “You will be.” He pulled back and gathered Branwen’s face between his hands. “And I will keep your secret—I will always protect you.” He kissed one cheek, then the other. “Thank you for trusting me, my love.”

  Branwen planted her lips on the arch of his neck and inhaled his scent, his warmth. Tristan groaned as desire passed through him to her.

  Between labored breaths, he said, “We’ll wait as long as you want.” He plucked the bracelet from the covers. “Keep it. Wear it when you’re ready. It’s my promise to you: You’re the only woman for me.” He slid his thumb along her cheekbone. “You should get some more sleep.”

  “You’ll stay?”

  Branwen didn’t want to sleep alone. She didn’t want Keane to find her again in her dreams tonight. Holding Tristan’s gaze, she scooted to one side of the bed, making room. It wasn’t something a noblewoman should do.

  He jammed his eyes shut, his internal debate nearly audible.

  “I’ll stay,” he said.

  He remained above the bedclothes and Branwen below as she turned on her side, allowing him to mold his body to hers. Every part of her sighed.

  Draping an arm across her waist, Tristan threaded their fingers together, pressing his palm to hers.

  “Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake.”

  And she did. And he was.

  SEA-WOLF

  A COLD PEACE HAD DESCENDED BETWEEN Branwen and Essy. When the princess woke after her accident, she had no recollection of how serious the injury had been. She refused to discuss how she had managed to stab herself so Branwen held her tongue as well. Essy had enough troubles—she didn’t need to concern herself with Branwen’s abilities.

  Four days had passed in near silence as they listened to the tide lap against the Dragon Rising. This afternoon the princess pretended to be dozing as Branwen replaced the dressings around her thigh. Tiny blisters had appeared from the bindings. Perhaps she’d fastened them too tight. The wound itself was healing so well it would hardly leave a scar.

  Pouring some of their precious fresh water from a flask into a silver bowl, Branwen mixed it with soap shavings from the castle larders. She dipped the end of a handkerchief into the water and dabbed at Essy’s flesh. Her cousin made a noise as if it tickled but kept her eyes stubbornly shut. After she dried the area, Branwen tied a fresh bandage, leaving the wound more room to breathe.

  She stretched her arms above her head. Several joints cracked. She collected the soiled linens and the bowl of soapy water, deciding to wash them on deck.

  “I’ll be above if you need me,” Branwen told her cousin, knowing full well she could hear her. A smile touched her lips as she narrowly avoided crashing into Tristan in the passageway.

  “Good afternoon, my lady.” There was a rakish glint to his dark eyes.

  Branwen had spent the night in his arms and, even though she had done nothing but sleep, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. From his husky timbre, neither could he.

  Her gaze darted to the krotto under his arm.

  “I thought Emer might like the Hound to serenade her,” Tristan explained, and the suggestion spun around Branwen like gossamer.

  “She might.” She tried for a coy smile. Casting a backward glance at the cabin, she couldn’t suppress a tinge of sorrow. Branwen hugged the laundry to her chest. “But she needs to clean the bandages.” With a raised eyebrow, she suggested, “A song might lift the patient’s spirits.”

  Tristan’s face fell. “A song couldn’t make things any worse,” he conceded. Whatever appreciation Essy had shown for the Kernyvman when she was mortally wounded had dissipated as soon as she recovered her senses. Branwen wasn’t certain which of the two of them her cousin loathed more.

  “Mormerkti.” Branwen touched his elbow. “You’ve always been rather brave for a poet.”

  “Sekrev,” he s
aid. “You’re welcome.” As she repeated the new word, testing it on her tongue, Tristan tipped forward and whispered, “I’ll sing for you later,” while kissing the shell of her ear. The sensation riveted her. He winked, brushing her waist with his hand as he shimmied past and entered the cabin.

  Branwen lingered in the hallway, listening to Tristan greet Essy by plucking a chord on the harp. He also failed to be fooled by her sleeping act.

  “What do you want?” whined the princess. Branwen tiptoed closer.

  “Can I offer you a ballad? Perhaps Lí Ban, the mermaid?” he suggested, and Branwen grinned—a real one. Lí Ban was none other than the sister of the Otherworld goddess who tried to steal the Hound from Emer. Considered a great beauty, even among the Old Ones, she survived a flood by transforming into a fish from the waist down.

  “I would rather hear the death rattle of a flatulent porpoise, Prince Tristan,” Essy declared. “Don’t you have someplace to be?”

  “Afraid not. Morgie’s still looking for another tack.”

  Yet another one. After the storms, the ship was becalmed again. A few of the older crewmen were visibly disturbed.

  Branwen heard a clunk—Tristan setting down the harp, she presumed.

  “Princess,” he tried again. “I will come back every day until we find common ground.”

  “You can come back every day until the end of time and I’ll never have anything in common with the Kernyveu. Or with you.”

  “Branwen.”

  Did he realize she was eavesdropping?

  “What about her?” said the princess.

  The wood wheezed beneath his weight as Tristan paced. Suddenly, it stopped.

  “We both care very deeply for her.”

  Essy inhaled. “You’ll never be worthy of her.” Branwen’s heart swelled. The princess hadn’t disputed caring for her. Hope kindled inside her that their relationship could still be repaired.

  “You’re right.” Tristan gave a resigned laugh. “But I will spend the rest of my life trying to be.”

  The Loving Cup pricked Branwen’s breast like a knifepoint. She was the one who wasn’t worthy, who was still keeping secrets. And yet, she would try, by the Old Ones, she would try to love Tristan and the Land at the same time.

  “Fine,” said her cousin. “That is one thing we have in common.”

  “It’s better than nothing.”

  Essy harrumphed. Branwen could picture her crossing her arms.

  Dropping his voice, Tristan said, “You’re both the bravest women I know.”

  “Brave isn’t something anyone has ever called me.”

  “But you are. I know this can’t be easy—voyaging across the sea to marry a stranger.”

  “No one asked what I wanted,” Essy rebuked him. “You most definitely didn’t ask.”

  “I…” Branwen heard Tristan blow out another breath. “If it’s any consolation, I know Marc is apprehensive, too.”

  “It’s not.”

  “You carry a mighty burden as a ruler. You must marry for duty—for peace—rather than love. To me, that is brave. A hero’s sacrifice. It makes you a hero, Princess.”

  For a moment the ship was so still that Branwen could hear herself blinking away her own tears as they spilled down her cheeks. What Iveriu needed did require a hero’s sacrifice. Branwen should have been the one to tell her cousin so.

  She also knew without a doubt that she’d done the right thing in conjuring the Loving Cup. It would make Essy’s burden easier to bear, even if the secret drove a wedge between her and Tristan.

  “It should be Branwen,” Essy said quietly. “She would make a much better queen. My own mother thinks so—and I agree.”

  Branwen tasted salt upon her lips.

  “I will be proud to call you my queen, Princess Eseult,” Tristan insisted, and he sounded entirely sincere.

  Essy coughed. A few seconds later, she said, “Sing to me of the mermaid, then.”

  Branwen could almost hear Tristan’s smile. “With pleasure,” he said.

  The wistful notes of the harp flitted over Branwen’s skin, raising the tiny hairs. She headed for the stairs as Tristan’s baritone wrapped around her heart.

  She should have been glad he had succeeded in breaking her cousin’s silence where she had failed. One step at a time, she told herself.

  Sunlight filtered down from above. One step at a time.

  * * *

  Branwen found a quiet spot on the bow to launder the bandages and a few other items of clothing. She focused on the simplicity of the task, taking satisfaction in the scrubbing until her upper back rebelled. The water swirled with crimson as the bandages came clean.

  Drawing in a long breath, Branwen pushed to her feet, shaking loose her stiff muscles, and leaned against the side of the ship. Out of nowhere, gliding over the waves, soared a kretarv. She and the vile creature locked eyes. She was unable to turn away, mesmerized.

  Its gaze was darker than coal, and pitiless. Right at the very center, Branwen spied the true face of fate: disinterested yet ruthless. A chill that matched the fire of her heart stole through her. The kretarv was calling her name. What started as the guttural moan of a man—Keane—turned into the shrill soprano of a woman, both equally defiant and plaintive.

  Mother. She took a step toward the kretarv. Her mother needed her. Branwen had to go to her.

  Held tight in the carrion bird’s eyes, a long-concealed truth was revealed to Branwen in a vision. She watched in frost-covered horror as Kernyvak raiders ambushed Lord Caedmon and Lady Alana’s caravan from Castle Rigani to Fort Áine.

  The arrows came first—flaming arrows shot by raiders hidden in the trees. A coward’s attack. The pirates took out the horsemen at the front and rear of the traveling party. The shouts of men on fire were sickening; it was a sound that Branwen knew all too well.

  A face she never thought to see again appeared before her. Her father’s face. It was contorted by rage as he brandished a kladiwos in defense of his wife. Branwen’s memories of his kindly smile diffused when confronted by his bloodlust—and it made her proud.

  She also fully recognized what made Lady Alana the sister of Queen Eseult: a spine of steel. Her mother fell to her knees beside one of the burning, mutilated Royal Guardsmen; and when she discovered she couldn’t save him, she put her knee on his neck and used her body weight to snap it. Lady Alana put the man out of his misery and then grabbed his sword, rushing to join her husband.

  Branwen’s heart raced faster, her blood nearing a boiling point. In the midst of battle, a milky-gray sun peeked out from behind a cloud and winked off Lady Alana’s brooch. The same one Branwen was wearing even now. She felt for it intuitively.

  The moment her fingertips brushed the ancient language of trees, Lady Alana turned toward Branwen as if she could actually see her, and her mother startled.

  Lord Caedmon swung his kladiwos furiously against a Kernyvak pirate with one eye. But one eye was all the brute needed to slice off Lord Caedmon’s hand from the wrist. The gnarled fingers and the blade crashed to the ground, spraying Lady Alana with her husband’s blood.

  Lady Alana dove for her husband’s sword and swiped upward at the Kernyvman’s belly. Her despair washed over Branwen. As well as her conviction. Branwen realized her mother knew death was imminent, but she refused to back down.

  “Alana,” Lord Caedmon croaked, reaching for his wife with his remaining hand. “Go! Run. Leave me and save yourself.”

  “Never, my love.”

  Her father coughed up bloody spittle. “Think of little Branny.”

  A moment’s hesitation passed over Lady Alana’s face before she gritted her teeth and said, “This is the right fight, Caedmon.”

  She looked directly at Branwen as she spoke these words. Branwen reached for her mother but she had no form; she could only watch.

  Lady Alana retrieved the kladiwos from the Kernyvman’s belly in a deft motion and brandished it in the air. Another, stockier, pirate wit
h a scraggly dark-brown beard launched himself at the couple.

  Branwen’s mother turned to her husband. “I love you with my life, Caedmon. I won’t let the Kernyveu have you.”

  And then she slit his throat.

  Branwen screamed but she made no sound.

  Her mother had made the right decision not to give the Kernyveu a highborn hostage, Branwen knew. But she was in awe. Would she have had the strength to do the same if it were Tristan?

  Branwen didn’t have time to ponder the question; an arm seized her mother around the waist. The pale forearm was tattooed with a sea-wolf surging up from the waves, but it was gangly, as if his arms were too long for his body. The new raider couldn’t be older than thirteen or fourteen.

  “Lady, we will not hurt you,” said the boy, voice shaky. He spoke in Ivernic. “By my troth, I have no desire to harm a woman.” He appeared better groomed than the other Kernyvmen, his clothes finer, yet lacking in confidence.

  “There is no honor among pirates,” Lady Alana spat. The raider might be younger and more wiry than the rest, but he was strong. Branwen’s mother struggled under his grip, her sword useless.

  “My lady, we aren’t common pirates. I would let you go—return to Castle Rigani untouched—to deliver a message to King Óengus.”

  Her mother’s gaze trailed to the spot where Branwen was hovering. She smiled wistfully. Green flames leapt in her eyes.

  “I will certainly deliver a message to my king. From whom?”

  “Marc,” the Kernyvman replied.

  This world and the Otherworld closed in on Branwen.

  Marc loosened his grip slightly on Lady Alana. She wheeled around, raising the kladiwos, and plunged it straight into her own heart.

  “This is my message to King Óengus: One Iveriu.”

  Blood sprang from her mother’s breast and Branwen experienced each agonizing moment of her death. Marc stood petrified, watching, shock smoothing his face. Then he ran off, leaving her mother where she lay dying next to her husband. Drawing her last breaths, Lady Alana crawled to Lord Caedmon’s side and cupped his cheek.

  Fire scorched the coming evening, setting her parents ablaze. They loved while they burned; they burned while they loved.