Sweet Black Waves

by Kristina Perez

  Essy released a battle cry and began to pummel the Shade with her fists. When she recognized Keane her jaw fell toward the deck. She kept pummeling. The beaks cackled. Branwen could only look on, awestruck. Essy never stopped.

  Keane swung Branwen around like a whirligig, her knees colliding with Essy’s sternum.

  Her cousin groaned. She teetered, trying to catch her balance.

  And then she was gone.

  Essy tumbled overboard and was swallowed by the waves of night.

  All fear fled Branwen’s heart and was replaced by a rage that burned brighter than any forge. “Essy!” she screamed. “Essy!” Her little cousin had sacrificed herself for Branwen.

  Branwen wasn’t worth it. Branwen wasn’t worth more than peace.

  Keane’s skeletal mouth laughed. His beaks laughed with him. Essy’s dream hadn’t been a warning from the Old Ones. It had been a provocation from the Dark One.

  Keane’s arms evaporated from around her and Branwen crashed to the deck. He reappeared, looming over her, still laughing. She swiped at his ankle, trying to trip him, but her hand cut through nothing but smoke.

  He gripped the collar of her dress, yanking Branwen to her feet, and pressed the hungry beak of his left hand into the back of her neck. Once more Branwen was at Castle Rigani, Keane trying to force a kiss on her. This time it was the kiss of death.

  “Branwen!” she heard someone call as if from very far away.

  Hatred coursed through her. She raised her hand to Keane’s hideous face and slapped him. Surprise sparked in his eyes. She had made contact.

  His beak continued to feed. She struck him again.

  Could the feeding make him vulnerable?

  Instinct replaced thought, the Hand of Bríga taking over. Branwen placed her right palm flat against where the Shade’s heart might be. She possessed a weapon of which nobody else was aware.

  She smelled the now familiar odor of singed flesh, and something else—sulfurous, like rotten eggs. Keane began to glow like a lantern from within. He trembled with the force of an earthquake. Branwen refused to let go. In a horrible symmetry, Keane’s features distorted and dissolved once more. He howled that same inhuman plea for mercy.

  Branwen would show him none.

  Piece by piece, Keane’s hybrid body flaked and turned to ash. She had incinerated him whole. A great bonfire was suspended in midair.

  She glanced around her and met Tristan’s gaze.

  He had seen. He had watched her burn a Shade alive, end his living death. Something no human should be able to do.

  There was a strange combination of wonder and horror in his wide eyes. And love, Branwen told herself.

  Smoke and screams and love.

  They didn’t need to speak. Branwen knew what he was about to do.

  Tristan dove overboard into the Sea of the Dead to save the princess. He would die for Essy, Essy would die for Branwen, and Branwen would die for them both. The three of them were inextricably bound by the waves.

  Branwen would make the waves her home one day.

  But not today.

  * * *

  She collapsed to her knees as the battle raged around her. She couldn’t distinguish the sea from the sky: Up or down, both paths led to an abyss. If Essy drowned, King Óengus would have no choice but to declare war on Kernyv in retaliation for losing his daughter.

  Anger blew through Branwen as she stared at the hand that had decimated Keane. Death had many faces and Dhusnos contained them all. This had been his plan. Revenge on the Land and more bodies for his ships.

  “Lady Branwen!” a voice called, young and afraid. Smoke was rising from the deck so thick that it bled into the stars. “Branwen!”

  Cadan. The boy quaked from stem to stern. Despite the murk, she could see his complexion turning ashen as his years were drained from him. The total look of repulsion in his eyes curdled her blood.

  Now wasn’t the time for regret. She couldn’t give up just yet.

  Branwen leapt to her feet, racing for the boy. Half a breath later, an enormous Shade with only one effervescent red eye knocked her back onto the deck. Branwen wrestled with the monster, rolling together until he had her arms pinned above her head. The rows of beaks across his chest pecked at the front of her dress, trying to latch on to her like the tentacles in her nightmares.

  When she felt the Shade begin to siphon her essence, she wrested free her right arm and plowed her blazing heart line against his cheek.

  The vengeful Shade vaporized, an exploding star. Branwen covered her face with her hands as molten-hot sparks swirled around her, then launched into a sprint toward Cadan. Almost unthinking, she scorched Dhusnos’s men as she advanced. The power flowing within her could be a vicious and elegant thing. The Dark One had been right about the destruction in her veins.

  She wouldn’t let the Sea of the Dead steal anyone else while she possessed the power to stop it.

  A Shade had clamped Cadan to his chest from behind in a lethal embrace. The boy strained for breath. Crunch. Pop! His spine was cracking.

  Branwen’s eyes locked with those of the Shade, which were shining carmine like two harvest moons. He wasn’t rushing to leech the life from the cabin boy; he was taking his time. This Shade exuded the confidence of a leader—he must be the captain of Dhusnos’s crew.

  Cadan went slack in the man-beast’s arms and Branwen raised her palm toward the Shade, a plume of flame springing forth.

  Flinching, he released his grip. The boy fell to the floor, unconscious. Branwen rushed to help him.

  Holding his hands over his face in surrender, the Shade put his lips together in a piercing whistle. He backed away from Branwen, heading toward the side of the ship, and his men followed his lead.

  She couldn’t believe it. The captain of Dhusnos’s men was afraid of her. One by one, the monstrous intruders plunged overboard, detaching the talon-like grapples and setting the Dragon Rising free. Branwen didn’t have a moment to process what that meant before she heard a thud beside her and turned from Cadan toward the sound.

  Tristan landed on the deck, hefting Essy behind him. He attempted to lay the princess down softly, but panic made him sloppy. Strained breaths hissed through his teeth. Essy wasn’t breathing at all.

  Branwen refused to accept her cousin’s death.

  She met Tristan’s eyes and the look in them trod the boundary between hope and despair. “The princess needs you,” he forced out. “It’s my fault. She begged me to find another way. I should have listened. I’ve killed her.”

  “Not if I can help it.” Pushing Tristan to one side, Branwen began pounding on Essy’s chest with her fist. This was her fault, not his. Together, Tristan and Essy filled the cavern in her heart that she hadn’t believed could ever be filled. She wouldn’t let it be emptied again. Branwen funneled all her love into her fists.

  Slam. Her cousin’s body jerked. Pinching Essy’s nose, Branwen pressed her lips to the princess’s nearly blue ones.

  “It’s … not … working,” Tristan said, laboring over each syllable, his anguish complete. He fell to his knees.

  Branwen kissed Essy harder, trying to force all of her life into her cousin. She pictured the little blond troublemaker who was so fond of mischief, with whom she had shared sweets and childhood secrets. The girl—the woman—who would be queen over two peaceful kingdoms.

  Take my life, cousin. Take my life and finish what I’ve started.

  Essy coughed beneath her kisses. As the princess’s chest heaved, her own grew leaden. The Sea of the Dead sloshed around her heart. Branwen sat back, clutching at it hard enough to bruise. Somehow she had taken the water from Essy just as she had ingested Tristan’s poison after her uncle’s betrayal.

  Tristan gathered the princess in his arms as she took her first breath on her own. Then he turned his intense gaze on Branwen. She was the one gasping for air now.

  “Branwen—”

  She closed her eyes, drifting in a warm sea full of stars. L
ord Caedmon had told Branwen to let the current take her weight. She had no strength left. Her mother’s face shimmered before her. Lady Alana was shaking her head.

  And then, Branwen could breathe again. The heat of her heart turned the water to steam. Death evaporated. The Land of Youth wasn’t ready for her yet.

  Strong arms reached for her. Solid arms. Real arms. Tristan folded Branwen onto his lap, next to Essy. He kissed Branwen on the lips—not gently—and she felt his body sing with relief.

  Essy’s eyes floated open. “I love you,” she murmured.

  I love you, too.

  Tristan helped both of them to their feet. Branwen could barely stand. The Hand of Bríga burned like ice. All of the fire she’d summoned had receded. She felt withered, a crone, a thousand years old.

  The aftermath of the slaughter was harrowing to behold.

  Captain Morgawr was alive and commanding the other survivors to put out the still-raging fires. The deck was congealed with blood and ash. Essy hid her face in the crook of Tristan’s neck, but Branwen forced herself to look. She choked on a sob as she beheld the pallor of Cadan’s visage.

  She had been too late. Branwen hadn’t saved him, after all.

  Down below, the fine black mist of fallen men lingered. Tristan tucked Essy into bed and turned to Branwen with glistening eyes. “You’re a marvel,” he said in a whisper. “You’ve saved both Iveriu and Kernyv with your kisses.”

  She said nothing, but held his gaze.

  Do you think I’m a monster, too? Branwen couldn’t force the question to her lips. Grief was an anchor in her heart. He kissed her between the eyes. She didn’t kiss him back. All this, all this death. She had brought it down upon them.

  Eventually, Tristan sighed and left, closing the door behind him.

  The click of the latch resounded in Branwen’s mind as she stripped the princess of her sea-stained garments. She stared at the closed door for a long time before crawling into bed and nestling Essy against her. She tasted the soot on her tongue—rough, like grains of sand—and tapped the Loving Cup above her heart.

  “Not me without you,” Branwen whispered, tracing the first line of hazel above Essy’s heart. Her cousin was already asleep.

  Exhausted, Branwen stopped fighting the tide.

  Just for a moment.

  DREAMLESS

  BRANWEN WOKE UP ALONE IN her bed. A strange giddiness wended its way up her body.

  Land. They were close. She sensed it. Dhusnos had tried to thwart them. The Sea of the Dead had failed.

  A tremulous breath loosened inside her. Branwen had enjoyed her first dreamless sleep since departing Iveriu. Despite the horror of the Shades’ attack, peace remained within reach. The princess would marry King Marc and unite their kingdoms forever. No more Ivernic or Kernyvak children would be born to war.

  Cadan. The cabin boy’s name knifed through Branwen’s mind.

  She should have defended him—not the other way around. Her heart panged. She would seek out his family if he’d had any living, to grieve with them and share his Final Toast, but Cadan had no one left to remember him.

  I will. I will remember him.

  So young yet he’d fought so bravely. He died fighting for peace. A hero. She would honor his sacrifice every day.

  Branwen stretched her arms wearily above her head. Every part of her pulsed with dull pain. The sleeves of her nightdress bunched around her elbows, revealing the kretarv’s claw marks. She wrapped her hand around the nape of her neck and prodded the wound left by Keane’s beak, examining. She would clean it later. The scar would remind her how close she’d come to losing Essy forever.

  Branwen had underestimated the hate that festered inside the Iverman. Enough that the Dark One had used him to track her across the Ivernic Sea. She’d ended Keane’s life and now his afterlife, too—and that she didn’t regret. What constricted her chest was the fear that there were Kernyvmen at King Marc’s court as hateful as Keane had been.

  With a groan, she sat up. Essy must have already been on deck, gazing upon the shores of Kernyv. If the princess were in danger, she trusted the Old Ones would alert her. Branwen was also eager to see the land that held her future. The future she and Essy had been sent so far to shape.

  Her right hand smarted as she exchanged her nightdress for a simple shift. The Old Ones had gifted Branwen with the power to defeat the Shades and save the princess because the princess’s body was the body of Iveriu itself, of the Goddess Ériu herself. They were all interconnected. How she wished there was some way to show Essy what she’d learned during her visit to Whitethorn Mound.

  Yet worry still coiled tight inside her. Several white strands of hair remained on the pillow. Using the Hand of Bríga had drained Branwen’s life force as well. And then, there was Tristan: He had witnessed the devastation she could wreak.

  Would he still want to be handfasted?

  Buzzing with nerves, Branwen swathed her shoulders with a fur-lined shawl and fastened it with her mother’s brooch. As she tramped up the steps, her movements were stiff. The cuts on her stomach where the one-eyed Shade’s beak had pecked at her chafed against the fabric of her dress.

  A fall of rain had slicked the deck of the Dragon Rising, mulling against the blood and ash. The water between Branwen’s toes was strangely refreshing. She’d forgotten shoes in her excitement to see Kernyv. Eyes racing along the dramatic cliffs that greeted them, her lips parted in a small, private smile.

  The green of the Kernyvak landscape was a more unruly hue than Iveriu but breathtaking all the same. Rugged and imperious, yet welcoming. Long ago, Tristan had told Branwen their lands weren’t so very different. She hadn’t believed him then.

  “Didn’t think I’d live to see these shores again.”

  Branwen jumped at the sound of Captain Morgawr’s voice.

  “It’s stunning,” she said.

  Morgawr grunted. She cast him a sideways glance. He stood tall, battered but proud. She could only imagine what the captain was thinking as he stared at his homeland. He would have to explain to King Marc how his men had been massacred. How he’d nearly lost the Princess of Iveriu. She didn’t envy him the task.

  “I owe you a debt of gratitude,” he said, and Branwen grew uneasy. “The Horned One blessed us with your presence, my lady. Without you, we’d be lost.”

  She tucked her right hand beneath her shawl. “You don’t owe me anything, Captain. And I don’t believe in the Horned One.”

  Morgawr peered at her, bushy eyebrows high. “Not my business to tell,” he said. She nodded, exhaling shortly. “All the same, the Horned One believes in you, and I give you my thanks.” He kissed the antler pendant.

  “See there,” said the captain after a few quiet moments. He was pointing at a turret in the distance. “That’s Monwiku Castle.”

  Branwen shielded her eyes to get a better look.

  “It’s on an island?”

  “You can walk across the causeway at low tide.” He laughed at the surprise that crinkled her face. “We’ll dock in a deeper harbor. There.” Morgawr indicated an inlet closer to the ship along the coast. “Port of Marghas. That’s where King Marc’s envoy will collect you.”

  Branwen had never heard of a castle built upon an island. Kernyv would hold many more wonders, she didn’t doubt. This was Tristan’s home and she wanted to know all of it. All of him. A spark zipped down her spine.

  “Excuse me, Captain,” Branwen said, breaking into a sprint.

  “Careful, my lady! Deck’s wet!” he called after her. “We’ll make landfall in a couple hours!” She barely heard him.

  They had all nearly died last night. Branwen didn’t want to wait for her life to begin in Kernyv. Her bare feet pounded on the steps at the opposite end of the ship. Branwen wanted to show Tristan they were already married in her heart. Now. Share her body and soul, tell him her truth, make him hers in every way.

  There was no more time to waste.

  Branwen heard laughter—deep,
masculine laughter—coming from inside Tristan’s compartment. The door was slightly ajar and a shaft of buttery light spilled out. More laughter. This time, it was much higher pitched. The sound of rustling.

  “A splash of water is more adventurous than you, Tristan,” said a teasing voice.

  Branwen’s heart ceased to beat as she shoved the door the rest of the way open.

  The bedsheets were twisted and tossed like a windstorm had hit the room. Essy lolled on top of them. Naked. Her long, gilded tresses were not enough to make her modest.

  Had the kretarv returned? Either way, Branwen was held in a moment of suspended horror.

  Beside the princess, Tristan lay kissing the inside of her thigh. The muscles of his bronze back and his warrior’s scars rippled as he held her cousin tight. Branwen recalled how beautiful he had seemed to her that day on the beach when the Kernyveu attacked; he was even more beautiful to her today.

  Was this Branwen’s fault? She had encouraged their friendship. She had pushed Tristan away, time and again. Had she pushed him straight into her cousin’s arms?

  Or was it the fear of what she’d done to the Shades? Still, she would have thought Tristan would put honor and duty to his king before his heart. His heart. Hadn’t he said that belonged to Branwen?

  Her eyes traveled from the lovers back to the sheets. There was a deep crimson stain in the center.

  A scream worked its way up Branwen’s throat. All the love she contained turned to hate. It was a living thing. Hate that frothed and boiled.

  “Branny!” the princess gasped.

  Tristan whipped his face toward Branwen. His expression was glazed. He gawped at her blankly, as if he’d glimpsed a Death-Teller, before recognition returned to his eyes.

  “Branwen.” Her name on his lips was a moan. The sorrow of the seas infused it.

  She didn’t care. She lunged.

  Branwen yanked Tristan from the bed with all her might. She was half afraid of burning him alive; the other half yearned to do it. He tumbled to the floor and the princess leapt from the other side of the bed.

  Shrouding herself in the sheet, Essy slammed back against the wall of the stuffy cabin. It smelled of sweat and love. Branwen took a step closer and the princess cowered. Her cousin had never looked frightened of her before. She should be.