The cousins were concealed within a secret room between the castle walls. Few people knew of its existence. The hollow was designed to protect the queen in the event of an attack. Capture was often worse than death for a royal hostage.
Branwen wished she could hide here forever.
She ran her forefinger along the scalloped neckline of the gown she’d meticulously embroidered for her cousin. She remembered how she’d pricked a finger as she’d been sewing. How she’d worried her blood would mar the white silk.
“Shh,” Eseult soothed. She stroked Branwen’s shaking shoulders. “Shh.”
“I’m not scared!” Branwen’s whisper was barbed—and it was a bigger lie than the one she’d fed the king. “I’m furious.”
“But, I—last night … I thought you’d forgiven me?”
“And today you betrayed me again.”
“What? How?”
“You told Tristan.” The reply was frost-covered.
“He—he was worried for me. For us.” Eseult touched Branwen’s elbow, and Branwen jerked away. She cursed as the bone hit the wall. “I didn’t think it’d matter,” her cousin insisted. “We’re all in this together.”
“And whose fault is that?” Branwen retorted. Mine. All mine. She pulled loose the first of her plaits.
“I only wanted to reassure him,” Eseult said weakly.
“You wanted to reassure him that I would fix your mess? Or did you want to make sure he knew I planned to lie with his uncle? That I would deceive his king and dishonor myself?” Branwen jabbed a finger at her cousin. “Were you jealous?”
Eseult’s mouth fell open. “No, Branny. Please, don’t say such a thing. How could you even think it? If you don’t want to do this, I’ll go to Marc right now and throw myself on his mercy.”
“You’ve done enough, Queen Eseult. Your husband is waiting for me. Stay here until I return. By the Old Ones, don’t let yourself be seen.”
Eseult threw her arms around Branwen, crushing her in an embrace.
“I love you, Branny. I love you.” She squeezed Branwen harder. “It’s natural to be frightened.”
“I’m not.” I’m terrified. Branwen suppressed a wail, but it still racked her body.
“From Kerwindos’s Cauldron was I born.” Branwen met Eseult’s eyes as she began to recite the Royal Ivernic Guardsmen’s oath. “I serve the Land against all those who seek to harm her. Until I return from whence I came.”
FIRST NIGHT
SHE CLICKED OPEN THE LATCH. The bedchamber was dark as pitch. Branwen’s heart thudded in her throat.
“M-Marc?” she called out, teeth chattering. No answer. “M-my king?”
Wood creaked. “Eseult,” he answered in a hush. Branwen heard a rustle of fabric as he stood and walked toward her. He stopped short of trampling her toes. He must be a very capable warrior; his instincts were well honed in the dark.
“I am not your king tonight,” Marc said. “I come to you just as a man.” She heard him gulp. “And a timid one at that.”
“I-I–” Dread made Branwen’s tongue useless. Her cousin often described the moments when her anxiety overpowered her as a frantic drunkenness. Branwen hadn’t fully comprehended what that might feel like until now.
“I’m grateful for the Ivernic tradition of darkness, Eseult—not that you’re not beautiful.” The king paused. “That’s not what I meant.”
Marc released a sigh. “I wish I could speak to you in your language. Or in mine. My thoughts don’t come as readily in Aquilan. What I meant is … sometimes it’s easier to be honest in the dark.”
“Yes,” Branwen forced out. “It is.”
He pressed something into her hand. It was winter-bitten. “Careful. It’s the blade of our binding. In Kernyvak tradition, the groom gives it to his bride. It’s a symbol of his honor. You’re now the keeper of my honor now, Eseult.”
Branwen was glad for the dark, so that he could not see her face. She had already jeopardized the honor of those she held most dear. She couldn’t be trusted with anybody else’s.
“Mormerkti.” She laid it on the table beside the bed.
“Sekrev.” Marc touched his bandaged hand to her shoulder. “Eseult, I know we’ve barely had a moment alone. Barely spoken since you arrived in Kernyv. That’s my fault,” he said. “I tend to avoid things when I don’t know how to handle them.”
Branwen couldn’t help a laugh. “And you don’t know how to handle me?”
“Not at all.”
“I—I don’t know what to make of you, either,” she admitted, and Branwen was speaking for herself.
Who was King Marc really?
“Eseult,” Marc said, his voice serious. “You’ve become my wife without first becoming my friend. I regret that. I know you know that’s how it is for rulers—but I wish it were otherwise.”
He reached a tentative hand to Branwen’s brow. Gently, he brushed at the wisps that lined her face. Her knees quaked together, and King Marc felt it.
“We—we don’t have to … be together tonight. I won’t compel you. I don’t want to hurt you. We can wait.”
Truth echoed from his words. Fear and relief twined around Branwen’s heart.
“We c-can’t,” Branwen protested, bitterness filling her mouth. “The kordweyd won’t declare me a True Queen until they’ve examined the Mantle of Maidenhood.”
She didn’t want to do this—not now, not ever—but she could only chance giving the king Medhua’s tears once. Branwen couldn’t forsake her people, no matter how terrified she was.
“Forgive me, Eseult. I didn’t want to impose our customs on you—or to embarrass you.” Marc cursed softly in Kernyvak. “We’ve not yet been married a day and already I’ve failed you.” His frustration was palpable, and a thousand pins pricked Branwen from the inside.
“You’re not powerful enough to rule without the support of the seers,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.
King Marc inhaled deeply. “I won’t lie to you. My rule is precarious. Many factions formed among the nobles when my father died. Yes, I need the kordweyd’s support to rule.”
“My father always said that a king’s subjects keep him in power.”
“King Óengus is wise.”
Branwen swallowed, grateful Marc hadn’t recognized her mistake—that she’d spoken in the past tense. Her father would have liked this man, she thought, and the realization cut her to the quick.
Branwen took Marc’s injured hand with hers. “Iveriu needs me declared a True Queen in the morning.”
“Tristan told me that you had a will of steel beneath your slight frame.”
Branwen flinched. “He knows me well,” she said. What else had Tristan told the king?
They both remained standing. “You’re strong,” Marc said. “But you’re young yet.”
“Not too young to be queen.”
Hands shaking, Branwen pulled Marc’s tunic over his head and made herself walk toward the bed. Aside from her patients, Tristan was the only man Branwen had ever seen half-dressed. The king came to sit beside her atop the quilt.
“Eseult,” Marc said, and the sadness in the way he said the name made Branwen’s heart cramp. “Eseult, I’ve never been married before, but it seems to me that secrets don’t make for a solid foundation.”
Her throat constricted. “I have no secrets.”
“No, but I do.”
Branwen clasped her hands together in her lap. She rubbed her thumb against the bandage. The chafing anchored her.
“Before our marriage was agreed, I was in love with another.”
“Oh,” she said. “I understand.”
“I’ve sent him away,” Marc assured her. “I swear that I will put all that I am into making our marriage a success. For our kingdoms, and for ourselves.”
Branwen took a quick breath. “Him?”
“Yes. Eseult, I have lain with both men and women. But I have only ever fallen in love once. I’ve only had one karid. I don’t regret
anything that passed between him and me. But, before we share our bodies, Eseult, I thought it only fair that you know the truth of my heart.”
Tristan was right that Marc would be a good husband to her cousin because he was a kind man—far kinder than Branwen. She hid her face in her hands. The Loving Cup had been doomed from the start, for more reasons than she could have ever foreseen.
Branwen had been selfish. Prideful. She had tried to tame hearts that did not belong to her, and she had lost her own. The king stroked Branwen’s back as she wept.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“What do you have to be sorry for, my wife?”
That I’m not your wife. More than she could ever say. Branwen scrubbed her eyes, letting shame wash over her.
“I am sorry, Marc, because I had never truly considered that the king of my enemies could love. Or that I would be the reason he would lose that love.”
Even as they crossed the sea, Branwen had only ever seen the King of Kernyv as an obstacle to her cousin’s happiness. She hadn’t seen him as a man. She’d hated the faceless ruler who’d sent raiders to her island.
Branwen had never considered that Marc might also have a karid, a beloved of his own, or that his happiness might lie in someone else’s arms. Someone he couldn’t make a life with because Kernyv needed an heir. It hadn’t occurred to her that a man—a king—could be equally caught by the demands of peace.
Marc kissed Branwen’s wet cheek. “Mormerkti. Thank you for understanding, for accepting who I am. Tell me your secrets, Eseult, and I promise to accept who you are.” He pulled Branwen against his chest and they lay back on the bed together.
Branwen couldn’t tell him her secrets, even though an unexpected part of her longed to do just that.
Instead, she asked for more of his. “No one knows about the man you love?”
“Only Tristan,” Marc replied, and Branwen held her tongue as new tears leaked from her eyes. One more secret. One more reason she and Tristan had never been free to love each other first. “Others may suspect—including Seer Casek,” he said, exhaling. “Tristan is my brother. He would never betray me.”
“Others would use it against you?”
“In the days of the Aquilan Empire, love between men was common. Accepted. The seers don’t approve, and some of the Kernyvak nobles agree. The kordweyd value self-denial above all and foreswear romantic love.” Marc swallowed. “The seers only condone physical love for procreation. They see physical love for … its own sake as beneath them. As weakness.”
Marc dragged in another heavy breath. “If they knew, my opponents would use my love as a weapon against me.” Pain stretched his voice thin as his arms grew rigid around Branwen. “I’m sorry about the Mantle of Maidenhood, Eseult. Truly. I couldn’t let the kordweyd have a reason to think our marriage wasn’t genuine. The seers and the Horned One aren’t the same, but I do need them to rule.”
Branwen felt for her mother’s brooch as his words sank in. Missing its presence, she fidgeted with a pearl stitched into the silk.
“I believe in the mercy of the Horned One,” Marc continued. “And I have many things for which I need to make amends.” He went quiet, and the kretarv’s vision filled Branwen’s mind. Surely it was false. It must be. Dhusnos wanted her to question the peace, that was all.
“I would never judge you, Marc,” Branwen told him, iron in her voice. When she fell in love with Tristan, she’d feared her family’s scorn, her people’s wrath. “We love who we love.”
“Do all the Iverni feel this way?” he said.
“The Old Ones are immortal,” she began. “In our legends, they find love in all forms. The Hound of Uladztir, one of our greatest heroes, had a kridyom—a heart-companion—who was a man before he married Emer.” Branwen found it hard to speak the name by which Tristan had first known her. “I think a heart-companion is the same as your word, karid.”
“Yes,” Marc said quietly. “Perhaps our languages are not so different.”
Fiddling with the pearl on the collar of her gown, Branwen said, “You’ve made a great sacrifice to give up your karid. That makes you strong. Not weak. Your people have a good king—a king who puts their needs above his own heart.”
“Our people,” he said.
“Our people.” Branwen dared to cover Marc’s hand with hers.
He shifted onto his side, facing Branwen in the dark. “The gods, both yours and mine, have favored me by making you my queen. I will endeavor to be worthy of you.”
“And I of you,” she whispered. Her lashes grew heavy with tears. Marc brushed his thumb across her cheek.
Branwen loved Iveriu more than she loved herself, but this … Branwen couldn’t betray this man more than she already had. If she did, she would be no better than the Dark One who enslaved unclaimed souls.
Seer Casek had dictated the terms of Eseult’s First Night. He had also dictated to the king. Branwen had been so trapped by fear, by tradition, that she’d allowed the kordweyd to corner her in her own mind. She’d lost herself in the fog.
And she had failed to see the power in her own hand. She saw clearly now. Revelation blazed behind her eyes. Incandescent. It made her almost giddy.
Branwen lifted herself up, pushing at Marc’s shoulder. She rolled her body on top of his so that she was straddling him.
“Eseult—”
“I need you to do something for me,” she said.
All Branwen needed to keep the peace was an illusion.
“Anything,” Marc said into the stillness. “Tell me what you need.”
The illusion was still a risk, but it was a risk worth taking. The seers could have her blood. They couldn’t have her soul.
“I need you to look into my eyes,” Branwen said to the king, remembering how her aunt had influenced Sir Fintan. “Only my eyes. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Marc told her, and Branwen lowered her face to his until their noses were touching. Determination coursed through her.
Why had she let Seer Casek make the rules? She had magic running through her veins like the rivers that nourished the Land. She had looked to the Old Ones for answers, but the answers had been inside her all along.
Holding her right hand aloft, Branwen pictured herself as the echo of fire, just as the Wise Damsel had instructed. For the first time, she didn’t feel frenzied as she summoned her power.
A blue flame created a halo above them.
Marc’s eyes were round and dark, and fixed to hers. Silently, she begged his forgiveness.
“Tonight you lay with your wife, Eseult,” Branwen told him. “You decided to wait to tell her the full truth of your heart until you know each other better. In the morning, you will only remember that as you consummated the marriage, you promised to become friends.”
Branwen cupped his cheek. “You will remember tonight as a sweet, dark dream. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
She pressed her lips to his forehead. “Go to sleep now, my king.”
“Good night,” Marc said as he closed his eyes.
Branwen would reopen the wound on her hand. Let Seer Casek have his blood. She lifted herself from Marc’s chest, gently easing from the bed to the floor. His form was prone, trusting, like Tristan on the raft.
She gasped as if she’d been struck in her chest.
By the light of the Hand of Bríga, Branwen’s eyes made out a howling sea-wolf inked on Marc’s forearm.
The flame rising from her palm began to grow.
It was true.
It was all true.
King Marc was the young boy who had attacked her parents, who had watched her mother plunge a kladiwos blade into her own breast.
The tattoo was proof. Branwen didn’t want it to be true—especially not after tonight, but she couldn’t pretend otherwise. She had known it since the Dragon Rising. She had made excuses. Told herself lies. Because the truth could be far more cruel.
She couldn’t think. She heard only the
Dark One’s laughter in her mind.
Her flamed danced higher as she grabbed the blade of binding from the bedside table. She rushed toward the king.
Branwen stood over Marc, her blade pressed to his throat. His breathing took on the rhythm of sleep, and her fire slithered toward the ceiling.
Lady Alana and Lord Caedmon never came home to six-year-old Branwen because of this man—because of this man for whom she had just cried, from whom she’d sought absolution.
Branwen forced back a scream and tilted the tip of the blade against the king’s fragile, exposed flesh. A scream would send guards running through the door.
One liquid-quick movement and she could avenge her family.
Do it, urged the darkest part of her heart. Do it now. The part that was shadow-stung, like Keane had been.
Her flames licked at her curls—she could free herself, lose herself in dark fire.
Branwen’s hand warmed the jewels on the hilt of the knife. It trembled.
Take your revenge. She could burn the kingdom, starting at its heart—with its king. Turn Monwiku to cinders and ash.
Destruction was power. Her power. She could show the seers, show the Kernyveu what one Iverwoman could do.
Lady Alana had killed herself rather than be taken by this man. The chance to kill the king was unlikely to present itself twice. Now, you only have now. The voice was lyrical, lulling, like a lethal undertow.
No. Her father’s voice resounded through the darkness, staying her hand. If Branwen killed her enemy, she could never turn him into her friend. She would destroy everything so many had given their lives for.
As Branwen struggled to control the flame, sweat collected on her brow. She gripped the knife tighter.
The moment had come for Branwen to decide: take Marc’s life now, or defend it as her king until her own dying breath.
Branwen’s years of fury fueled the flame, even as she hesitated. The scar on her right hand glistened like the dead of night.
“Stop,” she whispered aloud. Vengeance wasn’t justice.
Marc stirred, but he didn’t open his eyes.
The Land had chosen her Champion, and Branwen understood why. This was a man with regrets. A man who wanted to leave a different legacy than his father.
Wild Savage Stars Page 17
