“I did this to her. She’s suffered so much because of me.” He pounded the wall again. “One night of madness. She must hate me.”
“She doesn’t. Essy doesn’t hate you at all. It would be better if she did,” Branwen whispered, and the words burned her throat. “She thinks what you shared … she doesn’t regret it.”
Tristan scrubbed a hand over his face; the knuckles were raw.
“Then why didn’t she tell me?” His voice cracked. “She must have been so scared. I should have—I don’t know, I should have done something.”
“She was, and she was afraid you might do something rash.”
He glanced at Branwen pointedly. “You were afraid,” he said. “You must have had a plan. You always do.”
“We were both afraid, Tristan.” Branwen had had no plan. If Essy had insisted on keeping the baby, she would have helped her. Her mind had already been scrambling for a way to smuggle the infant out of the birthing room, convince King Marc the child had died, but any solutions were far from guaranteed.
“Neither of us wants to see you dead,” Branwen said, the last syllable wobbling. “The peace destroyed.” She balled her own hands into fists. “Tell me we were wrong.”
Tristan slammed his right hand against the wall hard enough to break it. Blood smeared the wall.
“Stop it!” she barked, grabbing his wrist. “You can’t defend the queen if you can’t wield a sword, and I only have so much magic!”
His expression grew desolate. His shoulders quaked.
“Your goddess never should have chosen me, Branwen. You should have let me die on that raft.”
She and Tristan had done so much damage to each other, but here he was, standing in front of her and ripping himself apart. She had stolen his honor, her hands would forever be marked; she had stolen it and she couldn’t give it back.
All at once, Branwen threw her arms around him, holding Tristan up, holding Tristan tight, as the air rushed out of him. He gripped her back, fingernails curling into the fabric of her cloak. He clung to her, heartache seeping between them.
Their love had never been uncomplicated, and it was no longer innocent, but Branwen stayed exactly where she was. Torchlight flickered through her tears.
“For months, I’ve wanted nothing but to regain my honor. To make things right with you, with the queen, with Marc. To prove that I’m more than one betrayal,” Tristan rasped. “Seeing Eseult in so much pain—I know I’m not.”
His body shuddered against Branwen’s. “You are, Tristan. You can be.” Branwen wanted the same thing, hoped it was also true for herself.
“How can you say that? You risked your life for me. You gave me your magic. And look what I’ve done.” His fingers dug into her back.
I did that. It was me. She held him closer, needing his support as much as he needed hers.
“I know it was a mistake,” Tristan said. “The worst thing I could have done. And yet, I feel this brutal sadness. Loss for something I … never had, that I couldn’t want, shouldn’t want. Isn’t that strange?” An ache welled inside Branwen at his words that pervaded her bones, every part of her.
“I don’t think it’s so strange,” she said, voice scratchy. “Loss is still loss.”
Tristan pressed his cheek to hers, and it was damp. She squeezed him tighter.
“I imagined our children, Branwen. The day Marc’s men came looking for me, as they rowed me back to the ship, I thought of the family we might have had.” He trailed a finger down her forearm. “A girl with freckles and as stubborn as her mother.”
She released her hold on him.
“I never intended to hurt you,” he continued. “I didn’t think it was possible to care so deeply for two people at the same time.”
“I can’t hear this from you, Tristan. Not now. Not ever.” It’s too hard.
“Branwen, we’ll see each other every day for the rest of our lives. You said we could be allies. How do I make peace between us?”
It was a spear to the gut. Branwen had been waiting, expecting, wanting the Old Ones to punish her, but she was already living her punishment.
“Tell me,” he repeated.
“I don’t know how to make peace between us, Tristan. I don’t know how to find it for myself!”
Branwen pushed past him and dashed down the stairwell of the Queen’s Tower, taking the steps two at a time.
She found herself in the terraced gardens as fresh tears marred her vision, and she buried her face in the delicate blooms of childhood’s end, which were beginning to wilt. The smoky aroma clung to her tongue.
Her ears pricked at the clack of boots on stone. A lifetime of anticipating raiders had Branwen’s hand reaching for the knife that Ruan had given her. Without thinking, she retrieved it from her boot and turned to greet the intruder.
Ruan looked from Branwen to the blade. Lantern light glistened on the golden lion of its handle.
“You’re crying,” he said, brow furrowed.
“And you’re following me.”
“I saw you run out of the Queen’s Tower like you were being chased, and I was concerned,” Ruan told her. “Do you want me to leave?”
Branwen stared at him. With a shaky breath, she shook her head. She didn’t want to be alone right now. Ruan dared a step closer.
“Is there anything I can do—for you?” he said. “I know how much your cousin means to you. How worried you must be.”
“No, but mormerkti, Ruan.”
He took another step, stopping when there was only the knife’s blade between them.
“Would you mind putting that away?” he said.
“Do I make you nervous?”
“All the time.” Ruan’s laugh was tired. “Although it makes me glad you’re carrying it. I thought you might have tossed my present into the sea.”
“Why would you think that?” Branwen slid her thumb along the grooves of the lion’s head.
“You’ve barely said a word to me since the council meeting.”
Tucking the knife back into her boot, she corrected him. “No, you’ve barely said a word to me.” She raised herself back to standing, and Ruan was standing very close indeed.
“So, you haven’t been avoiding me?” he said, rubbing his thumb against his lip. “Because we disagreed about Prince Kahedrin?”
“Yes, I disagreed with you—I still do. But, no. It’s not personal. It’s politics.”
“I’d say you were a born politician, Branwen. My mother dislikes you because you remind her too much of herself.”
“I’m nothing like Countess Kensa.”
With an arched eyebrow, Ruan said, “You both fight for what you want.”
Her shoulders sagged, conceding the point. Ruan tucked a loose curl behind Branwen’s ear. In a gravelly voice, he said, “You’re my first lover, Branwen. I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never not been able to walk away before.”
“Do you want to walk away?”
“Part of me wants to run.” But Ruan twirled her curl around his finger, tugging Branwen nearer.
“Lovers can fight, Ruan. I think we’ll probably disagree about a great number of things.”
“And that doesn’t scare you?” Laughing, he answered his own question. “Of course, it doesn’t. Nothing scares you.”
“Many things scare me.”
Ruan twisted his lips, dubious. “Fights in my household didn’t end well,” he told Branwen, and he was no longer laughing.
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“When I heard the screams in the forest today, my first thought wasn’t for King Marc. It was for you.” Ruan swallowed. “That should more than scare me.”
“Does it?” Branwen asked, voice quieter than the night.
He lowered his lips to hers. His kiss was soft but firm, demanding. She savored his desire. Pulling back, he said, “I’d like to ask King Marc’s permission to court you, Lady Branwen of Castle Bodwa. Formally.”
A cord pulled ta
ut inside of Branwen at the thought. “You have my permission, Ruan,” she said. “You don’t need the king’s.”
“I could write to King Óengus, if you prefer?”
“I hardly think your mother would approve,” Branwen deflected. It wasn’t Tristan that made her hesitate, and it wasn’t Ruan, either. Not exactly.
“Oh, she isn’t your biggest supporter, but she’s had her eyes on the lands that Tristan gifted you in Liones for years.”
Branwen snapped her head back. “And would you also like my lands, Prince Ruan?”
“If I wanted to court a woman for her lands, I might start with one of Queen Verica’s many princess nieces in Meonwara,” he replied crisply.
Nodding in apology, Branwen pressed her right palm flat against Ruan’s heart. In Iveriu, Tristan had said that she was skilled at finding reasons for them not to be together. Perhaps it was more that she didn’t want to be ruled by the laws of men, especially men like Seer Casek, any more than she already was.
“I would like what we have to be just for us, Ruan. No talk of titles or lands,” Branwen said. “I don’t want to be gossiped about at court. I want something that’s just mine.”
Ruan’s face took on a look of wonder. “And you want that something to be me?” Branwen gave another nod. “I understand the feeling,” he said.
With a smile, Branwen slid her hand behind his neck and brought the prince’s mouth to hers, parting his lips with her tongue. Ruan wrapped his arm around her waist and held her fast. When he’d kissed Branwen breathless, she laid her head on his chest.
The surf broke against the sandbar that lay to the west of Monwiku.
Ruan caressed Branwen’s spine in long, whisper-soft strokes. “I should get back to the queen,” she said.
“Stay a minute longer. I’m sure Tristan is at your cousin’s side. He also seems very … devoted.”
Branwen craned her neck to meet Ruan’s eyes. “He’s her Champion. He’s as afraid as you were when King Marc was attacked.”
“Of course,” came Ruan’s reply, but it lacked conviction.
“If you question my cousin’s honor, then you question mine.”
“I—” He paused; wet his lips.
“Perhaps your jealousy of Tristan is making you see things that aren’t there.”
Branwen stepped out of his embrace and Ruan clutched at her hand, tugging her back. “I’ve always wondered why a lion was the symbol of Iveriu when there are no lions on your island,” he said. “Now I see I was wrong. You’re a lioness, to be sure.”
He cracked a half smile. “I like that you’re honest with me, Branwen. Maybe I am still jealous.” Ruan pulled her closer. “Truce?” he said.
Overhead, the lanterns squeaked in the breeze. Tristan thought her a dragon; Ruan thought her a lion. Perhaps Branwen’s heart was a hybrid beast.
A truce might be the only peace she would ever know.
She let another kiss be her answer.
ÉRIU’S COMFORT
IN HER DREAMS, THERE WAS music. An ancient lullaby. Branwen stood at the foot of Whitethorn Mound. The full moon shone off the crescent-shaped blade in her hand.
She raised the moon-catcher in supplication to the Old Ones, begging them for something, but she couldn’t remember what. All she felt was yearning, yearning that was strangling her from the inside like a honeysuckle vine.
Branwen sliced her palm with the blade her aunt had gifted her. She offered her blood to Bríga. She offered her blood to Ériu.
How much more did she need to bleed?
Her eyes dropped to the whitethorn blossoms that had fallen at her feet. A trickle of night. Beads of blood glistening like jealous stars leaked onto the petals.
Gasping for air, Branwen raised her gaze back to her palm. Wildness stirred in her heart as she watched the river of her own black blood gush forth, flow ever more freely.
It scorched the blossoms until there was nothing left.
* * *
She woke in her own bed, drenched with sweat, panting. The Otherworld melody echoed in Branwen’s ears. The longing held in each note clung to her skin.
Stumbling to her feet, thirsty beyond measure, she followed the music. Was she still in the dream? She mopped her damp brow with the sleeve of her nightdress and pushed open the door into the queen’s adjoining chamber.
Her eyes caught on silver strings and nimble fingers.
“Tristan?” she said.
The music stopped. Branwen dabbed at the perspiration on the bridge of her nose. Scanning the room, she half expected it to fade away and to find herself back on Whitethorn Mound. She hadn’t had a dream so lucid since arriving in Kernyv. Perhaps it was more than a dream. Sleep was a place of in-between, too.
“Dymatis,” Tristan replied as Branwen stretched her arms above her head with a groan. Tristan was perched on a stool at the bedside of the True Queen, cradling the golden body of the krotto between his arms. Endelyn listened to his song from the armchair by the window. She wrinkled her nose at Branwen’s disheveled state.
“What time is it?” Branwen said, finger-combing her knotted curls and avoiding Endelyn’s stare. The sun was high. “You should have woken me.”
Eseult shook her head. “You’ve been working too hard, like always,” she said from where she lay, tucked snugly beneath the coverlet. Her lips formed a quarter smile, but there was a leaden quality to her cousin’s voice that dragged on Branwen’s spirit as well.
Several days had passed since the queen’s accident. There was no physical reason why she couldn’t leave her bed. Eseult reached a hand toward Branwen. How Branwen wished she possessed a salve or tonic that would relieve the weight pressing on her cousin’s chest. The Loving Cup had caused nothing but pain and Branwen hated herself more with each passing hour.
“I hope the music didn’t wake you,” said the queen. Branwen drew closer and gave Eseult’s hand a squeeze. “No,” she assured her.
“I’m glad. Tristan is going to teach me to play the krotto.”
Branwen and Tristan traded a glance. His demeanor had also been subdued since the accident. She wanted to be his friend, support him in this, but her own regrets overwhelmed her.
Tristan’s hold tightened on the harp. “With your permission,” he said, and Branwen’s gaze slid back to her right hand, intertwined with the queen’s, relieved there was no black blood streaming onto the coverlet.
She couldn’t shake the floating feeling, the sensation that she wasn’t entirely present in this world.
“You don’t mind me using Lady Alana’s krotto, do you, Branny?” asked her cousin.
It hurt Branwen to see them together, sharing songs as she and Tristan once had, but she was grateful for anything that lifted her cousin’s spirits.
“No, no.” She squeezed her hand again. Branwen had found refuge in Ruan, and she couldn’t deny Tristan or Eseult a respite from their grief.
Forcing a smile, she said, “I think my mother would have liked for you to play it, Essy. You always loved to hear her sing.”
“I think I remember.” The queen fingered a limp strand of hair.
Branwen thought her cousin must have been too young to carry the memories, but Branwen remembered Essy sitting on her lap beside the hearth, Lady Alana’s melodic voice washing over them, only days before she died.
Eseult patted the quilt next to her. “Join us.”
Branwen hesitated. She wanted nothing more than to mend her cousin’s spirit after this loss, she did. Still, sitting here between Tristan and Eseult, sharing in their heartbreak, in their music, was more than she could bear.
“Let me dress myself first,” she said. Releasing Eseult’s hand, Branwen caught another strain of the Otherworld melody, even though Tristan’s fingers were still.
“What were you playing—just now?” she asked him. “I—I recognized it, but I can’t place it. Can you play it again?”
As his hands began to glide over the strings, Tristan said, “I don’t think yo
u could have heard the song before, Lady Branwen.” His fingers moved deftly, plucking chords that brimmed with remorse. “It’s a ballad I’m composing. I haven’t finished yet.”
“Does it have a title?”
“‘The Dreaming Sea,’” he told her, holding her gaze, and continued to strum the krotto. Branwen’s stomach somersaulted; then she startled as the door to the queen’s chamber flew open.
“I didn’t realize the duties of the Queen’s Champion included serenades, cousin,” said Ruan, shoulders thrown back, as he sauntered into the room. His eyes circled its occupants. “And you have not one, but three ladies hanging on your every word.”
Branwen studied Ruan’s profile. Something was very wrong.
Tristan’s fingers tensed on the strings. “Why have you barged into the True Queen’s chambers, cousin? She needs peace and quiet to heal.”
“I have been sent by the king to summon Lady Branwen for questioning.”
Ruan turned toward Branwen, making eye contact for the first time. His eyes were as shuttered as the day they’d met at the Port of Marghas.
Questioning? Branwen’s pulse skittered, and her magic thrummed.
Tristan set the harp on the floor and leapt to his feet. “What does King Marc need to question Lady Branwen about?” he demanded, taking the words out of her mouth.
“Concerns have been raised regarding the lady’s care for her patients,” Ruan informed Tristan. His words were clipped, officious. Branwen felt as if she’d been punched.
“Do you have concerns, Prince Ruan?” she asked. How dare he? Branwen had let herself cry in front of him, let herself be vulnerable.
Ruan swallowed. “The queen never should have been allowed to go riding while she was with child,” Endelyn sniped, as her brother remained silent. Tristan pivoted to face the Kernyvak princess, his nostrils flaring, and she sunk back in her chair, a flush crawling up her neck.
Branwen continued to stare at her lover as if her gaze were as lethal as her magic.
“My cousin is a healer, Prince Ruan,” said Eseult, straightening against her cushions. “She would never harm anyone. The king’s concerns are misplaced.”
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