She nodded. “Mormerkti.”
“The countess serves only herself. She must see you as an obstacle to something she wants, Lady Branwen.”
“I don’t know what that could be.”
“Unfortunately, neither do I.” The Queen Mother toyed with the dice. “I retreated to Castle Wragh after my husband Merchion’s death. I didn’t want to undermine Marc’s authority as a new king. A young king. Now I regret leaving court. But it’s too late, and regrets will do me no good.”
Queen Verica shifted in her seat. “I have left instructions with Marc that the income from my dower lands in Meonwara should be used to fund the royal infirmary. In perpetuity. This will not please Seer Casek.” Her smile broadened. “But I would not have Matrona forgotten in Kernyv,” she said.
“Like your Goddess Ériu, Matrona brings comfort to women. I want there to be a place where female healers can share their knowledge. It will be a legacy worth leaving my people.”
Branwen was overcome at her words. “Thank you for your generosity, Queen Mother. For your faith in me.” She swallowed. “And in the True Queen.”
Queen Verica nodded, smile wavering, while her gray eyes remained acute.
“When I was a girl,” she began, “I summered at an old Aquilan villa on the coast of Meonwara. There was rock jutting up from the sea, just beneath the cliffs that sailors call the Two Sisters.”
She coughed thickly. “Many ships are wrecked upon it.” She raised a silk handkerchief from her lap. “The locals say that one sister fell from the cliff top and that the other jumped after her because she couldn’t live without her.”
Branwen chewed her lip. “Don’t take it too much to heart if Queen Eseult needs time to herself in the next weeks,” the Queen Mother told her. “I lost several pregnancies between Gwynedd and Marc. There is always a period of mourning for what might have been. She will come back to you when she’s ready.”
Branwen broke Queen Verica’s gaze, shame flooding through her. All she could do was nod.
“May I ask you another favor, Lady Branwen?”
“Of course.”
“You have saved the lives of both my son and my grandson. Watch over them for me. The king will need all the allies he can get. And Tristan—he cares for you deeply. I had expected another betrothal by now.”
“I—” Branwen started, but there was too much she would never be able to explain. “I will do my best,” she promised the Queen Mother.
The old queen glanced at the darkening sky. “Time is running short. Will you find Tristan and Marc, and send them to me?”
Branwen stood at her request. “I’m also leaving you my dice,” said Queen Verica. Hazy light shone on the alabaster. “Even if you prefer Little Soldiers, I think you’re more of a gambler than either my son or my grandson.”
They shared a final smile.
The rain cooled the hot tears on Branwen’s face as she crossed the courtyard and entered the King’s Tower.
She heard voices coming from inside the king’s study as she climbed the stairs. She knocked on the door, which was already ajar.
King Marc whipped around at the sound. His face was whiter than the crest of a wave.
Encircling him, wearing equally bleak expressions were Tristan, Ruan, and a man that Branwen had never seen before. The stranger had a lithe build, his skin golden-brown. His long, dark hair was pulled back with a leather string at the nape of his neck.
He gave Branwen a look that was neither friendly nor unfriendly, then glanced back at Marc.
“What is it?” she asked. Bile surged up her throat. “What’s happened?”
Tristan stepped forward. “Crown Prince Havelin is dead. Kahedrin is the new heir to the Armorican throne.”
Her lips parted, but she couldn’t even gasp. “An assassin?”
“Pirates.”
“Pirates flying the flag of Kernyv,” Marc spat. He curled the hand of his uninjured arm into a tight first.
“But, why—why would they do that?”
It was the stranger who answered. “To start a war, my lady. To start a war.”
DEATH IN THE NIGHT
WIND LASHED THE CLIFF TOP as Queen Verica was laid to rest.
Branwen had washed her body tenderly, with reverence. In the short time they’d known each other, the older woman had grown dear to her. As she’d prepared the queen for her burial, Branwen’s thoughts had lingered on her own mother, wondering how her aunt had felt as she’d cleaned her sister’s body.
To mask the stench of death, Branwen had rubbed rose oil into the creases of the Queen Mother’s skin. The body was then transported to the castle cellars, which were cool enough to slow decay, while messengers were sent to Meonwara and throughout Kernyv with news of Queen Verica’s death. King Marc sat vigil beside his mother’s body every night, and met with his councillors during the day.
For ten days and nights, fear had coiled around Monwiku Castle like a serpent.
Two of Queen Verica’s nieces and one nephew from Meonwara had finally arrived at the castle yesterday. Branwen recognized the sandy-haired man, roughly the same age as Marc, from the Champions Tournament.
This afternoon, the sky was a lonely pewter-blue as Branwen watched Tristan, Ruan, Andred, and the king raise the Queen Mother’s litter aloft and carry it into the burial mound. King Marc winced as his shoulder ailed him, but he would not be dissuaded from this final act of love for his mother.
Countess Kensa, Endelyn, and the True Queen followed the body inside. Only members of the Kernyvak royal family were permitted entry to the sacred site.
Branwen remained on the cliff top with the other mourners. Wild daisies were opening at her feet. Representatives from all of the Kernyvak noble Houses, as well as the prince and princesses from Meonwara waited in silence.
The burial mound was ancient. It rose imperiously above the headland, resembling a small hill. Thousands of black and white stones decorated the circumference of the mound. The pattern mesmerized the eye.
During the procession from the castle, Andred had whispered to Branwen that no one knew who had constructed the resting place of the kings and queens of Kernyv. Lugmarch himself, perhaps. Or giants. One day, Eseult would be laid to rest among these ancient monarchs.
Branwen fidgeted a piece of white quartz between her fingers. The edges were uneven. Andred had pressed the pebble into Branwen’s hand, explaining that mourners in Kernyv offer a white stone to the deceased with the wish of peace in the afterlife.
The custom was much older than the belief in the Horned One. The kordweyd disapproved, but they did nothing to halt the practice. Branwen slid her gaze over the faces of the crowd to Seer Casek. He, too, held a piece of quartz in his hand.
Queen Verica had been resourceful and strong. The court at Monwiku would be more dangerous for Branwen—and the True Queen—without the support of the king’s mother. The late queen had told Branwen to give Eseult time to heal, but with each passing day, she feared her cousin would never return to her.
An unnatural quiet wove itself around the funeral guests. Not only the nobility, but commoners, too, had come to pay their respects. Lowenek stood with the other castle servants, together with Talorc and Seer Ogrin.
Talorc had stayed on at the temple to look after the pigs, which was less grueling work than returning to the mines. Lowenek held his hand and Talorc ruffled her hair, gazing down at her with grandfatherly affection. Both of them had lost their families in the mining disaster, but at least they had found a new one in each other.
Branwen doubted Talorc, or the other freed Ivernic prisoners, could feel much grief at Queen Verica’s death. If she had opposed King Merchion’s raids on Iveriu, she hadn’t put an end to them. But she’d raised a son who had. Branwen lamented that she would never get to know all of the Queen Mother’s complexities and contradictions.
Waves battered the rocks below. Armorican ships might soon be crossing the Southern Channel toward Kernyv—and Iveriu. More priso
ners of war might soon be taken from both kingdoms. Branwen had thought she was fighting the right fight, made both sacrifices and mistakes, and yet everything was on the verge of coming undone.
She clutched the white quartz so tightly with the Hand of Bríga that she hissed. A watchful pair of eyes landed on her.
They belonged to the man who had brought news of Crown Prince Havelin’s death. His face was a bland kind of handsome: inviting, but not too memorable. Before he’d been introduced to her by name, Branwen had realized that this man must be King Marc’s agent abroad. And then she learned his name: Xandru.
Xandru was no simple merchant. The king’s former lover was a spy.
Branwen darted him a quick smile as she loosened her grip on the stone. He returned it. Since his arrival at Monwiku, she and Xandru had been observing each other with cordial smiles the way one surveys a battlefield.
What did it mean that King Marc had recalled his karid to his court? The only person she could ask was Tristan, but he had been avoiding her since the night Queen Verica died.
A seagull circled overhead. The gull’s cry was wretched, at odds with the somber quiet of the mourners.
King Marc was the first to reemerge from the burial mound. His face was blank. He coughed into his hand. Raising his voice against the wind, he spoke first in Kernyvak, and then in Aquilan.
“Thank you for joining me to honor my mother, Queen Verica of Meonwara and Kernyv. Please offer her your wishes. Kernyv forever.”
Murmurs of Kernyv bosta vyken were carried out to sea. Peasant and royalty alike approached the tomb with white pebbles extended on open palms like pearls in oysters.
Xandru walked straight for the king and flanked his left side. Ruan had stationed himself at Marc’s right. Both men scoured the crowd for possible assassins. No one knew how the Armoricans would avenge the death of their crown prince.
Branwen still doubted that the first assassin had been sent by Kahedrin; she no longer had any reason to doubt that the next one might be.
The True Queen stood just behind her husband in the shadowed mouth of the burial mound. Endelyn held her cousin’s arm, and Branwen clenched her jaw against the bite of jealousy. She hoped Eseult didn’t make the mistake of believing the Kernyvak princess was anything more than her mother’s informant. Whether her cousin believed her or not, however, Branwen would continue to protect her.
She made her way through the crowd to the edge of the hill. Up close, Branwen saw that the black and white stones covering the tomb were each perfectly round in shape, symmetrical in size. She crouched down and laid her quartz pebble at the foot of the mound.
May you find Matrona beyond the Veil, Queen Verica. May she comfort you.
Branwen released a sigh. “Damawinn was fond of you,” Tristan said, squatting beside her. He placed his own stone on the mound.
“I was fond of her.”
He peered at Branwen sidelong, anguish burning in his eyes. “You could have warned me. She raised me. She was as much my mother as she was Marc’s.”
“Tristan, I’m sorry. She wanted to keep her illness secret, and that was her decision to make. A healer has a duty to her patients.”
“I know. Damawinn asked me not to be angry with you. But I am.” His voice was hoarse. “I am.”
Branwen recoiled. Tristan leaned into her. “You knew she was sick at the wedding.” He lowered his voice further. “When you threw the secret I kept for Marc back at me. You knew. You could have let me have more than a rushed goodbye.” The accusation was raw.
“You never put anything before your own honor, Branwen. I used to love that about you. I—” Tristan broke off, shaking his head. “You were right,” he said. “You never loved me first. You never wanted to.”
Regret splintered Branwen’s heart. “I’m sorry for everything you’re going through.” She placed a hand on Tristan’s shoulder. “What can I do to make it better?”
He gave a ragged laugh. “You mean the great healer doesn’t know?” Tristan had never spoken to Branwen with spite before.
“No,” she whispered.
“Neither do I.”
Tristan pushed to his feet abruptly, and just walked away.
Branwen stared at the black and white stones until the pattern lost all meaning. She breathed in and out. She had lost Tristan and Eseult all over again.
As she collected herself, she glimpsed a tall woman with dark red and silver hair farther down the cliff top, away from the crowd. Branwen hadn’t expected the Wise Damsel to attend the funeral.
She straightened up and began weaving through the mourners. The other inhabitants of Monwiku Castle started to mount their horses. The carriage that had transported Queen Verica’s body was decorated with bowers of white clover. It would return to the castle empty.
The Wise Damsel stood beside bushes of prickly yellow gorse, which trimmed the cliff top for leagues in both directions.
“Greetings, Ailleann.”
“Greetings, enigena.”
Branwen’s chest pinched at being called daughter today of all days. Glancing back at the burial mound, she said, “What are you doing here?”
The Wise Damsel opened her hand. A smooth, clear piece of sea glass glimmered in the gray light.
“I’m here to offer my wishes. Queen Verica came to Kernyv when she was barely out of girlhood. She became a steadfast queen.”
Queen Verica was at least ten summers older than Ailleann, and yet the Wise Damsel was speaking as if she remembered the Queen Mother as a girl.
Holding up the sea glass, Ailleann said, “There was a time when the people of this land believed that the stars were gods. They saw death in the night, and in the earth where they buried their dead. They covered the graves of their loved ones with white stones because they resembled the stars.”
Her shoulders lifted as she inhaled. “The ancient Kernyveu hoped that the god-stars would care for their friends and lovers in the long night of death. So strong was their belief that white on black became the symbol of their kingdom.”
Branwen liked the idea of the old queen slumbering among the stars.
Just then, a high-pitched whinny attracted Branwen’s attention. It was Lí Ban. Eseult kicked her palfrey into a canter as she departed.
Turning toward the Wise Damsel, “There’s someone who needs me,” Branwen confessed. “Someone I’ve caused a great deal of pain. I don’t know how to help her—I would do anything to take it away.”
“Not physical pain.”
“No. I broke her heart.”
“You broke your own.”
“Yes,” Branwen said, more a gasp than a word. “We were two halves of the same whole. I shattered them both.” Not you without me, not me without you. She would do anything to renew that vow.
“Time is the only salve for wounds such as these, enigena.”
“I don’t have time.” Branwen held out her scarred palm. War was on their doorstep; she heard Tristan’s ballad of the Dreaming Sea every night. “My magic senses danger, Ailleann. The darkness is growing closer.”
The other woman didn’t respond to the frustration in her tone.
“Have you seen another Death-Teller, as you call them?” she asked.
“No, but I saw something else.” The vision of Essy disintegrating in Branwen’s embrace tortured her. “I need to take away her pain—her loss,” Branwen rasped. The cousin she loved was disappearing before her eyes, becoming someone else. Someone cold, hard. Worse than a stranger.
“I must fix my mistake before it’s too late.”
“Branwen of Iveriu, you have worked this kind of magic before.” Ailleann pierced her with a stare. “You know the risks. If you want to make the heart forget the source of its pain, you must be prepared to sacrifice something else in exchange.”
Branwen brushed her fingers over her mother’s brooch. “What kind of sacrifice?”
“A memory. A binding one. You will not know which until it’s gone. Or you may never know. B
ut it will be a memory stitched into the fabric of your very self.” The Wise Damsel closed her hand around the sea glass.
“I would not make such a trade,” she said.
The True Queen’s palfrey followed a bend in the coastal path and slipped from view. Could there be a higher price than what Tristan and Eseult had already paid?
“But if I did—if I did want to make such a trade,” Branwen said, “how would I do it?”
“Whatever you’re trying to erase, you must burn its most potent symbol.” Raising the sea glass to the sky, Ailleann said, “Who’s to say the ancients weren’t correct? The stars may yet be gods. Or Old Ones. Burn the cause of the pain where you can see nothing but stars. Stars and love. Feed its ashes to the broken heart to erase the pain of memory.”
Branwen had hoped the effects of the Loving Cup would wane, or that the lovers could fight it, but it had only brought them misery. Perhaps magic was the only way to fight magic.
“Thank you,” said Branwen.
“I don’t believe in trying to stop another Wise Damsel from the path that she is determined to follow. But first ask yourself if there is a better path, enigena. Before you go too far.”
“Lady Branwen?”
Branwen spun toward the sound of Andred’s voice. He waved at her, holding Senara’s reins. The boy had a puzzled expression on his face.
“Coming!” she called. When she turned back to the Wise Damsel, she was gone.
Branwen stood alone among the gorse.
A THOUSAND SEAS
KERNYVAK FEASTS FOR THE DEAD were held at night. While the other noble funeral guests were being served refreshments in the Great Hall, King Marc had assembled his council to make an important announcement.
Ruan glanced at Branwen as she entered with his younger brother. He wore a suit of black velvet; his white sash now made Branwen think of a falling star.
The barons also wore suits of black while Seer Casek had donned his habitual dark robes. Countess Kensa had accented her black gown with a sea-wolf brooch made from diamonds. Queen Eseult had pearls threaded through her plaits. Endelyn must have arranged them. Branwen missed the feel of her cousin’s tresses sliding through her fingers, the way she hummed ballads as Branwen worked.
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