“There is something else I came here to do,” she says.
Seymour raises an eyebrow. “That is very forward of you.”
“Notthat.”
Cleves dips a hand into her pocket and pulls out the little cushion Johana gave to her in his dying moments. The phoenix feathers that cap each dress pin glimmer in the candlelight.
“Do you know what these are?” she says.
Seymour shakes her head. Her hand hovers over the pins, not daring to touch them. “I saw them and knew they were precious, but you did not wish to talk about them.”
Cleves tells Seymour about the phoenix, about the tradition of the royal family of Ezzonid, and how her sister Sybil was granted a single, priceless feather.
“I did not know what she had done with it until I saw these,” Cleves explains. “I imagine it was my mother’s idea. She always had a talent for making precious things appear worthless.”
She and Seymour possess hundreds of dress pins, of course. Even the lowliest of nobles do. Even a peasant might own a dozen, for pinning coifs and hoods or securing belts. Those on the hunt for a feather of mighty power would look to brooches, or rings – not a common dress pin, intended to be invisible.
“Now I see where you get your own talent for disguise,” Seymour says.
Cleves touches the tips of the phoenix feathers, feeling the warmth radiating from them. More than a decade separated from the bird, and they still have something of its heat.
“There is an old tale told about phoenix feathers, in my country,” she says. “No one knows if it is true, of course. Probably it is not.”
“Tell me.”
“It is said that they who wear the feather of a phoenix in its entirety, freely given by bird or hand, shall never come to harm.”
She tips the cushion into Seymour’s palm. Seymour catches her breath.
“Cleves, no—”
“Your life is worth more to me than anything else.”
The cushion lays there on Seymour’s open palm, as though she is afraid to claim it.
“I have already lost one woman I loved,” Seymour says. “And my love for her is nothing compared to my love for you. What would I do if …?”
Cleves wipes away her tears. “You will continue to shine, Seymour. You and your brightness. It blinds me.”
Seymour rubs her cheek against Cleves’s hand. “A sun cannot blind another sun.”
Cleves’s heart skips a beat.
“My angry queen. You could rip me to shreds.”
Seymour claims her mouth, and there is no softness in it this time. This time, they are two dragons, marking their territory. Cleves tears at Seymour’s bodice, then slips her hands beneath her shift and finds the spot that makes Seymour’s legs buckle.
Seymour groans. “And you could burn me to ashes, my sunlit queen. Let us warm each other instead.”
There are no more words. There is only their bodies. Parr was right. Boleyn was right. Sometimes, stepping over the cliff’s edge is the only way to live.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Howard
Howard cannot remember the last time she said “no”. She has acted “no” in myriad ways. She has spoken it with her body, with her eyes. But has she ever said it? She thinks not. It is a word of power.
The night before they make their final journey to High Hall, Howard finds herself wandering from room to room, staircase to staircase of the lodge where they are staying. She does not want to sleep. She wants to chase power. She needs to know she is capable before she sees Henry again.
